'One Of Us Is Lying': The YA Mystery Novel Is Becoming A Peacock Series

Peacock has ordered the adaptation of the YA novel One of Us is Lying to series. A teen whodunnit, One of Us is Lying is based on Karen M. MaManus' novel of the same name and is described as "The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars."The Wrap reports that Peacock has ordered the TV series adaptation of One of Us is Lying, a YA teen mystery drama that follows five strangers who walk into detention, with only four walking out alive. The series, which had been in development at E!, moved over to Peacock last year, which has ordered eight episodes for the One of Us is Lying TV series. The cast for the teen whodunnit has already been set, with newcomers The cast for the series features Marianly Tejada, Cooper van Grootel, Annalisa Cochrane, Chibuikem Uche, Barrett Carnahan, Jessica McLeod, and Melissa Collazo set to star as the "brain," the "beauty," the "criminal," the "athlete," and "the outcast" who find themselves in a far more dangerous version of The Breakfast Club.

Dario Madrona, who co-created the Spanish-language Netflix series Elite, will serve as showrunner for One of Us is Lying. Jennifer Morrison (Once Upon a Time) directed and produced the pilot, which was written by Erica Saleh. The series is also executive produced by John Sacchi and Matt Groesch of 5 More Minutes Productions. The series will be produced by UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group.

The YA novel was first published in 2017 and was a major hit, spending 132 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Here is the synopsis for One of Us is Lying novel, per Goodreads:

Pay close attention and you might solve this. On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention. Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule. Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess. Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing. Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher. AndSimon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High's notorious gossip app.

Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention, Simon's dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn't an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he'd planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who's still on the loose?

Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them.

The Breakfast Club as a teen YA whodunnit? It sounds like a good pitch, and can certainly build up Peacock's small collection of original titles. The lack of big names in the cast might prevent it from being an instant success, but if the premise is strong enough, maybe this could draw some young blood to the new streaming platform.