Is this 2023's weirdest scene? Grease prequel tries to ignore actor departure – with hilariously bad results
Not everything can be fixed in post, but it doesn't hurt to try. Grease prequel Rise of the Pink Ladies recently had to attempt its own CGI DIY to work around a lead actor departing the series – to hilarious results.
As first spotted by LittleKuriboh (of Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged fame) on Twitter, it appears that Richie actor Johnathan Nieves left partway through production and was replaced by a body double and what looks like a Photoshopped image of the actor's face.
The end of the eighth episode sees the leader of the T-Birds get into a physical confrontation with Buddy, with Richie looking decidedly static during the showdown.
Look a little closer and it's clear that body doubles and some slapdash CGI are used to avoid drawing attention to the fact that Nieves wasn't physically present in the scene. Unfortunately, as you can see below, it didn't quite go as planned.
This is wild.One of the male leads in Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies just dropped out of the show at episode 7 out of 10 episodes, so they had to shoot around him.But that involved photoshopping a still image of his face onto an obvious double for multiple shots.It's BAD. pic.twitter.com/hZm8ojcutMJune 3, 2023
"It looks like they printed out a photo of his face and glued it to the tip of some guy's nose," one wrote on Twitter.
In the show's defence, another added: "Oh man, I hate that this is gonna be the reason people hear about the show and not because of how charming it is."
It's not clear why Nieves left the show, but he's only fully absent in episodes 9 and 10. With Richie having left Rydell for a stint in military school, there's every reason he could return if Rise of the Pink Ladies gets a second season on Paramount Plus.
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