Something wicked this way comes on the CW.
Rejoice, Riverdale fans, your demands for the appearance of Sabrina the Teenage Witch have been heard and answered, as E! News has learned that The CW and Warner Bros. TV are officially developing The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Yes, that's right, we're getting a companion series to Riverdale that will be based on the Archie Comics characters, which is being eyes for the 2018-19 TV season.
The same creative team behind Riverdale—Greg Berlanti, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Sarah Schechter and Jon Goldwater—are set to bring this new version of Sabrina (infamously played by Melissa Joan Hart on The WB from 1996-2003) back to the small screen, giving it a horror twist, with the network citing Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist as tonal references. (Sooo...no sassy talking cat then?)
Per The CW's logline for the series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a reimagining of the the origin and adventures of Sabrina the Teenage Witch "as a dark coming-of-age story that traffics in horror, the occult and, of course, witchcraft. Tonally in the vein of Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist, this adaptation finds Sabrina wrestling to reconcile her dual nature—half-witch, half-mortal—while standing against the evil forces that threaten her, her family and the daylight world humans inhabit."
Basically, it's the teen witch show of our dreams!
Since Riverdale's debut, fans have wondered if and when we would see Sabrina on the show, with producers playing coy about the character's potential arrival...until now, obviously.
But Riverdale actually teased The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina's development in the May finale, with FP (Skeet Ulrich) reading the comic in his jail cell, and when E! News asked Aguirre-Sacasa about it, he said, "It is absolutely true that we chose that comic book for a very particular reason."
Earlier this month, Descendants 2 star Dove Cameron got fans buzzing after she posted a photo of an old Sabrina the Teenage Witch comic on Instagram. Her caption? The telephone emoji. We wonder if The CW will take the hint?
But will we see Sabrina introduced on Riverdale, stirring up trouble with Archie (KJ Apa), Betty (Lili Reinhart), Veronica (Camila Mendes) and Jughead (Cole Sprouse) before the launch of her own series? So far, Riverdale has yet to tap into the supernatural, with Aguirre-Sacasa hinting it was something the writers were interested in exploring in season two.
"We obviously have talked about the supernatural in the room, and at a greater level with the network and the studio and things like that," he told us. "It's no secret that one of my favorite characters is Sabrina the Teenage Witch. There will absolutely always be a genre element to the show, and in season one, there are hints of the supernatural, and there are visions and dreams. Cheryl sees Jason as a zombie, and she sees his ghost, and Archie sees werewolves...I can tell you that in season we are going to continue pushing the envelope on that. It's almost like a little bit more like Twin Peaks, as it went on, it got a little bit more metaphysical and supernatural. That's kind of what we're thinking of for season two, which isn't to say that Sabrina is off the table completely, but I think it's a big thing to introduce the supernatural into a naturalistic world. We want to be really, really careful about how we do it.
Ready to dreamcast Sabrina? Tweet your pick @tbrick2 & @eonlineTV!
Riverdale returns Wednesday, Oct. 11 at 8 p.m. on The CW.