Archie Comics have had a sudden burst of relevance in recent years, consisting of crossovers with Glee, a new gay character in Kevin Keller, an amazing series called Afterlife With Archie that sees Riverdale overtaken by zombies, and even killing off Archie himself in the “Life With Archie” comic book series.
Now, there’s a possibility for the world of Archie to gain even more prominence, as it has been reported by Deadline that FOX is interested in Riverdale, a drama based around the Archie characters. Executive producing the project is Greg Berlanti, who has been keeping himself quite busy in the comic book world with Arrow and The Flash and the possibility of Supergirl on the horizon. Joining him on Archie’s TV laugh-out (okay, so it probably won’t be funny) will be Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who has written that previously-mentioned Afterlife series as well as many other projects for Archie Comics Publications, where he is Chief Creative Officer. Sarah Schechter and Archie’s Jon Goldwater will also be executive producers. Warner Bros. TV and Berlanti Productions are the production companies behind the project.
Riverdale is described as a “bold, subversive take” and characters such as Archie, Betty, Veronica, Reggie, Jughead, and Kevin Keller are all expected to play roles.
This isn’t the first time Archie has been tried for live-action television. In 1964, there was an attempt to make it happen which you can find below. A “high school reunion” movie called To Riverdale And Back Again aired nearly 25 years ago; the TV-movie pre-dated the adult Life With Archie comics by a few decades. You can see that 1964 unaired pilot below:
