Kevin Bacon Is Returning to High School Where “Footloose ”Was Filmed for Their Prom: 'Let's Dance'

After those gathered in the school's gym to watch his announcement erupted in cheers, Bacon said, "Thank you guys!"

Kevin Bacon is about to cut loose once more!

On Friday, the actor — whose iconic film Footloose recently celebrated its 40-year anniversary — appeared via video chat on the Today show, to surprise staff and students at Payson High School in Payson, Utah, with some very big news.

"I have been so impressed with everything that’s been going on there with this crazy idea to get me to come back," said Bacon, 65, who shot the 1984 movie at the school. "I’ve been amazed at the work that all of you have been putting into this, with the musical and the flash mobs and the re-creations."

"It hasn’t gone unnoticed by me, not to mention the fact that you tied in SixDegrees.org, our foundation, and are trying to figure out ways to give back to your community. It’s really inspirational, so thank you. Thank you. And I’m gonna come. I gotta come," he said.

After those gathered in the school's gym to watch his announcement erupted in cheers, Bacon added, "Thank you guys. Let's dance."

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Footloose, the movie that helped turn Bacon into a star, follows the actor as teenager Ren McCormack who moves to a small town with his mother, Ethel (Frances Lee McCain). After Ren and Lori Singer's character, Ariel, fall in love, they band together with their friends, Rusty (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Willard (the late Chris Penn), as well as other classmates to overturn a ban on dancing in the town instituted by Ariel's father, Reverend Shaw Moore (John Lithgow).

On a recent episode of the actor's Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon podcast, he recalled that the final scenes of his classic musical drama film were altered to remove slow-motion sequences that did not test well with early audiences.

"The ending of Footloose has this big dance sequence and in the original, when we originally shot it in Utah it went into slow motion," Bacon shared. "When they tested the movie everybody said, 'We don't want slow motion, we want to see people getting down. We want to feel the music and see everybody rocking out.' "

"So we went to California a year later and reshot the ending but not in slow motion, with new choreography and new dancers and a whole bunch of new things," he added, noting that he believes the changes made "definitely helped the movie a lot."

Related: Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick Try Viral 'Footloose' Dance Trend: 'Figured We'd Give it a Spin'

As for whether a sequel might ever find its way to fruition, Bacon said last month on the podcast, "Never say never, [but] I think it would be a disaster.”

But Singer, 66, has an idea — just in case. As she told PEOPLE in February, "I don't know if Kevin even remembers this, but I actually had sort of an idea where Ariel grows up and goes to New York where she wanted to be, and [Ren] stays there."

“[Ren] stays in the town, and he becomes a bigger deal in the town. That's where he becomes the town lawyer or whatever," she continued. “[Ariel] comes back because her father's sick."

"I mean, I just played with that idea years ago and we were talking about it and joking," Singer clarified. “But that was just something for us to meet on and talk about and laugh about."

When it actually comes down to it, however, the actress isn’t sure she wants a follow-up film. As she told PEOPLE, "It was so pure for what it is that I kind of agree with Kevin ... but you never know.”

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