Five Ways to Play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon With Footloose Remake

Actually, ubiquitous actor is so ubiquitous (except in update of his 1980s classic) there's probably 500 hundred ways to play, but opted for these ones...

No, Kevin Bacon isn't in the new Footloose movie. Or is he…?

As you may have heard, moviedom's original dancing Ren is no more than a half-dozen credits away from anyone who's anybody on Planet Hollywood.

So, how is Bacon connected with the just-released remake of his 1980s classic? Again we ask, how isn't he?

1. The Guys Who Almost Played Ren 2.0: Bacon worked on Beauty Shop with Queen Latifah, who worked on Hairspray with Zac Efron, who was the presumed Footloose remake star from 2007-2009. As for Chace Crawford, who also played footsie with the long-in-the-works film? He appeared in the drama Twelve for Joel Schumacher, who directed Bacon in Flatliners.

2. The Guy Who Did Play Ren 2.0: You'd think this one might be tough since Kenny Wormald doesn't have a wealth of credits, but, nah. Wormald's lone pre-Footloose starring credit is the TV-movie, Center Stage: Turn It Up, which also starred Peter Gallagher, who appeared in American Beauty, which featured the pre-Harold John Cho, who starred with guess-who in the indie ensemble drama The Air I Breathe.  

3. The Soundtrack: And, no, we don't mean the old Kenny Loggins soundtrack, although Loggins' "Footloose" figures prominently in the remake. We mean the all-new Footloose singers and music-makers, like, say, One Tree Hill's Jana Kramer, who handles the "Let's Hear It for the Boy" update. She appeared in Prom Night with (and was very briefly married to) Johnathon Schaech, who broke out in That Thing You Do!, which was made by Tom Hanks, who got lost in space with Bacon in Apollo 13. 

4. The Location: The new Footloose was shot in Georgia, which is the home state of The Closer's Brenda Leigh Johnson, who's played by Kyra Sedgwick, who's married to some guy…oh, yes, Bacon.

5. The Property Master?! Yes, the property master. Dwight Benjamin-Creel worked that job on Footloose, just as he did on X-Men: First Class, which Bacon appeared in this summer. OK, well, technically, per IMDb.com, Benjamin-Creel was the second-unit property master on X-Men, but the point remains: Bacon. Everywhere. Except at a theater near you this weekend.

(Unless, of course, Crazy, Stupid, Love, starring Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and, yes, Bacon, is still playing in your town…)