Fans of the original High School Musical film series rejoice! Your favorite Wild Cats will return to the High School Musical stage in season four of the High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.
High School Musical was undoubtedly one of the most popular Disney franchises when it was first released in 2006. The movie followed the journey of Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) and Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens) as they navigated high school, working through those quintessential teenage cliques and feeling pressured to “Stick to the Status Quo” and learning how to be true to themselves through it all.
The High School Musical films
When it was released, the first film recorded 7.7 million viewers in its premiere broadcast, breaking the then-record for the highest premiere for the network. It was a big deal.
On the success of the first film, Disney then greenlit a second and third as well, which saw Troy, Gabriella, and their friends, Sharpay and Ryan Evans (Ashley Tisdale and Lucas Grabeel), Chad Danforth and Taylor McKessie (Corbin Blue and Monique Coleman) finishing up high school and going off to college. The trilogy ended in 2008 with High School Musical 3: Senior Year.
High School Musical: The Musical: The Series
However, the series was so beloved that Disney greenlit a Disney+ show called High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. The series is a mockumentary inspired by the original, created by Tim Federle, and produced by Chorus Boy and Salty Pictures in association with Disney Channel.
It stars Olivia Rodrigo, Joshua Bassett, Matt Cornett, Sofia Wylie, Larry Saperstein, Julia Lester, Dara Reneé, and Frankie Rodriguez, among a larger cast, and is set in a fictionalized version of East High School. Disney announced this year that the series would see its fourth and final season.
But there’s a surprise in it for fans of the original!
Some of our favorite Wild Cats will be making their return to the High School Musical stage for the final season, appearing in the series in a unique way. Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman, Lucas Grabeel, Kaycee Stroh, Bart Johnson, and Alyson Reed are all reprising their original roles for High School Musical 4: The Reunion.
What is High School Musical 4: The Reunion?
High School Musical 4: The Reunion is a “fake” movie at the center of the final season of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. The show-within-a-show concept can be confusing but isn’t new for this series.
“Even I have trouble explaining what’s happening this season, and I read every script, and I’m here every day, so it’s definitely confusing,” Joshua Bassett, who plays Ricky, shared with Entertainment Weekly. “But they do a really good job of making it clear in the show.”
Unfortunately, this isn’t, in fact, HSM 4, which means that while we’re going to see the OG Wild Cats in the series, we won’t get a full-length feature with them in theaters. However, creator Tim Federle isn’t ruling out the possibility of HSM 4!
“Maybe this will actually launch the movie and then maybe we can get them all back,” Federle commented. “You heard it here first! But also I think, sometimes when you watch a movie from your childhood and you’re like, ‘Well, that’s different than I remember,’ in some ways I feel like Troy and Gabriella and Sharpay exist best in the crystal Jurassic Park amber of our memories when they were perfect. Maybe they just stay there. We’ll see. Fate will tell me.”
