Sometime in 2016, Disney announced that it was releasing a High School Musical 4 movie. It was supposed to be an East High Vs. West High rivalry but it didn't actually pan out. So, what happened?
Disney Channel head Gary Marsh announced in a press release that the studio wanted to continue to embrace the "heritage" of the popular TV movie. Marsh said that Disney was launching the search for new members of the class of East High, who will lead the fourth installment of the franchise.
In effect, the studio held auditions across the United States to find potential stars for High School Musical 4. Disney even released the character profiles that they were looking for in the next installment. However, things began to quiet down about this planned fourth installment at the House of Mouse.
In the following years, Disney's business model would change and expand to include the acquisition of FOX and the setting up of the new streaming platform to compete with Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. And this change also affected the development of High School Musical 4 from a movie into a television show.
Now, the official title of High School Musical 4 is High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. It's still set in East High, the very same school where Troy Bolton (played by Zac Efron) and Gabriella Sanchez (played by Vanessa Hudgens) met, fell in love and grew up, and will feature the Wildcats, the school's team.
The new High School Musical, however, has a different format as it is supposed to explore a meta world where the kids from East High would be mounting their very own High School Musical production. Meanwhile, cameras would be following them around like a documentary show.
According to the trailer, the new iteration of High School Musical will be broken down into 10 episodes. The studio described this version as a modern take on a 15-year old classic.
Expectedly, Efron, Hudgens and the rest of the original cast aren't going to be in this rebooted High School Musical 4. Instead, the show will star newcomers like Joshua Bassett, Frankie Rodriguez, Matt Cornett, Olivia Rodrigo, Julia Lester, Sofia Wylie and Dara Renee.
Production for this High School Musical started last February with Tim Federle as the head writer and executive producer. High School Musical: The Musical: The Series will begin streaming on the new Disney+ subscription platform beginning Nov. 12, 2019.
