Kenny Ortega To Direct DIRTY DANCING Remake
Cinematographer of the original to direct remake of the 1987 pop culture classic for Lionsgate.
It's easy to write the story that Hollywood are trying to capitalise and profit on the really sad death of Patrick Swayze in 2009 with a newly revamped remake of the 80's pop culture classic Dirty Dancing but honestly, I think if even he were still alive today they would be trying to remake it. Romance/dance/musicals are such big business these days and with a remake of Footloose already on it's way and Flashdance inevitably to come, so Dirty Dancing, the story of a spoilt young woman falls in love with her snake-hipped dance instructor, would have just been the latest in a long line. But what is surprising is who is actually making it. Deadline reports that Kenny Ortega, the original cinematographer on the original 1987 film, clearly thinks he can outdo the Emile Ardolino version (or at least get paid handsomedly for doing so) and has agreed to direct the remake that is a high priority project at Lionsgate. Why he would want to repeat himself is a creative non-starter question and in truth we maybe should have seen it coming as he is a modern day money whore machine having made Michael Jackson's concert movie This Is It, the High School Musical trilogy and well he has already tried to take money from his prior work with the short lived Dirty Dancing t.v. series. He also most recently was attached to direct the Footloose remake, so he's definitely found a comfort zone. Of course a major Dirty Dancing movie has been an awful long time coming as quite unbelievably, Vestron Pictures, who made well over $200 million PROFIT on their $6 million indie film when it hit the zeitgeist, managed to get themselves in such a financial state that they never could get a sequel off the ground before they folded. Dirty Dancing would then be dormant for well over a decade before Lionsgate released Artisan's 2004 sequel Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights that had a disastrous theatrical run and bombed with a different cast as nobody cared for a movie that didn't have Swayze or Jennifer Grey. Lionsgate are hitting the much pressed reboot/remake switch but they will have the same problem of finding that magic chemistry they had; http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9yCShm_wVU0 As for who could star... well Ryan Gosling apparently homages Swayze's famous dance moves in Crazy, Stupid, Love - currently out in U.S. theatres and we could see that working. But surely he's above this kind of thing? 