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11.17.2014

Jon M. Chu making 1990s dance comedy 'Can't Touch This'

No, it's not a M.C. Hammer biopic.



Director Jon M. Chu is reportedly going old school with a new feature film project called Can't Touch This. No, it's not a M.C. Hammer biopic. It's a high school dance comedy movie set in the 1990s. Well, that's my jam.

Jon M. Chu, Focus Features Step Up To '90s-Set 'Can't Touch This'

According to Deadline, Chu and his producing partner Hieu Ho have sold the retro dance-comedy, with a script by The Goldbergs producers Annie Mebane and Steve Basilone, to Focus Features.



Chu, who made a name for himself on dance-centric projects like Step Up 2: The Streets, Step Up 3D and The LXD, will not be in the director's chair for Can't Touch This. But considering his resume, I'm betting he'll be able to enlist the help of some of his usual league of movers and shakers.

The teen dance milieu has been a fruitful one for Chu, who launched his career with fan favorite sequels Step Up 2: The Streets and Step Up 3D and has quickly become one of Hollywood’s in-demand studio directors. Storyline is being kept under wraps, although the title alone evokes a part of the decade that was too legit to quit. Chu and Ho originated the idea then tapped Happy Endings and Community writers Annie Mebane and Steve Basilone to script. Mebane and Basilone know their way around retro comedies; they’re producers on ABC’s ’80s-set The Goldbergs.

Chu and Ho will produce for the newly launched Chu Studios after collaborating on a number of projects, including dance webseries The LXD and the YouTube dance lifestyle channel DS2DIO. It’s still to be determined if Chu will direct himself, but between the LXD talent pool and the stable of dancers from Chu’s Step Up sequels, don’t be surprised to see a few familiar faces (or feet?) show up.

I'm feeling this. But I'm a sucker for 1990s nostalgia. And Jon Chu has proven himself to be pretty adept at this throwback thing, directing G.I. Joe: Retaliation and having just wrapped filming on the live-action Jem and the Holograms movie. Next, he'll be directing the magic heist sequel Now You See Me 2.

More here: Jon M. Chu to Make Nineties Dance Movie 'Can't Touch This'