Disney+ came out swinging with its massive library of content. Catalogs of old Disney Channel shows and movies are now available on the site, but so are some new, original shows. One of those is a very unique take on “rebooting” a show or movie. High School Musical: The Musical: The Series is one of the top original shows and it takes place in the same high school the original High School Musical was shot at.
While it doesn’t follow the plotline of the originals in the show, it is heavily influenced by them. So it’s good to hear that some of the original cast members gave their blessings for this new series.
The new Disney+ show has original songs and an original concept
As stated above, HSMTMTS — as it’s been dubbed by fans — follows a brand new crop of kids who audition for the school’s musical. It’s the exact school where the original movies filmed, which inspires the new drama teacher to choose HSM as their musical that year.
It follows a mockumentary style of filming, where the kids each give testimonials in between scenes or dialogue. Three episodes out of 10 have already been released, but there’s plenty of drama that deviates from the plot of the original.
Original cast members and the director of ‘High School Musical’ gave their blessings
It can be rocky on a reboot if the original cast and crew don’t appreciate or approve of the new iteration. But luckily for HSMTMTS, that’s not the case. “A few people have reached out. Corbin Bleu, who plays Chad, and Olivia Coleman, who plays Taylor,” Joshua Bassett, said on Access Daily. Bassett plays Ricki who scores the role of Troy Bolton in the show. “Kenny Ortega reached out. He obviously directed and choreographed the first three films. So getting [sic] their blessing was really nice.”
Also, fans will get lucky and see a familiar face pop up in the show at some point, according to Tim Federle, an executive producer for the show. “I can confirm [it] happens, I just can’t say who or when!” Federle told EW.
‘The Office’ helped inspire the show to be different from the originals
Interestingly, another mockumentary show, The Office inspired the style for this one. “The Office approach allows us to include winks at the original but do it with new songs,” Federle said in the EW interview. “It’s not a remake, it’s not even a reboot—it’s a remix of the original.”
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This was a clever way to make a show so meta that’s it’s never been done before, but also to separate it from the source material. “I knew that camera-style-wise if I could borrow some of the elements from The Office, with characters talking to the camera and whip pans and zooms, it would immediately announce it as not a copycat of the original, but a new way in,” Federle told EW. “And the docu-style would allow me to revisit the original music but not feel like we’re doing direct karaoke covers.”
One thing is sure: even diehard fans of High School Musical will find new things to love about High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.
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