Mark your calendars, High School Musical fans: The sequel to the worldwide phenomenon will premiere Aug. 17 on Disney Channel.
High School Musical 2 stopped shooting a week ago.
But Gary Marsh, entertainment president for Disney Channel Worldwide, provided a preview to the Orlando Sentinel. He was in town for the Disney Channel Games, which are being played at Wide World of Sports.
Still bummed that she was upstaged in the first movie, Sharpay (Ashley Tisdale, pictured below) plots her revenge.
She arranges for Troy (Zac Efron, pictured) to land a summer job at her family's country club and tries to isolate him from his friends. He, however, brings his pals along to work at the club.
Undeterred, Sharpay tempts Troy with opportunities.
He loses his way and alienates his buddies.
The first one was about following your dreams, Marsh says. This, thematically, is about: What’s important to me?
Is it the material trappings of life that count? Or is it friends and family? This is Troy’s sense to locate his own personal moral compass and make sure he follows it.
Heroine Gabriella (Vanessa Anne Hudgens) doesn't like the changes she sees in Troy and tells him he has become a different person. She sings I've Gotta Go My Own Way.
The first High School Musical added Get'cha Head in the Game to the pop-culture lexicon.
The second could do the same for I Don't Dance, a song about baseball.
Kenny Ortega has choreographed an entire baseball game with a combination of swing and hiphop, Marsh says. The game is played out through dance.
The sequence features Ryan (Lucas Grabeel) and Chad (Corbin Bleu). (Pictured are Bleu, Tisdale, Grabeel and Monique Coleman at an Epcot party Thursday for the Disney Channel Games.)
Then there's You Are the Music in Me, a romantic ballad between Troy and Gabriella.
It will stop you in your tracks, Marsh says.
Marsh says the goal wasn't to make a better movie than the original, but to deepen the characters and tell a more sophisticated story.
What did I have going for me?
The exact same team. Every single one of the stars came back, Marsh says.
Director Ortega and writer Peter Barsocchini returned as well.
We had a brilliant team on the first one, Marsh says. The best thing I could do was reassemble them for the second one. That’s what I did.
The marketing for the sequel will be marginally bigger than that for the original.
Our audience knows this movie is coming, Marsh says. They couldn’t be more excited to see it.
We just need to put it out in front of them and they’ll come.
A third High School Musical, to be shown in theaters, is planned to premiere next year. Conversations about the actors returning for that project have just begun, Marsh says.
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