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Disney Channel has handed a pilot order to Madison High, a music and dance-driven comedy pilot featuring the melodramatic drama teacher Ms. Darbus (Alyson Reed) from the High School Musical franchise and a troupe of theater students. Disney channel put Madison High, described as the channel’s first musical comedy and its most ambitious series to date, on fast-track development in November when it began preliminary casting. Production on the pilot begins in March for a potential early 2012 series launch. “High School Musical introduced the joys of musicals and musical theater to a whole new generation and kids and families,” Disney Channel topped Gary Marsh said. “And now, with Madison High, we hope to give kids a whole new set of characters with whom to engage – along with more great original music, dance numbers and songs.”
Madison High will feature four original songs written by Matthew Gerrard, Robbie Nevil, Jamie Houston, James Dean Hicks, David Lawrence, Faye Greenberg, Kara DioGuardi and J.D. Salbego. Bill Borden and Barry Rosenbush (High School Musical) and Lester Lewis (The Office) and Paul Hoen (Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam) are the executive producers. The pilot was written by Lester Lewis and will be directed by Paul Hoen. Joining Alyson Reed are young actors Luke Benward (Disney Channel’s Minuteman), Leah Lewis and G Hannelius (Disney Channel’s Den Brother), with casting for the other roles still underway.
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looks like Disney not only is trying to have its own version of Glee but also try and finish off running the high school musical franchise into the ground
Disney rocks and has for years…..why so negative? I think this new show sounds awesome!
Disney has something Fox’s Glee doesn’t HSM was first out of the gate years ago, and it will have the Disney magic of synergy, promotion spread across all Disney divisions, from Disney Stores to ABC to Disney Channels Worldwide. Plus they aren’t aiming for the adult demo they are aiming for the kid demo.
Disney should have done this years ago before Fox copied HSM with Glee. They’re just reclaiming what is rightfully theirs.
No one launches a show and promotes it the way Disney Channel does. Networks could take a lesson.
i think this will be a good show but might clash with glee a little hsm was a good money maker but their just pushing the limits like twilight was a good movie but now they have vampire diares when they already true blood out i think people will get tired of the whole singing and dancing concept just like people are already getting tired of vampires
Can’t wait to see your new show Luke Benward! AMAZING! You deserve it, keep shining… We LOVE you
Disney was not the first to do singing, so it is not theirs to claim. Glee was 5x more succesful than HSM, and Disney wants to make some money off of that success. Nice try, but it’s to small of a margin.
Excuse me, but in my opinion, glee is successful but it has never yet matched the total phenomena High School Musical has made. HSM was the most successful musical franchise targeted to the kids and tween demographic in the world. Following through, hsm was the first musical produced by the American Disney channel (the chheetah girls was more of a karaoke than a musical). It was the first dcom to hold a multiple city tour all across north and south America attended by thousands of people. The film was shown all around the globe being translated to native languages, having also multiple international versions of its songs. The sequel 2 was the highest rated tv movie for cable gathering about 17.2 million viewers on the young demographic alone. The sequel 3 was the first theatrical sequel for a tv movie. Senior year was also the highest grossing musical for an opening week for all time. Hsm has broken boundaries; that it was the first tv movie franchise to feature a theatrical sequel, and now to have the first cross over series of both a dcom and a tv series. Albums of the year, and more, hsm revolutionized the peoples’ perspective for musicals. More than anything, it touches hearts with life long legacies, being true to yourself, and cultivating potentials. Glee is great, but it hasn’t topped yet the phenomenon that is High School Musical.
Met the girl starring in the show- she is awesome. I love Disney!!! They have great shows – for kids and young teens– people who hate Disney- really need to get a life.
AWESOME! Finally Luke B. Get his own show!!! Love you Luke, can’t wait to see ur hard work!
I absolutely love Luke Benward and it’s great he’ll star on his own show, but I think disney is taken this HSM thing wayyy too far. I hate high school musical and so does every single person I know, and if you go to the school I do it is a heck of a lot of people. The first on was alright but a bit cheesy, the second was cheesier and the third was the cheesiest. I have a lot against disney as it is, I really think that they are wanting me and a whole lotta others to hate them. They need better ideas, not use the ideas the already used and re-develope them!
sorry, but thats just not the case everywhere. HSM was the first TV movie to be immediately turned in to a stage musical, and countless High Schools performed it in the first year, let alone since. When I was in HS the teacher and drama students said they would never do HSM, they all hated it etc, 2 years after I graduate, Stick to the Status Quo was in their Musical Revue this year, and one of my friends was Sharpay in it (type casted by looks, not personality).
I’d also like to point out that Glee vs HSM is huge differences. For one with HSM, you can love it, hate it, or you’re in the middle and just don’t care. But with Glee you either loveit to death or despise it for ruining GREAT songs. I first gave it a chance for The Rocky Horror Glee Show, ever since I have blocked the show from my cable box because they ruined it soooo much. When my HS did Time Warp last night it was hilarious, everyone was great in it, and they sang the part they played, like how Magenta has adeeper voicethat isn’tall pretty like how Glee did it, Glee also had completely wrong characters in Time Warp, at that point in the movie we haven’t met Dr. Frankenfurter, Dr. Scott, or Eddie, and they were all in that scene in Glee.
Another big difference between Glee and Madison High is that in Glee, they just take amazing songs and make them worse. Madison High will have ORIGINAL songs, no covers. I think Madison High wins for creativity.
SCREW GLEE i always hated that garbage, whereas i loooooooooooovvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeee HSM, i can’t wait to start downloading Madison High’s awesome songs, plus the actors look like they’re going to be goofy, unlike that crap show Jessie and Austin and freakin Ally with her overdoing her acting self,ugh lol let me calm down lol i just wish Disney hurry up though. all i have right now is GLC and i guueess Shake It Up, but they get on my nerves too sometimes. the little boy is adorable but Disney is overusing the rebellious younger brother thing, plus they make his characters try too hard to be like Gabe from GLC, who is by far THE best younger brother Disney’s had since Cody from suite life and Corey from That’s So Raven. he’s just so funny to mean, i guess i just love good luck charlie in general though lol. wow i jumped from the article to the whole channel lol DUCES
I have three kids who would love a Disney cruise.