The spinoff has received a straight-to-series order from the series' executive producers Steve Holland, Steven Molaro and Chuck Lorre and studio Warner Bros Television.
Sources say Jordan and Osment's deals are still being worked out, but the duo is expected to reprise their roles in the spinoff, which will likely have 13 episodes for the 2024-25 season. Representatives for CBS and WBTV declined comment.
Jordan has been a regular face in Young Sheldon since the beginning. He plays Sheldon's older brother George Marshall "Georgie" Cooper Jr, who dropped out of school at seventeen to work full-time at Meemaw's laundromat, where he first met Mandy (Osment) in season five. She was 29 at the time; he was 17 but lied to her about being 21. Mandy eventually discovered the truth, but at the time she and Georgie were already pregnant. It took a while, but Georgie gradually won back Mandy's trust, and the new parents got engaged in the season six finale.
There is no clear roadmap for Georgie and Mandy's relationship. In season twelve of The Big Bang Theory, where Georgie was played by Jerry O'Connell, the former high school dropout was a successful tire store chain owner who was married and divorced twice. That means a potential marriage between Georgie and Mandy won't last long, but it could likely span the length of a series, and Young Sheldon's producers have talked about taking liberties with The Big Bang Theory canon in the prequel.
Since Young Sheldon has already moved closer to the events of The Big Bang Theory, the Georgie and Mandy sequel could potentially reach a period parallel to The Big Bang Theory, although if Sheldon appears in the offshoot, he is expected to be voiced by Young Sheldon actor Iain Armitage and not by Jim Parsons, who played the character on The Big Bang Theory. The same goes for Zoe Perry, who plays Mary, Sheldon and Missy's mother on Young Sheldon and not Perry's real mother, Laurie Metcalf, who played her on The Big Bang Theory.
The new series also extends Lorre's ongoing presence on CBS dating back more than two decades. His two current network comedies, Young Sheldon and Bob Hearts Abishola, both end this season.
Holland, Molaro and Lorre are writing the script and producing the spinoff, which was in its early stages when the end of Young Sheldon was announced in November.
All three have worked on The Big Bang Theory or Young Sheldon (or both at the same time) since the launch of the parent series, which Lorre co-created, in 2007. Molaro led The Big Bang Theory for years before co-creating and co-creating Young Sheldon with Lorre becoming showrunner for the prequel. Holland succeeded him at the helm of The Big Bang Theory before moving to Young Sheldon after the mega-hit ended in 2019.
The fourteen-part seventh and final season of Young Sheldon kicks off on Thursday, February 15, and concludes with an hour-long series finale on May 16. The series finds a new audience on Netflix, where previous seasons attracted many viewers.
