Hilarie Burton Morgan and Sophia Bush of One Tree Hill. Image courtesy The CW.

I don’t wanna be anything other than what I’m tryin’ to be lately…

If that Gavin McGraw lyric doesn’t bring to mind images of high school basketball, love triangles, teen marriage, murdered uncles, nefarious nannies, MILFs, and a dog eating a human heart, you probably weren’t watching One Tree Hill back in the day.

If so, now is the perfect time to get caught up in the infamous teen/young adult drama that ran for three seasons on The WB, beginning in 2003, and six more on The CW before its 2012 finale, because Netflix is developing a sequel with stars Hilarie Burton Morgan and Sophia Bush, who played Peyton and Brooke, respectively.

In addition to Burton Morgan and Bush, Danneel Ackles, who played Rachel is said to be returning. Ackles will be executive producing along with husband Jensen Ackles, himself a WB/CW star (Supernatural), through their Chaos Machine banner.

The sequel is said to take place 20 years later and will follow best friends Brooke and Peyton, now parents to teens, as their kids suffer through the same angst, issues and joys that Brooke and Peyton endured back in the day.

One Tree Hill began innocuously enough, with the main story following two half-brothers, Nathan (James Lafferty) and Lucas (Chad Michael Murray) who played on the same basketball team, having more animosity for each other than for players on rival teams. Burton Morgan and Bush played rivals for Lucas’ heart (at times – he wasn’t all that).

Image courtesy The CW.

From that relatively normal start, OTH‘s storytelling started taking more risks, involving both serious and silly plot lines like Nathan and Lucas’ dad Dan killing their uncle, Nathan and his HS girlfriend Haley (Bethany Joy Lenz) getting married before graduation, and, in a moment to rival (almost) anything Riverdale has done, watching a rescue dog gobble up a donor heart meant for Dan in the waiting room of a hospital. You kind of had to be there.

The OG One Tree Hill also starred Robert Buckley, Shantel VanSanten, Moira Kelly, Austin Nichols, Antwon Tanner and Paul Johansson, among others. According to Deadline, no other cast members have signed on but there have been informal conversations with several other cast members. Bush and Burton are the only ones set thus far, with formal approaches to others expected if or when the series is greenlighted. However, Murray has no plans to return for the follow-up, reports Deadline.

Burton Morgan and Bush got the ball rolling for the sequel by agitating for it on their OTH rewatch podcast Drama Queens, which they started with Lenz. Burton Morgan recently turned over hosting duties to Buckley, presumably because her character left the show in its 7th season, around the time Buckley’s character joined.

There’s currently no word on when – if ever – the One Tree Hill sequel would air on Netflix.

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