Pilot Season: The CW Orders Riverdale, Transylvania, Frequency & Kevin Williamson Supernatural Drama
Debi Moore
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It’s pilot season for the TV networks, and while we’re planning to keep our coverage to a minimum until some of the potential shows actually get picked up and put on the schedule, a few hit our radar tonight that we wanted to make you aware of, including one that we’ve been talking about for a while now.
First, for all you Archie fans (and there must be a lot of you since “America’s Favorite Teenager” is celebrating his 75th birthday this year), The CW has officially picked up the pilot episode for the live-action “Riverdale” TV series, to start filming this spring.
The one-hour drama will be written by Archie Comics Chief Creative Officer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and produced by Warner Brothers Studios and Berlanti Productions. It’s described as “a subversive take on the classic Archie mythos.” Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schecter, Jon Goldwater, and Aguirre-Sacasa serve as executive producers.
The live-action series offers a bold, subversive (that word again!) take on Archie, Betty, Veronica, and their friends, exploring small-town life and the darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome facade. The show will focus on the eternal love triangle of Archie Andrews, girl-next-door Betty Cooper, and rich socialite Veronica Lodge and will include the entire cast of characters from the comic books—including Archie’s rival, Reggie Mantle, and his slacker best friend, Jughead Jones. Popular gay character Kevin Keller will also play a pivotal role. In addition to the core cast, “Riverdale” will introduce other characters from Archie Comics’ expansive library, including Josie and the Pussycats.
Riverdale Promotional Image by Veronica Fish
We learned from Deadline that also in the works at the network is the 1880-set “Transylvania,” which is executive produced by Midnight Radio, the team of Jeff Pinkner, Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec, and Scott Rosenberg through CBS Studios.
Written/executive produced by Hugh Sterbakov (Hell and Back), “Transylvania” centers on a headstrong young woman in search of her missing father who ventures from NYC to Transylvania, where she teams up with a wrongfully disgraced Scotland Yard Detective, and together they witness the births of the most famous monsters and villains in history.
Per usual, Kevin Williamson has a few new series in the works–The CW is eyeing a supernatural drama that he wrote and David Nutter (“Game of Thrones,” “The X-Files,” Disturbing Behavior) will direct. The two are executive producing the pilot, about a young woman who seeks help from a parapsychologist when she begins to experience paranormal phenomena. Lauren Wagner is a producer. The untitled project hails from Warner Bros. TV and Williamson’s Outerbanks Entertainment. (On the sci-fi side of the fence, Williamson also has time-travel drama “Time After Time” in development at ABC.)
Speaking of sci-fi, remember that Dennis Quaid/Jim Caviezel film Frequency from back in 2000? The CW is working on a reimagining of that with WBTV and Lin Pictures. In their version, a female police detective in 2016 discovers she is able to speak via a ham radio with her estranged father (also a detective) who died in 1996. They forge a new relationship while working together on an unresolved murder case, but unintended consequences of the “butterfly effect” wreak havoc in the present day. The project, originally developed at NBC last season, was written by “Supernatural” showrunner Jeremy Carver, who executive produces with Toby Emmerich (who wrote the film), John Rickard, and Lin Pictures’ Dan Lin and Jennifer Gwartz.
And if you’ve always been intrigued by the 400-year-old Roanoke Colony mystery, it’s getting a galactic twist with a still untitled “Mars project,” from CBS TV Studios and the Kennedy/Marshall Co. Written by Doris Egan (“Reign”), it’s a thriller about a team of explorers who arrive on Mars to join the first human colony on the planet, only to discover that their predecessors have vanished. Led by a woman whose husband is among the missing, the colonists are forced to change their mission from exploration and settlement to investigation and survival, while navigating the hostile planet and their own personal demons. The project is inspired by the story of “The Lost Colony,” the 16th century British settlement on Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina, whose inhabitants vanished without a trace, sparking a slew of theories about their fate. Egan executive produces with Kennedy/Marshall’s Robert Zotnowski and Frank Marshall for CBS Studios.
Categorized:News
