Dirty Dancing Star "Excited by the Challenge" of New Sequel

Decades after the release of the iconic film Dirty Dancing, a sequel is in the works and set to arrive in theaters on February 9, 2024. When the sequel arrives, it will see the return of Jennifer Grey reprising her role of Baby from the original film. Grey is also an executive producer on the film and while nearly four decades will have passed since the original film's debut by the time the sequel hits screens, Grey is excited for the challenge of the new film — and says that she hopes to make this sequel even better than the original.

Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, Grey said that she's interested in how the sequel will approach the story 30 years after the original and what happened to her character while also telling a fresh story.

"I'm excited by the challenge of looking at it from the point of view of what happens when it's 30 years later and it's the '90s," Grey said. "What happens with the person that had that experience — what happened to her and what is now relevant about the original story at a different moment, looking at it through a different lens. I think it's, hopefully, really going to satisfy without ever feeling like it's — look, I have no desire to remake the first one or to compete with the first one or to make it better than the first one or as good. It's more about: What's a fresh story to be told?"

There aren't yet a ton of details about the Dirty Dancing sequel, though director Jonathan Levine has previously said that the film won't ignore the legacy of the late Patrick Swayze, who portrayed Johnny in the original film. Levine previously said that "Johnny's absence looms large over the story" and likened the sequel's story as a "coming-of-age for Baby's character in a way" and that's something Grey acknowledged as well, calling the sequel "a new creature".

"There is no going back, there is no having that again," she said. "That was its own creature. There's a new creature, and what is that new creature? And what is the way in which — we still need to have the next iteration of ourselves be born, and who is going to help bear that out? What is the need? Where's the place where you need to be catapulted into a different dimension?"

The Dirty Dancing sequel is set for a February 9, 2024, release. Keep checking back with ComicBook.com for more news on the project.

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