Director
Randal Kleiser took numerous liberties with the original source material, most notably moving the setting from an urban Chicago setting (based on
William Howard Taft High School), as the original musical had been, to a more suburban locale, reflecting his own teenage years at
Radnor High School in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Writer
Warren Casey was said to have based the high school on
Gorton High School in
Yonkers, New York. He had little control over the musical aspects of the film; his choice of theme song, a composition by
Charles Fox and
Paul Williams, was overruled when
Robert Stigwood and
Allan Carr commissioned a song from Stigwood's client
Barry Gibb at the last minute.
Casting John Travolta had previously worked with Stigwood on
Saturday Night Fever, recorded the top-10 hit "
Let Her In" in 1976, and had previously appeared as Doody in a touring production of the stage version of
Grease. As part of a three-picture deal with Stigwood, Travolta was given the lead role after
Henry Winkler (then starring as
Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli in
Paramount's TV series
Happy Days) turned down the role for fear of becoming
typecast as a greaser character. (Winkler would later regret the decision.)
Ann-Margret,
Deborah Raffin,
Susan Dey and
Marie Osmond for the lead role. Fisher, who had recently finished
Star Wars, was ultimately rejected because neither Stigwood nor Carr knew if she could sing. Newton-John had done little acting; before this film she had only two film credits, both of which predated her singing breakthrough (1965's
Funny Things Happen Down Under and the little-seen 1970 film
Toomorrow), and she requested a screen test prior to accepting the role. She agreed to a reduced asking price in exchange for star billing and the ability to rewrite the script, which included changing her character's origin to an Australian immigrant (to avoid having to emulate an American accent) and making her less passive.
Lorna Luft (who would later be cast in
Grease 2) and
Lucie Arnaz both auditioned for the part of Rizzo, but a talent client of Carr,
Stockard Channing, was cast, several years after her last major film role and debut in
The Fortune. At 33 she was the oldest cast member to play a high school student, and Kleiser made her and the other actors playing students take a "crow's feet test" to see whether they could pass for younger in close-ups. Marie Osmond's
brother and
duet partner Donny Osmond was another potential Teen Angel before Avalon was cast,
Fabian was noted as the inspiration for the role in the musical's script notes, but he and Allan Carr had fallen out after Carr's brief attempt at managing Fabian's stage act in 1974, as Carr determined Fabian's talent was limited to headlining a
lounge act. Fabian stated in 2025 that he had been offered the role, but had to decline it due to being overseas when the scene was to be filmed. The role would revive Avalon's career on the nostalgia circuit, with Valli noting that both Frankies benefited from their appearances despite "Beauty School Dropout" not being released as a single.
Lorenzo Lamas was a last-minute replacement for
Steven Ford, who developed
stage fright shortly before filming and backed out, and
Mark Fidrych, who ran into conflicts with his full-time career as a baseball player. His role contained no spoken dialogue and required Lamas to bleach his hair to avoid looking like one of the T-Birds. and producers cast
Sid Caesar instead. Caesar was one of several veterans of 1950s television (
Eve Arden,
Frankie Avalon,
Joan Blondell,
Edd Byrnes,
Alice Ghostley,
Dody Goodman) to be cast in supporting roles;
Paul Lynde was considered for the role Arden ultimately filled,
Filming locations The opening beach scene was shot at Malibu's
Leo Carrillo State Beach, making explicit reference to
From Here to Eternity. The exterior Rydell scenes, including the front parking lot scenes, the auto shop, the "Summer Nights" bleachers number, Rizzo's "There Are Worse Things I Can Do" number, the basketball, baseball, and track segments, and the interior of the gymnastics gym, were shot at
Venice High School in
Venice, California, during the summer of 1977. The Rydell interiors, including the high school dance, were filmed at
Huntington Park High School. The sleepover was shot at a private house in
East Hollywood. The Paramount Pictures studio lot was the location of the scenes that involve Frosty Palace and the musical numbers "Greased Lightning" and "Beauty School Dropout". The drive-in movie scenes were shot at the Burbank Pickwick Drive-In (it was closed and torn down in 1989 and a shopping center took its place). The race was filmed at the
Los Angeles River, between the First and Seventh Street Bridges, where many other films have been shot. The final scene where the carnival took place used
John Marshall High School in
Los Feliz. Furthermore, owing to budget cuts, a short scene was filmed at
Hazard Park in Los Angeles.
Post-production Scenes inside the Frosty Palace contain obvious blurring of various
Coca-Cola signs. Prior to the film's release, producer Allan Carr had made a
product placement deal with Coca-Cola's main competitor
Pepsi (for example, a Pepsi logo can be seen in the animated opening sequence animated by
John David Wilson at
Fine Arts Films). When Carr saw the footage of the scene with Coca-Cola products and signage, he ordered director Randal Kleiser to either reshoot the scene with Pepsi products or
remove the Coca-Cola logos from the scene. As reshoots were deemed too expensive and time-consuming, optical mattes were used to cover up or blur out the Coca-Cola references. The 'blurring' covered up trademarked menu signage and a large wall poster, but a red cooler with the logo could not be sufficiently altered so was left unchanged. According to Kleiser, "We just had to hope that Pepsi wouldn't complain. They didn't." Due to an editing error, a closing scene in which Danny and Sandy kiss was removed from the finished print and lost before its theatrical release. The scene was preserved only in black-and-white; Kleiser attempted to have the existing footage
colorized and restored to the film for the film's re-release in 1998 but was dissatisfied with the results. The scene is included as an extra on the 40th anniversary home video release, and Kleiser hopes to make another attempt at colorizing the footage that is effective enough for the footage to be inserted into the film as he originally intended by the time the film's 50th anniversary comes in 2028. ==Soundtrack==