The “Dirty Dancing” sequel with Jennifer Gray may seem like another shiny legacy sequel to a Hollywood classic, but producer Nina Jacobson is working to develop a follow-up that honors the grit and raw emotion of the 1987 original.
“I remember when I first saw it, it seemed like very glossy entertainment. Now it feels like an indie. They take a lot of risks and they touch on a lot of subjects that people don’t touch in movies anymore,” Jacobson said during a panel at IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking 2026 Summit, presented by AT&T. “If you tried to forget the abortion subplot in a romantic movie right now, I think you’d get a lot of notes on that.”
Jacobson took part in a conversation with IndieWire editor-in-chief Brent Lang at an event in Los Angeles on Saturday. His film production company Color Force, where he is a producer and partner, is also behind FX’s “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Bessette” and Lionsgate’s upcoming “Hunger Games” prequel “Sunrise at the Reaping.” Earlier this year, Color Force also came on board as producers for Lionsgate’s “Dirty Dancing” follow-up (though not “Dirty Dancing 2,” lest anyone forget “Havana Nights”), which will see Gray return as Francis “Baby” Houseman for a new ’90s romance featuring another young cast.
“Gray has incredible insight into why she thinks [‘Dirty Dancing’] Jacobson said, “It’s so much about his character or what it is that spoke so much to people and still does. We were talking about this with adaptations: A movie can’t be exactly like the book, or a show can’t be exactly like the book you’re adapting. But it has to make you feel the same way the book felt, and it has to feel the same way the book felt. [We are] Trying to chase the spirit of that original film. …To be able to tell a young love story that may take some risks but also inspire those emotions feels like an incredible opportunity for us.
Along with Grey’s lead character, “Dirty Dancing” is also defined by Patrick Swayze’s co-lead character, in which focused dancer Johnny Castle teaches Baby how to have the time of his life. Swayze died of pancreatic cancer in 2009 and Jacobson intends to honor the late star’s legacy with the sequel.
“That’s one of the things you really have to focus on: how to allow people to mourn that in a movie,” Jacobson said. Then she offered a reassurance: “And don’t worry, we won’t bring him back with AI.”
Along with “Dirty Dancing,” Jacobson also shared details about the newly announced “Crazy Rich Asians” HBO series, which will be adapted from Kevin Kwan’s book series to carry on the story seen in the hit 2018 romantic comedy adaptation. While there has long been speculation about a second film, the producer explained why the approach was taken to return the property to an ongoing TV series.
He said, “We have struggled with trying to adapt it as a feature. It’s actually very hard to make a romantic comedy sequel because you have to resolve the central emotional conflict.” “And, honestly, part of it was that none of the people on the features side were there when we made the original. … They didn’t necessarily have that hunger, whereas there was a huge appetite at HBO for the books. There’s a lot in the books that you have to subtract because the books have this huge cast of characters and all these crazy dramatic twists and turns. It’s a great fit for television.”
Jacobson continued, “It was unimaginable if we tried to do this immediately after the movie was released: The idea that you could get all those people together to do a TV show was frowned upon later.” “But now everybody misses everybody. Television is really one of the best ways for us to reunite because it’s very hard to address all the things people loved about the movie in the sequel.”
In addition to the conversation with Jacobson, IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking Summit also included a keynote address by directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller on the making of their sci-fi blockbuster “Project Hail Mary” and a one-on-one conversation with Bill Hader on what they learned from their upcoming feature debut “They Know.”
The IndieWire Future of Filmmaking 2026 Summit is presented by AT&T Untold Stories, an impressive multi-year collaboration between AT&T and the Tribeca Festival that awards $1.2 million, mentorship and extensive support to the next generation of filmmakers looking to bring their films to the big screen. For more information, go here.