According to director Adam Shankman, Hairspray 2 is no longer in the works. Â He stated:
Adam remarked in Hollywood, “I’m going to kill that rumour immediately, that got killed.”
 Added him: “Let’s leave well enough alone; I was so content with the first one. All is well.”
Even though the 2007 movie, which starred John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Amanda Bynes, James Marsden, Queen Latifah, Brittany Snow, and Zac Efron, earned more than $200 million at the box office globally, it seems they were never able to figure out how to make a sequel succeed.
 At the 17 Again press day in April 2009, Shankman discussed the Hairspray sequel.  Jump to find out more:
hairspray movie image michelle pfeiffer
As he informed us back in 2009, it appeared that the sequel was progressing:
There are some extremely humorous concepts, however we lack a writer at this time.
†The group, which included the producers, myself, and the composers, decided on the route we want to go, he continued. It was such a positive experience for me that anything that may possibly cast doubt on that experience was utterly unappealing to me because I have no interest in doing something that was going to. We then sat down and reasoned that if “Hairspray 1” was successful in this regard, why attempt “Hairspray 2”? due to the fact that you begin to get into “Grease 2” But Mark and I came up with some really entertaining ideas. A treatment by John Waters was absolutely wild. That was essentially a continuation of his version of the film, complete with seaweed, electroshock therapy, and cattle prods. At one point, Penny became so enraged that she detonated the globe. This insane stuff was it. However, we viewed it as a source from which to borrow, so we adopted some of the less absurd concepts. We will begin by employing a writer before moving forward.
It might have been challenging to recast the whole cast of the first Hairspray, but the movie was profitable for the studio and received positive reviews; it currently has a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so you know the studio wanted it.
This may be one of the few instances where a weak story actually prevents a sequel from happening.
Because I’m willing to wager that if a writer had entered and submitted a fantastic idea, this would still be progressing.
Never bet against anything when money is involved, but this is Hollywood.