The students of Hartley High will be back for another term, with Netflix renewing YA series Heartbreak High for a second season.
Fremantle and Newbe’s reimagining of the ’90s teen drama hit screens on September 14 and has since remained in Australia’s top 10 TV shows on the streamer. It also spent three weeks in the global top 10, during which it was watched for 42.6 million hours.
Heartbreak High also earned top ten status in more than 43 territories, including the US, Europe, Africa, and Asia, and has been well received on video platform TikTok, where #heartbreakhigh has amassed over 300 million views.
According to a statement from Netflix, the cast and crew are preparing to reassemble for season two in Sydney.
Created by Hannah Carroll Chapman, the eight-part first season centred on a discovery that made Hartley High student Amerie (Ayesha Madon) an instant pariah among her classmates, and caused a mysterious and very public rift with her ride-or-die Harper (Asher Yasbincek). With her new friends – outsiders Quinni (Chloe Hayden) and Darren (James Majoos) – Amerie sought to repair her reputation while navigating love, sex, and heartbreak.
Also starring were Thomas Weatherall, Josh Heuston, Will McDonald, Gemma Chua-Tran, Rachel House, Chika Ikogwe, Sherry-Lee Watson, Bryn Chapman-Parish, and Brodie Townsend.
Chapman wrote the scripts with Matthew Whittet, Marieke Hardy, Meyne Wyatt, Thomas Wilson White, and Natesha Somasundaram, with Megan Palinkas serving as script producer.
Gracie Otto was the set-up director, working with Neil Sharma, Jessie Oldfield, and Adam Murfet, while Sarah Freeman produced.
Heartbreak High picked up four technical craft AACTA nominations today, including Best Casting for Amanda Mitchell; Best Cinematography in Television for Simon Ozolins; Best Costume Design in Television for Rita Carmody and Best Production Design in Television for Marni Kornhauser.
Netflix first announced it was commissioning a reboot of Heartbreak High in December 2020 after NewBe started shopping a contemporary remake at MIPCOM a year prior.
When production started in 2021, Netflix director of originals in Australia Que Minh Luu described the project as a “long-standing dream” for the streamer.