Disney Canceled A High School Musical Spin-Off That Could Have Been A Generational Favorite

A trip to the theater to see a "family movie" in 2025 is more reliant than ever on Millennial sensibility, and bubbling Zoomer nostalgia begins to make its presence felt with big hits like "Lilo & Stitch" and "Inside Out 2." The Y2K-era and its immediate aftermath are firmly in the driver's seat as far as pop culture is concerned, even aughts horror staples like "Final Destination" are having a moment, that influence is only going to grow as the years continue to stretch onward. But, in the late '00s, Disney Channel had the chance to make one of their current fan-favorite franchises even bigger, and they surprisingly opted against it. "High School Musical" could have had a spinoff called "Madison High," however, the company chose not to put it into production despite casting and other reports surfacing around the show's development.

With the current love for "High School Musical," there's little doubt that something like "Madison High" would have been a nostalgic favorite by now, and possibly regarded the way things like "Camp Rock" or "Lemonade Mouth" are by late Millennials and the earliest Zoomer viewers. (If those names are leaving you scratching your head, maybe you missed the boat on the "rock star craze" that gripped a lot of family programming on these basic cable networks near the end of the 2000s.)

Still, a sense of lost opportunity lingers around the entire enterprise because of how strong nostalgia's wispy tendrils still tug at the nostrils of younger viewers now. (Have you seen all the fervor around "A Goofy Movie" lately? We're here, folks!) 2025 feels like a definitive passing of the baton moment from the oldest Millennials to their Zoomer replacements when it comes to defining these kinds of nostalgia plays. To wit, live-action versions of "How to Train Your Dragon" and a newer Disney sequel, "Zootopia 2," are heading our way. Did Disney make a mistake by not pursuing Madison High?

"Madison High" would have focused on Alyson Reed's Ms. Darbus, the "High School Musical" drama teacher heading to the titular school after teaching at East High in the previous movies, a tried and true setup for a spin-off show if I've ever seen one. Interestingly, this show would have seen the teacher getting her students to build a "revolutionary theatre programme" according to previous reporting by Digital Spy, and the subjects of their original production would have centered on their own lives.

Our other main characters would have been Devin Daniels, played by Luke Benward, as a motocross racer curious about branching into other hobbies, just like Troy Bolton was all those years ago. Joining him would have been Leah Lewis as Peyton Hall, a tennis star coming from homeschooling, and G. Hannelius as a theater kid with designs on being a star one day, Wednesday Malone. (She's got the stage name moniker all ready to go, so if things worked out, they wouldn't have to change that at all.) In addition, "American Idol" judge Kara DioGuardi made four original songs for the pilot episode of "Madison High."

This Disney Channel offering would have been a big time watch for the omnipresent music star-obsessed tweens and teens of that era in television, and some of the bones were good enough that they made it into the spiritual successor to "High School Musical." Yeah, that pitch sounds pretty similar to "High School Musical: The Musical: The Series," and that's already got a bit of a cult following among fans of the original and people who just enjoy these teen dramas. A lot of it made the cut, including: a new drama teacher, a new set of kids, and interpersonal drama. But, it's hard to argue that "Madison High" wouldn't have been a winner for viewers if the show had made it to series.