DIRTY DANCING Stops the Music

UPDATE: Kenny Ortega's Dirty Dancing remake just stumbled. Lionsgate is putting the redo on hold for one year, realizing it has too many films in the works after its merger with Summit Entertainment. It's too bad because in the Men in Black III single "Back in Time," Pitbull revives one of the classic songs used in Dirty Dancing, Mickey & Sylvia's 1950 hit "Love is Strange" (the "Baaa-by" hook).

Source: Variety

April 9, 2012 -- "Glee" co-creator and writer Brad Falchuk will rewrite the screenplay for the remake of Dirty Dancing. Maria Maggenti wrote the first pass of the reboot (rewrites by a different screenwriter is normal in the movie biz). High School Musical director Kenny Ortega is still planning to direct the film which will include songs from the original Patrick Swayze starrer as well as other 1960s classics and new original songs.

Source: Variety

Aug. 9, 2011 -- Kenny Ortega, the director and choreographer behind the High School Musical franchise, will return to his roots by directing the reboot of Dirty Dancing. Ortega was actually the choreographer for the original film starring the late Patrick Swayze and "Dancing with the Stars" winner Jennifer Grey. Dirty Dancing is a coming of age story about teenager "Baby" who is dragged to a Catskills resort with her family for the summer and winds up falling in love, gaining self-confidence and learning to dance with the resort's dance instructor Johnny. The reboot of Dirty Dancing will be interesting because when the suggestive dance moves were introduced in 1987, they were shocking. Now, there's more hip thrusting from high school pom squads.

The Princess Diaries producer Debra Martin Chase will produce the film for Lionsgate. It Ortega directed the Michael Jackson documentary This is It. He was originally slated to direct the remake of Footloose but backed out.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter