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Just a day after the premiere of Freeform’s flagship show Pretty Little Liars‘ final season, the network presented to advertisers their plans for the future, with several comedy projects in the works to take their lineup beyond the young melodramas they’re known for. It was a big change from Freeform’s first upfront presentation last year, where the newly minted channel only found one successful freshman series with Shadowhunters.
The presentation was opened with Iliza Shlesinger, who will host the upcoming talk show Truth & Iliza, and network president Tom Ascheim, who discussed plans to continue to launch programming across all Freeform platforms simultaneously.
Comedy additions include a series order for Sticks, an animated comedy from Will Gluck and Broad City’s Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson and Alone Together from The Lonely Island group which will premiere in 2018. A series order was also given to Hollywood Movie Night with Karlie Kloss, from producers Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner
The former-ABC Family network showed off its franchise ties with a trailer for Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger. The series is one of two from Marvel, which also gave a series order to comedy New Warriors.
On the drama side, The Bold Type and Siren were given orders. The latter is a mermaid drama based on a story by Eric Wald and Dean White. Finding Carter‘s Emily Whitesell will act as showrunner on the series.
One of the biggest announcements came with the reveal that a sequel to fantasy movie Life-Size is in the works and will star original lead Tyra Banks. The original debuted in 2000 on ABC as part of the Wonderful World of Disney. Disney Channel previously announced they were working on a sequel in 2012. The sequel will see Banks reprise her role as a doll that comes to life, but this time she’s magically awoken to help a young woman learn to live and love again. Along the way, Eve herself will experience the ups and downs of real life in a fun, edgy, modern Christmas movie. While Life-Size 2 will debut in 2018, Freeform has plans for this holiday season as well. The original movie Angry Angel and holiday special Decorating Disney, will air as part of Freeform’s annual 25 Days of Christmas.
Click here to see all of Freeform’s trailers from their 2017 upfront presentation.
Emily J | TV Editor
