Lionsgate pulls Dirty Dancing remake out of the corner; Kenny Ortega to direct

Chances are that your mother was a big fan of Dirty Dancing. The film was a phenomenon back in 1987, with bored women everywhere fantasizing about Patrick Swayze grabbing them hard by the hips and thrusting them up into the air. Jennifer Grey has never, and will never be, as envied as she was back then. And that was when she still had her original nose. An ill-advised prequel, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, was shat out 17 years later in a last ditch bid to cash in on the famous name, but it was a tremendous Cuba-set flop. Dirty Dancing has sat on the shelf since then, until Lionsgate started making plans for a remake back in 2009.

Well now those plans are starting to bear fruit, with Deadline reporting that High School Musical and Michael Jackson: This Is It director, Kenny Ortega, on board to direct. Ortega was actually the guy who came up with the "dirty" dance moves used in the original film, as well as directing a few episodes of the short-lived Dirty Dancing TV series. He had been recently up for helming another 80s musical fave, the remake of Footloose, but that job was eventually taken over by Craig Brewer(Black Snake Moan). It remains to be seen if Julia Dahl's 2009 script for the sequel is still in effect, but I'm guessing there'll be some changes with Ortega now on board.

No, I'm not excited for this at all, but I'll be curious to see the approach Ortega takes. The style of dance that was so scandalous back in the 80s is pretty tame now, and the coming-of-age element of the story is pretty standard. There's a part of me that things this will end up looking more like Save the Last Dance than Dirty Dancing, but we'll see. This is said to be a high priority film over at Lionsgate, so expect to see casting news on this one sooner rather than later.