‘Pretty Little Liars’ Reboot Casts First 2 Leads

Pretty Little Liars ended on Freeform in 2017, but the teen drama will soon be making a comeback with a reboot on HBO Max. According to Deadline, the show has named its first two leads, casting Chandler Kinney and Maia Reficco as the stars of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, a “darker, present-day iteration” of the original series.

Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin is from Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa; Lindsay Calhoon Bring; Alloy Entertainment and Warner Bros TV and is scheduled to begin production later this summer at Upriver Studios in New York. The first two episodes will be directed by Lisa Soper. The series is based on the Pretty Little Liars novels by Sara Shepard and will feature a new story and new characters, though the show will still be in the existing Pretty Little Liars universe. The reboot’s synopsis reads, “Twenty years ago, a series of tragic events almost ripped the blue-collar town of Millwood apart. Now, in the present day, a group of disparate teen girls — a brand-new set of Little Liars — find themselves tormented by an unknown Assailant and made to pay for the secret sin their parents committed two decades ago…as well as their own.”

Kinney will star as Tabby, an aspiring director and horror movie buff who, like her fellow Liars, is hiding a secret. Reficco will portray Noa, a striving, sardonic track star who is working hard to get her life back to normal after a summer spent in juvenile detention. Kinney recently appeared in the Disney Channel movie Zombies 2 and has also been seen in Lethal Weapon, American Horror Story and Girl Meets World. Reficco has appeared in Nickelodeon’s Kally’s Mashup and has been in several stage productions. She is currently filming the Netflix movie Strangers.

The original Pretty Little Liars ran on ABC Family, which became Freeform, from 2010-2017 and starred Ashley Benson, Lucy Hale, Shay Mitchell and Troian Bellisario as the titular Liars and Sasha Pieterse as Alison DiLaurentis. The show inspired two spinoffs, Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists and Ravenswood, both of which were canceled after one season.