Simone from ‘All-American’ gets her own show: Everything to know

It looks like The CW is looking to expand a lot of their established properties into their own spinoff shows. So far, the network has ordered Nancy Drew spinoff Tom Swift and Black Lightning spinoff Painkiller. Now, it’s All American’s turn to get the spinoff treatment with the announcement yesterday that the network is moving forward with a spinoff following the drama’s Simone (Geffri Maya). 

All American, for those not watching (and you should), is inspired by the life of pro football player Spencer Paysinger. It follows Spencer James (Daniel Ezra), who is recruited from a South LA high school to play for Beverly Hills, which causes the two worlds to collide in unexpected ways. The series has been praised for its tackling of real world issues from class struggles, gang life, and, most recently, Black Lives Matter. 

Here’s what you need to know about the Simone-centric All American spinoff, All American: Homecoming.

Simone is heading to college

All American: Homecoming follows Simone, who is currently a senior at Beverly Hills High, and is set against the backdrop of the historically Black college & university experience (HBCU). We’re talking about schools such as the prestigious Howard University or Spelman College. 

The series, according to TVLine, is about a “young tennis hopeful from Beverly Hills (Maya) and an elite baseball player from Chicago as they contend with the high stakes of college sports, all while navigating the highs and lows (and sexiness!) of unsupervised early adulthood at a prestigious historically Black college.”

News of the potential spinoff broke in December 2020. Now, it’s officially been given the go ahead, so the backdoor pilot will go into production sometime during All American’s current third season. In the series, Simone currently dates Jordan (Michael Evan Behling) and the couple seems to be pretty happy. Why do we think that’s not going to last now? 

Who’s involved with the production? 

All American showrunner Nkechi Okoro Carroll will executive produce & write Homecoming. Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Robbie Rogers, who are all EPs on All American, will be on board as EPs as well. Michael Schultz, who directed multiple episodes of All American, is on board to direct the backdoor pilot for All American: Homecoming.

Currently, Geffri Maya is the only one in the cast as Simone. The CW, along with other networks, are currently facing a bit of a weird pilot development season due to COVID. The decision to launch the “fall” programming in January has led to the network just now getting pilot scripts. Chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz said that The CW will have a better idea of things come March or April. 

In addition, the network is choosing to do backdoor pilots over traditional pilots due to financial issues because, you know, COVID. If any of the pilot scripts they receive get the greenlight, then it will probably be a straight-to-series order versus just a pilot commitment, per Deadline. 

Anything else to know? 

Nothing much else. Details of the pilot episode are being held pretty close to the vest, but we’ll probably see it later in All American’s third season. Our guess is like late-late in the season, toward the finale. That’s usually when backdoor pilots air, though it’s really up to the crew where to put All American: Homecoming pilot. The title will be interesting to see because the series already has an episode called “Homecoming”. 

Either way, All American: Homecoming will definitely be a worthy step toward expanding All American into a great franchise. So it’s going to be exciting to see where things go moving forward at the CW. 

All American airs Mondays at 8/7c on The CW.