Much like any kid arriving at the drugstore to find that all the best comics are taken, Fox has settled on Archie, picking up the long-running series about good ol’ fashioned sexual frustration for a drama called Riverdale. As suggested by its title, Riverdale will take a look at the goings-on of the small town where teenager Archie Andrews resides with his best friends and fixations—girl-next-door Betty, snobby socialite Veronica, cruel tyrant king Jughead—but with a “bold, subversive take.”
Deadline promises that the show, from comic-book adaptation guy Greg Berlanti (Arrow, The Flash, the upcoming Supergirl) and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Archie Comics’ chief creative officer, will look at the “darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome façade.” Love triangles that last for an interminable, oddly ageless seven decades. Random crossover appearances from alien bounty hunters. Contests where hamburgers eat you.
Aguirre-Sacasa, who previously turned comic books into surreal horror with Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, is responsible for some of the bestselling “subversive” Archies, including the zombie-filled Afterlife With Archie. He’s also been attached, at various points, to live-action Archie movies that never got off the ground. But presumably this project will replace those, as it promises to bring in the entire library of Archie characters—including the breakout, openly gay Kevin Keller (who has “a pivotal role”) and Josie And The Pussycats, who had their own subversive take on Archie some years back. And pretty soon, any other studio looking to get a comic book for their movie or TV show is just gonna have to settle for Baby Huey.