Michelle Pfeiffer is always a great conversation starter, but her 1982 film Grease 2 unfortunately is not. The film has become more of a punchline than a bona fide classic, having been outright panned by critics upon release, with audiences not being much kinder.
But that’s all changing more than four decades later. The sequel is suddenly back in the conversation, thanks in part to younger fans, including Millie Bobby Brown, who have openly embraced the movie.
Released in June 1982, Grease 2 had big shoes to fill. Following its predecessor starring the inimitable John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, which was a massive commercial and cultural blockbuster, the sequel had critics running for the hills. Needless to say, they were largely unimpressed, saying that it “tested the agony threshold of the audience,” “isn’t the best of taste,” and “is definitely not the word. It isn’t even a syllable.”
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At the box office, audiences largely agreed, ultimately not turning the film into the phenomenon its predecessor had been. Grease 2 opened at No. 5 and grossed about $15.2 million domestically, a fraction of the roughly $188.6 million Grease earned in North America. Still, the movie never disappeared.
Instead, Grease 2 found an audience over the years, eventually developing the devoted following and cult status it lacked at release. Paramount now describes it as having gained “fans and cult-movie status” 44 years later. Through repeated television broadcasts, home video, and eventually generations of viewers who discovered its campy songs, Pfeiffer’s Stephanie Zinone and Maxwell Caulfield’s Michael Carrington found a new audience long after the original disappointment had faded.
Now, that once-maligned sequel is getting a very different kind of attention. Younger viewers are discovering it, longtime fans are defending it, and co-star Christopher McDonald is reliving it. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly this week, the actor who played T-Bird Goose described the joy of watching audiences sing along to the movie’s songs at a TCM screening.
“I just went to a Turner Classic Movies event, and people just showed up by the pool to sing the songs, like it was Rocky Horror Picture Show. Most of them—99% of them—were women. And I thought, That’s what’s speaking to the people: It’s ‘I want a cool rider, I want a rider that’s cool’—not like all the stuff happened in the first one, nothing against that one. But, wow, this movie is moving people, and the female population’s really getting into it. So that’s a blessing. It’s a shock and a blessing.”
It’s quite the turnaround for a film that arrived in the enormous shadow of Grease and was quickly dismissed as a disappointing follow-up. Brown is another recent fan who has put her fandom on display publicly.
On an episode of Hot Ones, the Stranger Things alum went so far as to say the sequel is superior to the original. And she credits her reason entirely to Pfeiffer.
“‘Cool Rider’ is the best song ever,” Brown said. “And I’m obsessed with Michelle Pfeiffer.”
“Cool Rider” is one of 12 songs featured in the film. Some of the more unforgettable tracks include “Do It for Our Country,” “Reproduction,” and “We’ll Be Together,” the finale song that soundtracks the film’s over-the-top motorcycle luau. A campy, high-energy pop-rock album, the soundtrack was released by RSO Records and produced by Hollywood heavyweights Allan Carr and Robert Stigwood.
The transformation of Grease 2 from a critical and box-office disaster into a beloved cult classic is one of the most fascinating turnarounds in recent memory. Over the decades, the very elements critics hated—the tone, the lyrics, the synth-heavy vibe—became what turned the soundtrack into a generational favorite, rescuing the movie from the hellscape of the forever flop.
At the center of the film’s redemption arc is Pfeiffer’s star-making performance. A bolder heroine, she sings “Cool Rider,” the ultimate manifestation of her dream man. Her raw magnetism and the song’s driving rock tempo transformed a scene with absurd lyrics and silly choreography into an empowering, iconic pop-culture moment.
For decades, Grease 2 seemed destined to remain a footnote to its far more successful predecessor. But time has a funny way of changing the conversation. And 44 years later, it looks like Pink Lady Stephanie finally got the thing she wanted all along: a second chance.
Related: 1982 Ballad, Immortalized in a Jake Gyllenhaal Cult Classic, Became a Cross-Generational Hit