Louis CK could’ve been Archie in Riverdale

Before Archie got involved in TWIN PEAKS-esque murder mystery shit on CW's RIVERDALE, Robert Aguirre-Sacasa – the show's creator and Archie comics chief creative officer – wanted to create a feature film along the lines of PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER (which honestly seems like the most logical place to take the property). However, as fate would have it, no one was biting. The idea, apparently, wasn't exciting enough. That is, until Warner Bros. got some interest.

During the RIVERDALE panel at Sunday's Television Critics Association, Aguirre-Sacasa recounted the notes the executive gave during that time:

We go to the kickoff meeting and [the executive] said, 'You know, I've been thinking about this and I think you guys need to something a little more high concept, a little bigger than a coming-of-age [story],'…I said, 'Yeah, great. We're open to that.' He goes, 'I want you to think about time travel.' I say, 'What do you mean?' 'You know, Archie traveling through time.'

So…time-travel. Huh. Apparently that already happened with JUGHEAD'S TIME POLICE (yes, that's a real thing), but it wasn't what Aguirre-Sacasa was looking for. However, the executive had one more ace up his sleeve:

'What if Louis C.K. is Archie?'

That idea actually stuck around, as Aguirre-Sacasa tried to make the Louis C.K. idea work, even though middle-aged sad sack Archie also had already been done before with the 1990 TV movie TO RIVERDALE AND BACK AGAIN.

Anyway, the current incarnation of RIVERDALE, not starring Louis CK or time-travel (yet), will premiere on the CW January 26th, 2017 at 9PM EST.