A chat with "High School Musical" director Kenny Ortega...

"High School Musical 3: Senior Year" director Kenny Ortega certainly is one of the happiest guys in showbiz right now.

After warming up with the wildly successful Disney Channel movies "High School Musical" and "High School Musical 2," Ortega achieved something incredible over the weekend when the third film - and first to be released in theaters - grossed $42 million to achieve
the biggest opening for any musical in history.

All along, the Emmy-winning director and choreographer had just wanted to get back to the big screen. He had worked with Gene Kelly on 1980's "Xanadu" and choreographed all those great dance scenes in 1987's "Dirty Dancing" then settled into a successful career or directing episodic television and choreographing Super Bowl half-time shows, the Academy Awards, one of Michael Jackson's world tours and Madonna's "Marerial Girl" music video.

"I've been wanting it for a really long time," Oretga told me recently. "I did the first 'High School Musical' in hopes that it would perhaps it would open a few doors and enable me to work on the big canvas again. So it's a dream come true and we've had the time of
our lives."

The first two "High School" movies now seem like just a rehearsal.

"We were really prepared and we were able to design differently," he said. "We had a bigger schedule and a bigger screen. We were able to really have a lot of fun. And it really is a movie, it's not a television show thrown up on a big screen. We're very proud of that."
But a lot more has changed since that first movie besides the production budget. Leads Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens have become superstars. Ortega said they got where they are the old-fashioned way: they earned it.

"We went through the most wonderful process in finding them," he said. "It was like a Broadway audition, it took weeks. Months actually. When we finally narrowed it down to about 35 kids, We auditioned them for like six hours a day. They went through dance,
singing, improv, scene work, athletics. A real workshop. We knew who were getting into business with by the time we were getting out of those auditions."

What they were getting into is what looks like one of the most successful musical franchises of all time!