“Dirty Dancing” sequel with Jennifer Grey will allow fans to ‘mourn’ Patrick Swayze, producer says

Key Points

• Producer Nina Jacobson is offering new details about her upcoming Dirty Dancing sequel.

• Announced in back in 2022, the sequel will feature original star Jennifer Grey and, according to Jacobson, a special tribute allowing fans to "mourn" Patrick Swayze.

• "And don't worry," Jacobson teased, "We won't be bringing him back with AI."

Four years after it was first announced, new details are finally emerging about the long-awaited sequel to Dirty Dancing.

Producer Nina Jacobson, who is at the helm of the developing, still director-less follow-up, says that the late Patrick Swayze will be front of mind for all involved.

"That's one of the things that you really have to focus on: how to let people mourn him in a movie," Jacobson told IndieWire on Saturday at the outlet's Future of Filmmaking 2026 Summit. Then she winkingly added, "And don't worry, we won't be bringing him back with AI."

While working for Disney from the late '90s through the 2000s, Jacobson was behind some of the era's most popular films, from The Sixth Sense and Remember the Titans to The Chronicles of Narnia and Freaky Friday.

Looking back at the original Dirty Dancing, Jacobson reflected, "I remember when I first saw it, it seemed like very glossy entertainment. Now it feels like kind of an indie. They take a lot of risks and they touch a lot of topics that people don't touch in movies anymore... If you tried to just slip by an abortion subplot in a romantic movie now, I think you'd get a lot of notes on that."

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The 1987 hit starred Swayze as an uncompromising dance instructor named Johnny Castle who woos an aspiring dancer named Frances "Baby" Houseman in the early '60s. Baby was played by Jennifer Grey, who will make her return to the Dirty Dancing universe in the new sequel. The film will be set in the 1990s and center on a new romance featuring a fresh set of young actors.

"Grey has incredible insights into why she thinks [Dirty Dancing] has lasted so much or what it is about her character that spoke so much to people and still does," Jacobson told the outlet. "We were talking about this with adaptations: a movie can't be just like the book, or a show can't be just like the book that you are adapting. But it should make you feel the way the book did, and it should feel the way the book felt. [We are] trying to chase the feeling of that original movie… Being able to tell a young love story that could take some of those risks but also inspire those feelings felt like an incredible chance for us."

The upcoming film is a sequel to Dirty Dancing, but it isn't the only one. The other would be Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, which released in 2004 and starred Diego Luna and Romola Garai. Swayze made a brief cameo appearance in that film, but just five years later, the actor died of pancreatic cancer.

The latest sequel was officially announced in 2022 at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. Grey joins Jacobson and Brad Simpson as a producer, and the rest of the cast has yet to be announced.

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