Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, a prequel set four years before the events of the original Grease, has received a series order at Paramount+.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount+ has ordered 10 episodes of Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies. This marks the streaming platform's first series pickup under new head of original programming Nicole Clemens. Clemens is also in charge of Paramount Television Studios, which is producing Rise of the Pink Ladies.
Paramount's parent company, ViacomCBS, was originally developing Rise of the Pink Ladies for WarnerMedia's HBO Max streaming service. After HBO Max passed on the project, however, ViacomCBS' own Paramount+ took over from there.
Rise of the Pink Ladies takes place four years prior to Grease, "before rock 'n' roll ruled" and "before the T-Birds were the coolest in the school." The planned 10-episode series follows four "fed-up, outcast girls" who "dare to have fun on their own terms, sparking a moral panic that will change Rydell High forever."
Based on the 1971 musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, Paramount Pictures' Grease -- starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John -- released in theaters on June 16, 1978. Among the 1950s-set film's key characters were the Pink Ladies, a greaser girl gang consisting of Frenchy (Didi Conn), Jan (Jamie Donnelly), Marty Maraschino (Dinah Manoff) and leader Betty Rizzo (Stockard Channing). A new generation of Pink Ladies and their male counterparts, the T-Birds, appeared in 1982's Grease 2.
In addition to the Rise of the Pink Ladies prequel series, Paramount is also developing a Grease prequel film titled Summer Lovin'.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter