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Director and choreographer Kenny Ortega says the magic of High School Musical <\/em>was clear from the start.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we were shooting the big finale [\u201cWe\u2019re All In This Together\u2019] \u2026 I took my eyes off the monitor and just took in the scope of the whole room and I thought, \u2018My God, if Disney Marketing does the job that we’re doing in this room today, we have a juggernaut,\u2019\u201d Ortega tells PEOPLE for an exclusive look back at the franchise in the print edition, on newsstands now.\n<\/p>\n The movie did indeed become a juggernaut after it premiered on the Disney Channel January 20, 2006, becoming the most commercially successful of the channel\u2019s original films and generating 7.7 million viewers in its premiere broadcast. The movie\u2019s soundtrack reached number one on the Billboard 200, remaining on the list for more than 100 weeks.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n It also spawned merchandise, a successful concert\u00a0 tour, two follow-up films, and a tv series \u2014 and launched the careers of the young actors in its cast: Zac Efron<\/a>,\u00a0Vanessa Hudgens<\/a>,\u00a0Ashley Tisdale<\/a>, Alyson Reed, Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman and Lucas Grabeel.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n Efron, who was 18 years old at the time of the first movie, tells PEOPLE, \u201cI was so young when we made\u00a0High School Musical<\/em>, and it was just a really great experience.”\n<\/p>\n “We were having fun, learning as we went, and honestly just enjoying every moment together. I never could\u2019ve imagined it would still mean so much to people 20 years later, or that a whole new generation would connect with it, and I\u2019m grateful for that,” Efron, now 38, adds.\n<\/p>\n The musical film premiered on The Disney Channel on January 20, 2006 and followed basketball star Troy Bolton (Efron) and brainy new student Gabriella Montez (Hudgens) who meet at karaoke, discover a shared love for singing, and then audition for the school musical at East High.\n<\/p>\n While it was something of an all-American story (thanks to being set in a traditional high school), it resonated internationally, garnering fans in every corner of the globe.\n<\/p>\n Ortega recalls the demand was such that even global audiences wanted more \u2014 including concerts in Latin American soccer stadiums built to hold 70,000 people. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe felt like we had something, and we felt like we were going to make an impression, but we had no idea of the global kind of phenomenon that it became,\u201d Ortega says, adding that the film offers something \u201cuniversal and timeless that speaks to a generation of young people through music and dance and storytelling.\u201d\n<\/p>\n The film spoke to young people, including the cast members themselves \u2014 like Bleu, who was just 15 years old at the time of the first movie.\n<\/p>\n “It\u2019s extraordinary how deep of a path was carved ahead of me at 15 years old from working on High School Musical<\/em>,” he tells PEOPLE. “At the time I had already been in the industry for over a decade as a child actor, studying and working towards an undefined dream. It was simply a wonderful and fortunate opportunity to apply a multitude of artistic skills alongside peers.”\n<\/p>\n <\/span> Bleu adds that the overnight success had its downsides, saying, “Being launched into that kind of whirlwind before your fontal lobe is even fully formed is fraught with pitfalls to navigate.”<\/p>\n But it also “opened doors for future endeavors and my Broadway career,” he adds, and “forged lifelong relationships amongst the cast and crew.”\n<\/p>\n Coleman, now 45, recounts seeing merchandise with her face on it and feeling shocked: \u201cThere was no way to prepare us for what was really happening. We kind of woke up inside of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Tisdale concurs, saying, \u201cWhenever you put something out into the world, of course you hope people enjoy it. But I couldn\u2019t have imagined the longevity HSM<\/em> has had … It was such a life-changing experience for all of us.\u201d\n<\/p>\n It is the choreography that Hudgens says she remembers most of all from filming, telling PEOPLE the dance number from “We’re All In This Together” is “ingrained into my DNA.”\n<\/p>\n “Between filming it, doing it on tour and seeing people doing it on social media from time to time it stays in my head and in my body. I feel like it always will be,” she adds.<\/p>\n Part of the success of the film, says Grabeel, can be attributed to the chemistry of all those on set.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I remember most is how unburdened it felt,\u201d says the actor of the first movie in the franchise. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a machine yet \u2014 no mythology, no expectations, no sense of legacy. We were present: singing around the piano between takes, laughing at our silliness and mistakes, figuring it out together.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat kind of rarity isn\u2019t something you manufacture \u2014 it\u2019s something you\u2019re just lucky enough to be part of and share,” says Grabeel.<\/p>\n Disney+ is celebrating the 20th anniversary of High School Musical <\/em>with a dedicated streaming channel from January 7 through March 4 featuring all three films, Sharpay\u2019s Fabulous Adventure<\/em>, and every season of High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n NEED TO KNOW The cast and director of High School Musical are remembering the franchise, 20 years later The film premiered on The Disney Channel on January 20, 2006 It launched the careers of the young actors in its cast: Zac Efron,\u00a0Vanessa Hudgens,\u00a0Ashley Tisdale, Alyson Reed, Corbin Bleu, Monique Coleman and Lucas Grabeel.\u00a0 Director and … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Zac-Efron-Vanessa-Hudgens-and-Ashley-Tisdale-Revisit-High-School.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17623,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17621\/revisions\/17623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nDISNEY CHANNEL\/FRED HAYES<\/p>\n
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\nFred Hayes\/Disney Channel<\/span>
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