Disney has renewed its teen supernatural drama series Coven Academy for a second season.
Tim Federle (High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, the upcoming Romy and Michele sequel) created the show and is on board to continue as executive producer on Season 2. Season 1 “follows three teenage witches and their dangerously charming warlock peers at an elite magic boarding school where power is currency, secrets are lethal and attraction is a liability. Caught between ancient supernatural wars and forbidden love interests, the coven must decide how far they’re willing to go to protect their city — and themselves,” per the official logline.
The second season will be a continuation of the first season, which stars Malina Pauli Weissman (A Series of Unfortunate Events) as Briar, a fiercely independent New Yorker who discovers she’s a witch; Malachi Barton (Camp Rock 3, Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires) as Jake, a magnetic warlock with a dangerous edge; Jordan Leftwich (The Family Switch) as Sasha, a deeply empathic student who can read minds; Ora Duplass (Their Town) as Tegan, an irreverent time-bending witch; Louis Thresher (Boarders) as Ollie, a hungry, newly turned vampire; and Tiffani Thiessen (White Collar, 90210) as Miss Graves, the formidable and glamorous head of the school. The first season also featured special guest star Devon Sawa (Hacks) as Mr. Cole, a brilliant and charismatic warlock professor.
The show debuted Oct. 1 on Freeform, with the full season available the next day on Disney+, Hulu and Freeform on Demand. The first season notched 20.3 million global hours in its first three weeks on Disney+ and Hulu, racking up an additional 30 million views after the first chapter was made available on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. It also was the No. 1 streaming series among teens 12–17 over its premiere weekend, and in the top five among all viewers based on views.
The first season was presented in shorter-length episodes, ranging from 10 minutes to 22 minutes at the most. Federle explained the reason for that in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter last month.
“We wanted to take that traditional storytelling muscle, which arcs out over five-plus hours in season one, but then try something that felt more chapter-based, with hopefully just as many arcs, just as many payoffs, just as many plot twists,” he said. “But where you might typically break for a commercial on cable, we just sort of end the chapter and then start right back up. So what I’m ultimately hoping is that the experience itself is very bingeable.”
As for the show itself, Federle said he’d wanted to do a project about witches for some time. He met with with Ayo Davis, president of Disney Kids & Family, a couple of summers ago, where they discussed the idea.
“I just love that space and I love the opportunity of magic,” he said. “And so it started from a very organic dinner and then probably because it wasn’t IP and I didn’t have the sort of stakeholders or the fan expectation of a title that comes with momentum — but also pressure — this one was really easy to write. I wrote the first draft of the pilot in like a night. I literally went home from that dinner and wrote it, and then it was off to the races.”
Federle also served as an executive producer for season one alongside Darren Swimmer, Todd Slavkin, Amanda Row and Bronwyn North-Reist. Coven Academy is produced by Federle’s Chorus Boy Productions in association with Disney Kids & Family. (All of Season 1’s episodes were helmed all female directors apart from the pilot, which Federle directed.)
Season one of Coven Academy is streaming on Freeform on Demand, Disney+ and Hulu.
Original Article on Hollywood Reporter