90210 (season 1) - Production

Production

On March 13, 2008, it was announced that The CW was developing a contemporary spin-off of Beverly Hills, 90210, which first aired on Fox from October 1990 to May 2000. The project was put on the fast track by the network, and an order of the pilot was expected by the end of the month. The Beverly Hills, 90210 creator, Darren Star, was announced not to be involved with the project, as well as producer Aaron Spelling, who died in 2006. The only surviving element from the original series was the Creative Artists Agency, the talent agency which masterminded the spin-off idea. A detailed breakdown of the pilot written by Thomas was released on March 17, containing information on the plot and characters of the series. None of the characters were related to the original series; however, the series' featured a similar premise: a family with two teenagers who recently moved from the Midwest to Beverly Hills. To reflect the situation at the Beverly Hills school, where around 40 percent of the students were from Persian descent, a student named Navid Shirazi was created. Thomas intended to introduce The Peach Pit, the diner from Beverly Hills, 90210, but noted that it would not be featured in the pilot. The writer considered giving the siblings a job at a movie theater, as he did not want them to use their parent's credit cards. On April 14, Thomas announced that he was leaving the series to focus on his two pilots for ABC. Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah were hired as the new executive producers and wrote a new version of the script in late April. Sachs said that although Thomas had a "great script", their version of the script was edgier.

On May 11, one day before The CW's upfront presentations, the network officially picked up the series for the 2008–2009 television season. The CW gave the series a full-season order after airing just four episodes. After disagreeing with the network executives over the series' storylines, Sachs and Judah resigned as writers. The CW wanted the series to have a female perspective and focus more on money and glamor; however, Judah and Sachs were more comfortable writing for men. Instead, Judah began working on postproduction, including editing and music supervision, while Sachs ran the production on set. The CW hired Rebecca Rand Sinclair to retool the series as head writer. In late February 2009, Sinclair took over as executive producer.

Filming for the series usually took place in numerous high schools in Torrance and El Segundo, although several scenes were filmed in Torrance High School because of its large auditorium.