‘All American’ Spinoff Set As Backdoor Pilot At The CW With Geffri Maya

The CW is officially moving forward with its planted pilot spinoff of All American with Geffri Maya reprising her role as Simone Hicks.

The pilot will air as an episode in the current third season of the show.

All American: Homecoming is the third planted pilot for the youth-skewing broadcaster this season, joining Nancy Drewspinoff Tom Swift and Black Lightning spinoff Painkiller.

It is a young-adult sports drama set against the backdrop of the HBCU experience. It follows a young tennis hopeful from Beverly Hills and an elite baseball player from Chicago as they contend with the high stakes of college sports, while also navigating the highs, lows and sexiness of unsupervised early adulthood at a prestigious Historically Black College.

Maya, who starred in ABC’s Private Practice, stars in the spinoff, and it will be written by All American showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll, who also will exec produce alongside Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, David Madden and Robbie Rogers. Berlanti Productions produces in association with Warner Bros. Television.

2020-21 The CW Pilots & Series Orders

Michael Schultz, who has directed multiple episodes of All American and Black Lightning, will direct the episode.

The decision as to whether to move forward with a series order for All American: Homecoming will come as The CW faces a slightly unusual development season. The network launched its “fall” season in January and Chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz recently told Deadline that he expects to get more of a sense of around the end of March to mid-April.

Pedowitz, who said that he is just now starting to get pilot scripts, added that while he is a fan of the pilot process, the network may go straight-to-series on a number of projects due to financial issues.

Maya is repped by TalentWorks and Station 3 Management. Schultz is represented by Paradigm and manager Pete Donaldson.