Back in March, I wrote about the news that Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa had been picked to breathe new life into the Archie comic book series. Of course, by new life I meant death, because Aguirre-Sacasa would be introducing us to “Afterlife with Archie”, the story of Riverdale’s most famous gang of friends dealing with a zombie outbreak. Of the not-so-fresh twist on the classic series, I wrote, “Damn it, this is going to be a movie.”
Well, so far I’m half right.
… Warner Bros Pictures last night just closed all deals for a WME-packaged live-action movie based on Archie Comics. Producing are Roy Lee and Dan Lin, and Jon Goldwater, Krishnan Menon, and Jon Silk are executive producers. Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) has signed on to direct while Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Glee) is writing. (Via Deadline)
So here’s the thought process on this – Aguirre-Sacasa is the person writing “Afterlife with Archie” and he’s also writing the Archie movie. Therefore, WB’s Archie movie is going to be about zombies. That’s the very easy assumption to make since Aguirre-Sacasa is hot off of writing the remake of the horror classic Carrie and people like me always love watching zombies tear people to shreds.
Except, I’ll offer this prediction instead – it won’t be based on “Afterlife” at all, until the very end, probably after the credits, when we see a hand pop out of a grave or something to that effect. That way the first Archie movie can tell us the story of Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica, and then Aguirre-Sacasa will be rewarded with the allowance of making “Afterlife” as a sequel in a new franchise. That’s my guess. (That and the Archie XXX parody will be very popular.)
But I hope I’m wrong, because with the resurgence of Archie, I think we have a great opportunity to also resurrect my favorite comic book character that has just been butchered on the big screen…
