Bird Regrets Opening a Box

The Grease franchise didn't really stop at Grease 2! According to the IMdB, "High School Musical" (2006) has its origins in a 1999 script entitled Grease 3. Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake were to star as the children of Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson from the 1978 film. The plot was virtually the same as that 'High School Musical', but with more similarities to 'Grease'. The character who would become Sharpay was to be the daughter of Betty Rizzo (producers tried to get Christina Aguilera for the part, but she declined). Timberlake's band-mates from *NSYNC were to have supporting roles. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John allegedly were approached for cameo roles. But before the script went through a second re-write, the project was shelved until 2004.

Grease! is the word. I remember when it came out - I was blown away. Only bad thing was they should have left more of Eddie in it!

ONJ was great but, Wow! They couldn't find anybody under 30 to play a high schooler?

Grease was and still is my favorite musical of all time! I was lucky enough to have gotten the very FIRST FOUR TICKETS (# 001 - 002 - 003 and 004) to the movie's ORIGINAL premiere at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood! In fact, I STILL have the four tickets in my possession! It was a huge event with all the stars in attendance. Olivia and John were dressed like the Grease era. TV cameras abound all the way down the red carpet and the crowd was huge - one could barely move with being escorted!

There was even a Grease Party with so many people attending... Chevy Chase, Andy Gibb (Bee Gees brother), Leif Garrett, Penny Marshall, Robert Stigwood, Frankie Valli (who sung the Grease theme), and of course Olivia, Travolta, Did Conn, Jeff Conway... gosh it was something! I took my small 35mm camera with me and snuck a few pictures here and there, but it was so crowded that it was hard taking any pictures at all!

The movie premiere was also the opening event for the organization "FILMEX". Filmex was (it is no longer around) The Los Angeles Film Exposition, kind of like the what the Cannes Film Festival is today. I remember that they even had to add a second premiere showing to accommodate the festivals members

I also remember the following week, when Grease was released to theatres, the lines were huge! I went to see the movie dozens of time at the Village Theatre in Westwood, CA. This was THE place to see movies when they came out. Located right next door to UCLA, and very close to Bel Air and Beverly Hills, you would always see premiers being held around town and quite often see celebrities eating dinner or seeing a show. I specifically remember one time, coming out of seeing Grease for the ump-teen-th time, and passing Barry Pearl, Kelly Ward and Michael Tucci (The three T-Birds) in the lobby as they were going in to see the movie themselves that they were in.

Eddie makes mention that he had such a small role in the movie, but ANY role in Grease is a HUGE role to me and everyone who has seen it!!! (By the way, in the DVD release that has extras, there a scene of Eddie that was cut - so you can see more of him!). I would have given my right arm to have been able to be in Eddie's shoes and have been a part of the movie's history!

Oh... P.S. Another little known fact... Susan Buckner who played Rydel's homecoming queen, was originally considered for the part of Sandy also, but it went to Olivia Newton-John and Susan took the role of Patty Simcox.

I have often said that I think enough time has passed since the disappointing release of Grease 2 and that they should consider making a follow-up.... except this time, Eddie's character Eugene, should now be Rydell High's principal !

The director was Randal Kleiser. His brother, visual effects supervisor Jeff Kleiser, is one of the founding figures of the computer animation industry.