Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is making a career out of taking Archie Comics characters and building darker worlds around them. It started with the comic series Afterlife with Archie in 2013, which Aguirre-Sacasa wrote. That series had Archie and his pals dealing with a zombie apocalypse – an idea that seems like something to scoff at, but if that comic book hadn't been written The CW wouldn't now be airing a show called Riverdale, which was created by Aguirre-Sacasa and examines "the darkness and weirdness" of Archie's hometown.
Archie Comics character Sabrina the Teenage Witch appeared in Afterlife with Archie, which led to Aguirre-Sacasa's version of the character getting her own horrific spin-off, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Now Aguirre-Sacasa is teaming with The CW and Warner Bros. Television to develop a television series inspired by the Chilling comics… and if this one-hour drama gets off the ground, it will be much different than the Sabrina the Teenage Witch TV show that starred Melissa Joan Hart and ran on ABC / The WB from 1996 to 2003.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina would be closer in tone to ROSEMARY'S BABY and THE EXORCIST, and would
see Sabrina wrestling to reconcile her dual nature as a half-witch, half-mortal while standing against the evil forces that threaten her, her family, and the daylight world humans inhabit.
Aguirre-Sacasa, who was named chief creative officer of Archie Comics after the success of Afterlife with Archie, is writing the pilot script and will be executive producing Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, Jon Goldwater, and Lee Toland Krieger will also be executive producing, with Krieger set to direct the pilot.
I never read Afterlife with Archie or Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, I haven't seen a single episode of Riverdale, so I can't speak to the quality of these darker Archie tales, but it's really weird to me to see these horror stories and murder mysteries being built around Archie characters.
If Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is ordered to series, the show will begin airing on The CW for the 2018 – 2019 season.