Disney Channel announces 'Teen Beach Movie' sequel for 2015

Disney Channel fans got a splash of good news this weekend when the network announced that a sequel to “Teen Beach Movie” will begin production in July. “Teen Beach Movie 2″ will have its television premiere in 2015.

Actors Ross Lynch, Maia Mitchell, Grace Phipps, Garrett Clayton and John DeLuca will return for the sequel. Lynch and Mitchell portray Brady and McKenzie, respectively, a couple of surfers who are magically transported inside the classic ’60s beach party flick, “Wet Side Story,” where a rivalry between bikers and surfers threatens to erupt. Brady and Mack accidentally change the musical’s storyline, and the film’s hero, Tanner (Clayton), and heroine, Lela (Phipps), fall for them instead of for each other.

“Teen Beach Movie” ends with Brady and McKenzie returning from their adventure and being surprised by a visit from Lela, Tanner, Butchy (DeLuca) and the other surfers and bikers. Clearly, the writers were setting up the plot for a continuation.

And the original movie’s numbers helped greenlight the sequel. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “[Teen Beach Movie] ranks as cable television’s No. 2 movie in total viewers with a giant 13.53 million. The original soundtrack also peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart and was No. 1 on the soundtrack chart.”

The news of the sequel was announced Saturday before the Radio Disney Music Awards were filmed. The “Teen Beach Movie” cast reunited during the show, which was televised Sunday night.

Last spring, actors Clayon, Kent Boyd (Rascal) and Chrissie Fit (Cheechee) visited Walt Disney World to kick off a summer beach party at the Typhoon Lagoon water park, and I had the opportunity to interview them. I was especially curious about their time filming in Puerto Rico, since I had lived there as a child and visited several times as an adult. The beach scenes were filmed at the governor’s beach in Fajardo on the east side of the island, and the interiors were built and shot in a studio in San Juan. Presumably, the cast will be returning to the tropical paradise, where they spent two months filming the first movie.

“I’m Cuban, so I speak Spanish and that’s what I love — to get lost in the island, the food, the music, the people, the beaches,” Fit told me. “I saw El Morro [the fortress] when I was in Old San Juan. “¦ We also went to El Yunque. I hiked up the waterfall twice — beautiful — and saw the bioluminescent bay. That was unreal. I had never been to Puerto Rico before, but I’d always wanted to go.”

Boyd added, “The best part was the beaches. The water was really like a postcard and the sand was so white.”

To read more from my interviews, see my previous “Teen Beach Movie” blog post here.

And while we waiting for the new soundtrack, here’s a look back at Clayon, Boyd and Fit doing their choreographed dance to “Surf’s Up” at Typhoon Lagoon: