Madison Nears will continue to haunt the halls of Split River High School.
Paramount+ has ordered a second season of School Spirits, its YA mystery starring Peyton List (Cobra Kai) as Madison, a student who dies at her school and is unable to leave as she tries to discover who killed her. The show comes from Awesomeness, Paramount Global’s in-house studio targeting young adults.
The renewal comes about two months after the show’s first season ended on a cliffhanger. Season two is slated to begin production in 2024, with creators Megan Trinrud and Nate Trinrud and showrunner Oliver Goldstick set to return.
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“We saw how engaged the fans of the show were, and we’re really excited about not only the creative direction of the show [in season one], but the promise of the creative direction we’re aware of in the second season,” Shauna Phelan, executive vp and co-head of Nickelodeon and Awesomeness live-action series and films, told The Hollywood Reporter. “The audience responding to the show so positively and so passionately made it an easy call for us. We’re very excited to have the opportunity to make a second season.”
Added Zach Olin, Phelan’s fellow executive VP and co-head of Awesomeness and Nick live-action, “There was an incredible combination of voice that Megan and Nate brought to the project, in addition to their incredible handle on the mystery that they wanted to tell. It felt surprising on so many levels. It was just an enjoyable page turner right out of the gate.
School Spirits, based on the Trinrud siblings’ forthcoming graphic novel with Maria Nguyen, is one of several Paramount+ targeted at young adults, along with Wolf Pack, the update of iCarly and some of its adult animation projects. Though the YA market is littered with recent streaming casualties (Warrior Nun, The Wilds and The Society, to name a few), it has also spawned breakout hits like Netflix’s Outer Banks and Ginny & Georgia.
“In this environment, there’s so much choice across every audience, not just YA. So it’s probably harder than ever to aggregate an audience around any show at this point,” said Phelan. “I will say for a YA audience, though, when you get it right, this is the audience that will share and post and create fan communities and really spread the word for shows that they love.”
Per usual with streaming platforms, Paramount+ is keeping detailed viewing data for School Spirits under lock and key. Domenic DiMeglio, chief marketing officer and head of data for Paramount Streaming, told THR that “we were more than happy with the viewership we were able to drive for the series.”
In addition to a big social media push coordinated with the show’s stars (including List, who has 21 million Instagram followers), Paramount+ also marketed School Spirits on its own platform through other programming its core audience watches, from scripted series to sports. “I would also call out reality programming — the obvious ones, but also shows like Survivor do really well with younger audiences, so reality is a big ingredient. And then, especially when we think about the male skew of the YA audience, sports, especially soccer, including the UEFA Champions League, which has a massive under-35 audience. Halo also did really well with younger audiences.”
Olin and Phelan told THR that as Paramount+ continues to target YA audiences — including with Zoey 102, a movie sequel to the 2005-08 Nick show Zoey 101, and a Good Burger sequel — it will look for material that can “surprise the audience,” as Olin put it.
“I think the blueprint starts at creative strength,” said Olin. “I think if we are flooding the audience with YA content, it stops being surprising, and there will be some duplication. With our series and movies, it’s job number one for all of us [to figure out] how do we put out the things that are really going to excite the audiences.”
Said Phelan, “We start from a place of what we feel really passionate about, and then we really try and tell those stories authentically. I think we see a really strong response when we follow the guiding principles of our audience really wanting to see themselves authentically represented in our programming.”
Megan and Nate Trinrud executive produce School Spirits with Goldstick and Max Winkler, who directed the first two episodes. List is a producer on the series.
Nate Trinrud and Megan Trinrud are repped by CAA, Entertainment 360, FKKS and Inkwell. Goldstick is repped by Brillstein Entertainment Partners, CAA & The Walerstein Group.
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