School Spirits: Peyton List to Star in Paramount+ YA Adaptation

Cobra Kai and Bunk’d star Peyton List has found her latest television series. On Wednesday, Paramount+ announced that it has given a series order for a new young adult drama, which is operating under the working title of School Spirits. The series focuses on a teen stuck in the afterlife who decides to investigate her mysterious disappearance alongside a group of other students who are also stuck in limbo at their high school. The show will be based on the upcoming graphic novel School Spirits, which is from Nate & Megan Trinrud and Maria Nguyen, and will be published by Clarion Books/HarperAlley, an imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books in the fall of 2023.

List will be starring in the series, which will be an eight-episode season showrun by Pretty Little Liars and Bridgerton alum Oliver Goldstick. The pilot episode of School Spirits will be directed by Max Winkler, whose work includes Cruel Summer and Jungleland. Production will be overseen by Shauna Phelan and Zack Olin, executive vice presidents and co-heads of Nickelodeon and Awesomeness live-action series and film.

List is best known for portraying Tory across Netflix’s Cobra Kai, which continues the narrative of the Karate Kid series of films. 

“I had just come off of Disney, so I was just meeting with networks and I was like, ‘Where do I want my life to go? What do I want to do?’ My agents would sit me down and ask me that in meetings, and I would be like, ‘I don’t know.’ What was I, 19?” List said of her career in an interview with WWD. “The creators had said, once I met them, that they were going to enjoy taking a Disney princess – that’s what they called me. They’re like, ‘Oh, we got to take the Disney princess. This will be fun.’ I was like, ‘Really? OK, well, if you guys have faith in me.’ And the whole time, even at the wrap party, they’re like, ‘This was the best decision we made, taking the Disney princess and bringing her in.’ I like proving myself, so I didn’t mind.”

“I feel like when I was a kid, I would just sit and take everything from everyone. So it’s been kind of therapeutic for me to just flip it,” List says. “She’s exactly the opposite of who I am. She really taught me a lot about my own life. I remember coming back and feeling like a new person. And I was like, ‘I want to be able to defend myself and be able to learn self-defense and fighting.’ Even if I never use it, just to be able to know it feels really powerful.”

What do you think of Peyton List joining the cast of School Spirits? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!