Disney’s Hit Girl Group “The Cheetah Girls” Returns With the Next Gen

2000s throwback nostalgia is in full force.

Over the past year, there has been a clear resurgence of 2000s trends, fashion, pop culture, music, and media influences throughout today’s entertainment landscape. Leaving everyone—regardless of whether they experienced the decade firsthand or are discovering it for the first time—enjoying some of the very best the era had to offer.

That likely means some Growl Power also slipped into your playlist.

Lately, we have seen a great many beloved faces from this era of pop culture return to our screens, offering fresh stories around the characters and worlds we have grown so close to, all while maintaining the heart of what made them so beloved in the first place.

Though many titles have been explored, there was one we were not-so-secretly waiting to see return—the first music-focused Disney Channel Original Movie franchise that created one of the most popular girl groups for tweens at the time: the one and only Cheetah Girls.

“The Cheetah Girls” started as a standalone film early in the 2000s and quickly became an obsession for pre-teen and tween girls following its premiere. With its focus on staying authentic to your voice and dreams, along with the importance of family and friendship—and, of course, its still must-loop soundtrack—it became a defining part of many childhoods. At the time, younger viewers had only recently seen “Lizzie McGuire” star Hilary Duff make her own transition into music.

With its popularity, and as Disney began making its early moves into tying music more closely to its projects and talent, “The Cheetah Girls” arrived before the lightning-in-a-bottle success of “Hannah Montana” and “High School Musical” that would later help define Disney’s music-driven era for tweens and young teens.

With tours, music releases, toys, consumer products, and three films to cap off the story of the group, The Cheetah Girls became an early Disney powerhouse.

One that was long overdue for some kind of return.

One that is now officially beginning production.

The next entry, presently titled “The Cheetah Girls: Next Gen,” acts as both a fourth installment in the franchise and a soft reset. Slated for a future release on Disney Channel and Disney+, the film continues Disney’s now familiar dual-platform rollout strategy.

In this film, fans can look forward to the return of several familiar faces, as Raven-Symoné (Galleria), Adrienne Bailon (Chanel), Lynn Whitfield (Dorothea), Lori Alter (Juanita), and Sabrina Bryan (Dorinda) will all appear in the film.

Leading the new generation is Leah Sava’ Jeffries (“Percy Jackson and the Olympians”) as Galleria’s daughter, Faith; Carmen Sanchez (“Electric Bloom”) as Chanel’s sister, Dior; Kaileen Chang as Ruby; Sophie Lennon as Brooklyn; and newcomer Kamogelo Ramashala as Kendi.

Outside of the key casting, we presently know only limited information about the film, with this being the only official logline released:

The story picks up when Cheetah Girls Galleria (Symoné) and Chanel (Bailon), alongside Galleria’s daughter Faith (Jeffries) and her three friends, travel to Africa to volunteer at a wildlife sanctuary. Along the way, these four teen girls test their friendship, find their voice, and discover the true Cheetah spirit as they save the preserve and ultimately take the stage as the new Cheetah Girls.

Though there is still a wait ahead, given that the film has only just entered production, it’s already setting the tone that this new chapter will follow many of the same core beats and themes as the first generation while recalibrating them for today’s audience. Offering truth to the sentiment that as much as some things change, others still stay the same.

Given how we have seen other hallmark Disney Channel franchises return with fresh life and new perspectives—from “High School Musical” to the soon-to-arrive “Camp Rock”—it seems Disney has found a way to preserve the magic that inspired the previous generation while allowing it to shine for younger viewers discovering these worlds for the very first time.