There’s a dark and twisted take on Sabrina the Teenage Witch in the works at Netflix. The currently untitled Sabrina series will be based on the Archie Comics’ graphic novel The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. The series was originally considered for The CW where it would have paired up with the Archie Comics production, Riverdale, but Netflix has apparently stepped forward and scooped up the property.
Riverdale series creator/executive producer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is executive producing and writing the Sabrina the Teenage Witch series for Netflix. Lee Toland Krieger (The Age of Adaline, The Vicious Kind) is attached to direct and executive produce, with Greg Berlanti (Riverdale, Blindspot, Supergirl), Sarah Schechter (Riverdale, Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash), and Archie Comics’ Jon Goldwater also executive producing. The Sabrina series is set up under Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television.
The one-hour drama has been given a two season order for a total of 20 episodes. Netflix has not revealed any casting details yet nor have they announced a potential premiere date.
This version of Sabrina the Teenage Witch won’t have much in common with the previous television incarnation of the character. Melissa Joan Hart starred in a much lighter, more family-friendly version that ran on ABC from 1996 through 2003. The cast also included Nick Bakay, Caroline Rhea, Beth Broderick, Nate Richert, Jenna Leigh Green, Martin Mull, and Soleil Moon Frye.
The Plot: The ‘Untitled Sabrina Series’ imagines 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.
