MTV Develops 'The American Mall' Original Musical

After MTV's success of airing Legally Blonde The Musical and following in Disney's lucrative formula for TV movie-musicals, MTV hopes to make its mark in the original musical arena with plans afoot for The American Mall. 

"The project, from High School Musical producers Bill Borden and Barry Rosenbush, will premiere in the summer on the cable network, followed immediately by a release on DVD," reports Neelie Andreeva of The Hollywood Reporter as published on Billboard.com. Choreographer and stage director Shawn Ku, who made his film directorial debut with the musical Sundance short Pretty Dead Girl, directs.

"Bulgarian-born actress Nina Dobrev and Rob Mayes lead the ensemble cast of the musical, a romantic comedy-drama set at a mall. It centers on high school graduate Ally (Dobrev), a singer/songwriter battling to save her mother's music store and to keep the boy she loves, Joey (Mayes), a musically gifted young janitor who fronts a garage band. Autumn Reeser will play Ally's mean-girl adversary Madison, the spoiled and ruthless heiress to the owners of the mall who tries to shut down the music store and steal Ally's boy," state the website.

The film begins shooting in late January at a mall in Provo, Utah.  The cast will also include Yassmin Alers, Wade Allain-Marcus, Blythe Auffarth, David Baum, Bianca Collins, Neil Haskell, Brooke Lyons, Al Sapienza, Rodney To and Bresha Webb.

Nina Dobrev (Photo by Philip Cheung/Getty Images)