Is Grease’s Rydell High School a real school?

The release of Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies has fans rewatching the original 1978 musical movie, Grease, and wishing they had gone to Rydell High! Is Grease’s Rydell High School a real school?

Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies is now streaming on the Paramount+ platform. On April 6, the streamer dropped the first two episodes of the musical comedy. Following the two-episode series premiere, one new episode will drop weekly on Thursdays.

Released in 1978, Grease is set in the 1950s and follows Danny (John Travolta) and Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) reuniting at Rydell High after believing they would never see each other again once their sweet summer romance came to an end. Now, the movie is based on fictional characters, but is Rydell High a real school?

Rydell High School is not a real school

Unfortunately, no. Rydell High School is a fictional school. In fact, Peer Space shares that the scenes inside and around the school were filmed in three different high schools in the Los Angeles area. Most of the exterior shots of the school are of Venice High School.

As much as I wanted Rydell High to be real, it’s not a big surprise that it isn’t. After all, almost all filming locations in both shows and movies are fictional and filmed at a studio.

Venice High School is actually a popular spot for filming. Not only did Grease use the school as Rydell’s exterior, but other very well known productions have taken over the school before. Some of these include Glee, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, What It Takes, and several others. Additionally, this is the location where Britney Spears’ “Hit Me Baby One More Time” music video was filmed.

The first two episodes of Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies are now streaming on Paramount+.