Nickelodeon Fast-Tracking New Trina 'Victorious' Spinoff With Daniella Monet Returning
Shecago anywhere, even back to Nickelodeon
Get ready to return to Hollywood Arts, apparently. Fresh off the premiere of Henry Danger: The Movie and the first four episodes of The Thundermans: Undercover, Nickelodeon is once again diving into its 2010s sitcom pool to pull out something for this decade. It’s a second Victorious spinoff, one will make Trina’s time to shine as Daniella Monet reprises her role as the elder Vega sister in a series with the working title Hollywood Arts.
The spinoff will see Trina return to her alma mater, Hollywood’s most elite performing arts school, as a teacher. The multi-camera comedy is in fast-track development at the network with early casting already getting underway. Considering The Thundermans: Undercover went from announced to premiering in just under 8 months and Wizards Beyond Waverly Place over at Disney Channel went from pilot order to premiere in just over 9 (with a premiere date set at just over 7), this could very well premiere before 2025 is even done.
Like with those two series, Monet serves as an executive producer, doing so alongside writers/executive producers Jake Farrow and Samantha Martin. Farrow is veteran of Schneider’s Bakery as far back as Drake & Josh where he was onscreen as Gavin, Josh’s co-worker at The Premiere movie theater. A writer there, he was a writer-producer on Victorious, iCarly, and their initial joint spinoff Sam & Cat, voicing Robbie’s puppet Rex Powers along the way. He was also a major part in steering the Dangerverse after Nickelodeon severed their relationship with longtime creator Dan Schneider. Martin also comes from Henry Danger and subsequently The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder. As for Schneider, nothing has changed about that relationship severed seven years ago, and he does not need to be brought up every time they make new projects from his shows with that in mind.
Monet is a veteran of Nickelodeon dating back to a three-episode arc on Zoey 101 as Rebecca Martin, who was a girlfriend of Chase’s who wanted him to sever his friendship with Zoey due to their history, which Chase refused. She appeared attending Nora Dershlit’s party in the iCarly episode “iPsycho”, which aired four months after Victorious premiered. From there, she was sprinkled all across Nickelodeon, taking over the role of Bertha in the Fred franchise, playing Tootie in the live-action Fairly OddParents movies with Drake Bell as Timmy, competed with her fellow Nick stars on game shows Figure It Out and BrainSurge, recurred in Winx Club, guest starred on Supah Ninjas, and more. Even after Victorious ended she would host AwesomenessTV and Paradise Run for the network and guest star on Cousins for Life. She returned to acting last year with the Hallmark movie Holiday Crashers, having taken something of a hiatus due to, well parts pandemic and having had her two kids in 2019 and 2021. Her next Hallmark movie, Sisterhood Inc. premieres February 22, and just wrapped on another film Six Feet Apart.
Victorious revolved around aspiring singer Tori Vega (Victoria Justice) who attends Hollywood Arts High School after initially being admitted after she put on an incredibly-received performance during a school showcase as an emergency substitute for her swollen-tongued sister Trina. As the show focused on Tori and her friends Andre Harris (Leon Thomas III), Robbie Shapiro (Matt Bennett), Jade West (Elizabeth Gillies), Cat Valentine (Ariana Grande) and Beck Oliver (Avan Jogia), it would become clear that Trina Vega was so untalented that it would lead everyone to question how she was even admitted in the first place. As far as where the audience stands with Hollywood Arts faculty, the flashback to her audition exemplifies just how limited the development of the staff was. The most developed was Erwin Sikowitz, played by Eric Lange, who eccentrically taught Tori and her friends and spend the most time with. Second was the guidance counselor Lane Alexander, played by Lane Napper. No reprisals beyond Monet have been revealed, if there even are any. The principal of the school was initially Principal Eikner, played by David Starzyk, who previously was the TV executive who tried to adapt the iCarly web show for television and then meddled with it extremely. Eikner fell so out of focus that he was written out, retiring to move to Hawaii for his Hawaiian girlfriend, and replaced by Drake & Josh-originating Helen Dubois, who was established to have been a child actor in her originating series, played once again by Yvette Nicole Brown in the midst of Community. Expectations of recurrence were non-existent, and indeed she never appeared again. However they had the continuity awareness to bring Starzyk back for Trina’s audition flashback, on a panel with Lane and Sikowitz. Because they were really everyone who mattered. There were other one off faculty, like Rob Riggle in the Richard Vernon role in their The Breakfast Club parody, but it all pales.
Victorious was a behemoth as big as iCarly and ran for four seasons and about 60 episodes before being canceled to give way to joint spinoff Sam & Cat, starring Grande and iCarly’s Jennette McCurdy as Sam Puckett. That premiered just five months after Victorious’s end and was poised to succeed both predecessors as the network’s big hit before internal conflict among the leads shut down the show before it could even complete its extended 40-episode first season. The world was previously returned to with Paramount+’s iCarly revival, which ran for three seasons and seems to have a wrap-up in development.
So far, three Victorious alums have congratulated Monet on Instagram. Jogia wrote “Could not be happier xx love you”, which Danielle reciprocated. Gillies wrote “This is so wonderful. Congratulations! Love you!” to which Monet replied “Thank you Liz! Love you!”. And finally, Bennett, who has become a touring DJ playing the original music born from Victorious and its peers on what he calls “Party101”, wrote “Let’s gooooooo! Excited to see this!” which has Monet asking “Can y’all come back too pls?”. In 2022, the NickRewind YouTube channel uploaded a compilation titled “8 Minutes of Trina Thinking She’s The Main Character”. Now it seems she’s about to be.
Source: Deadline