It’s true that John Travolta in Grease what really the one that we wanted; so why make Grease 2? Or, as it was originally supposed to be titled, Son of Grease?
The film was a commercial flop. It doesn’t even really have a cult following. It’s just simply not a good film. And no one felt the sting of a truly bad film more than the star of that bad film, Maxwell Caulfield.
“It was, psychologically, quite a kick in the pants,” Caulfield told Page Six of his experience watching the film tank. What made matters worse for him, career-wise was Michelle Pfeiffer’s rise to stardom. She went on to do Scarface, which put her on the map.
“But you know, listen, every actor has his and her own path,” Caulfield continued. “She has gone on to multiple Oscar nominations and the rest of it … She delivers and she defines Hollywood beauty…You can’t begrudge them their success.”
He still says he was bitter when it happened, though. To be set up to be a star in a wildly popular franchise, and then to watch that future franchise flop miserably; it must have been a huge blow to the self-esteem.
Caulfield dropped off the Hollywood radar for a bit, before reviving his career with a role on the Dynasty spin-off The Colbys. The show only ran for one season, though.
He went on to gain cult fame after portraying Rex Manning in 1995’s Empire Records. In fact, people loved him in that role so much, that every April 8 is unofficially Rex Manning Day, based on the infamous day at the music store. Fans flood Caulfield’s Twitter page, so many that he has to put out a mass statement to address them all and thank them for the love.
“I want to like everything everybody says,” he told Page Six, “So what I tend to do is I put something out that’s meant to appease the masses.”
‘Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies’ Show Coming to Paramount+
As of July 2021, Paramount+ has green-lit a new 10-episode series showcasing the lives of the Pink Ladies before the titular Grease.
According to Paramount, the show follows “four fed-up, outcast girls” navigating teenage life and greaser gangs. Could these be our girls Rizzo, Jan, Marty, and Frenchy?
Don’t get your hopes up like I did, as reports say the show is going to follow all-new characters for this chapter, set 4 years before the events of Grease. In this timeline, that means Rizzo, Jan, Marty, and Frenchy are still in junior high.
Annabel Oakes is the showrunner, executive producer, and writer on the prequel. There is no release date yet, but keep on the lookout if you’re a Grease fan.
