Step Up drama series coming to YouTube
Fans of Step Up, you might want to sit down, because this news is big.
YouTube announced on Thursday at VidCon that it has ordered a first season of Step Up, an adaptation of the high-energy dance-centric film franchise.
Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan Tatum, who starred in the 2006 movie that kicked it all off, will serve as executive producers of the drama series, along with Adam Shankman, Jennifer Gibgot, and Meredith Milton, who produced the original Step Up film and its four sequels, which have grossed more than $650 million. The Lionsgate-produced show, which will focus on dancers at a contemporary performing arts school, will start production later this year before debuting as the first original scripted series on YouTube Red in 2017.
“I’ve been a fan of the Step Up movies for years and always believed the films would translate into an awesome original series,” said Susanne Daniels, YouTube’s Global Head of Original Content, in a statement. “We know that dance is a hugely successful global category on YouTube, so I’m excited to have a series rooted in such an enormously popular genre on our platform.”
Daniels also revealed the rest of YouTube’s slate of original programming, which includes new and returning series for the recently launched video subscription service. Scare PewDiePie and Foursome received second-season renewals, while Smosh — who released the Part Timers series on YouTube — will return for an untitled feature-length comedy in which Charlie (Anthony Padilla) moves into a new apartment and realizes that a ghost named Max (Ian Hecox) is living there, and they discover that they’ll have to partner up to get Max into heaven.
Other new series include:
• Rhett & Link’s Buddy System, a scripted comedy series in which the duo attempt to regain control of their Internet empire from someone they both dated who is now a wicked Infomercial Queen. (SNL vets Molly Shannon and Chris Parnell are also in the cast.)
• Dan & Phil Tour Documentary, a journey with YouTube comedy stars Dan Howell and Phil Lester on their most recent world tour, The Amazing Tour Is Not On Fire. (A documentary about the tour will serve as a companion piece.)
• An untitled animated series that stars YouTube creators SeaNanners, TheMrSark and VanossGaming as paranormal investigators.
• An untitled educational series from Vsauce creator Michael Stevens that examines the brain to “show some of the most mind-blowing, important and least understood aspects of human nature.”
• Vlogumentary, a Morgan Spurlock-produced series that takes viewers inside the world of YouTube’s biggest vloggers.
