High School Musical 3 Synopsis

High School Musical 3: Senior Year will be the next installment in Disney's popular High School Musical franchise, scheduled for a theatrical release on October 24, 2008. Kenny Ortega returns as director and choreographer, and all six primary actors from the previous two films will reprise their roles.

Now high school seniors, Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) and Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens) are facing the prospect of being separated from each other as they go off in different directions when graduating from East High School. Joined by the rest of the Wildcats, including Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale) Ryan Evans (Lucas Grabeel), Chad Danforth (Corbin Bleu), Taylor McKessie (Monique Coleman), and others, they stage an elaborate spring musical reflecting their experiences, hopes, and fears about the future.

In February 2007, Disney announced plans for a 2008 feature film sequel with a Halloween theme dubbed "Haunted High School Musical." In September of 2007, Disney announced that they had scrapped plans for the Halloween theme and instead will focus on the senior year of key characters at East High. According to Yahoo news, the original writer from the first two films, Peter Barsocchini, is writing the script for the third part in the High School Musical series. The original producers and director/choreographer Kenny Ortega are also on board, which Ortega confirmed in an interview with Access Hollywood.

Zac Efron was quoted in People Magazine as saying, "I can tell you that if the script is good and if we all agree on a final script, then there's nothing that is going to hold us back from doing it. We have fun making these movies and that's very rare in this business."

Rumors persisted of ongoing salary disputes between Disney and the lead performers, particularly Efron. According to Rachel Abramowitz, as reported online by the Chicago Tribune, "An eclectic cross-section of Hollywood insiders think Efron should get a cool $5 million for High School Musical 3, the theatrical version of the franchise, which Disney hoped to make before the Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild strike shut down Hollywood for several months. Efron declined to comment for the article, and "although contract negotiations still are ongoing, sources say Efron is being offered a salary closer to $3 million, not $5 million, for the follow-up, which focuses on senior year at East High.

Ortega stated that pre-production would most likely start in January 2008. Filming began May 3rd, 2008, at East High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. He stated that the script had been submitted before the Writers strike started and that they were developing music. He added that filming will happen in Salt Lake City, Utah (as the first two films), hinted that the plot will be something of the nature of the Wildcat's final year in High School and stated "it looks like we've rounded up the cast."

Before filming began, the HSM3 board and cast held a press conference at East High School announcing the start of filming. The movie will be released in theaters (in the USA) on October 24th of that year, though several countries like Great Britain will get to see the movie at least one week earlier. The team is with a $13.3 million dollar budget and a 40-day shooting period. This film is said to be the final installment with the current cast, but no word as if it is yet to continue with a new cast.

Returning cast
Zac Efron as Troy Bolton
Vanessa Hudgens as Gabriella Montez
Ashley Tisdale as Sharpay Evans
Lucas Grabeel as Ryan Evans
Corbin Bleu as Chad Danforth
Monique Coleman as Taylor McKessie
Olesya Rulin as Kelsi Nielson
Ryne Sanborn as Jason Cross
Chris Warren Jr. as Zeke Baylor
Kaycee Stroh as Martha Cox
Alyson Reed as Ms. Darbus
Bart Johnson as Jack Bolton
Leslie Wing as Lucille Bolton

New cast members
Matt Prokop
Justin Martin
Jemma McKenzie-Brown

Source : from wikipedia