'Riverdale' Spin-Off 'Sabrina The Teenage Witch' Coming To Netflix

The Sabrina the Teenage Witch spin-off from the CW's hot Archie show Riverdale is coming to Netflix. Inspired by the comic book series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the show will reimagine the the story of Sabrina the Teenage Witch with a darker, more horror-oriented storyline. The series had originally been planned for the CW, but now Netflix has committed to a 20-episode season of show.

Ever since Riverdale reimagined the Archie comics as a dark, sexy Twin Peaks-esque teen drama, there's been a growing desire to bring original Archie Comics character Sabrina the Teenage Witch into the mix. Now, that desire has become a reality, and Sabrina is coming to Netflix. In September, Archie Comics announced the series would be arriving on Riverdale's network The CW in 2018, but now the untitled series has found a new home on Netflix. The streaming giant has committed to 20-episodes of the show, which The Hollywood Reporter describes as two 10-episode seasons that will shoot back to back.

Moving Sabrina from the CW to Netflix makes sense, since Riverdale's viewership quadrupled in its second season after the first season dropped on the streaming platform. Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the chief creative officer of Archie Comics, wrote the script for the Sabrina spin-off. The original plan was to have Sabrina show up during an episode of Riverdale before spinning-off into her own series. No word on if that plan has changed now that the show has jumped from The CW to Netflix.

This won't be the first live-action take on Sabrina the Teenage Witch. The character had her own live-action sitcom starting in 1996, with Melissa Joan Hart in the role. But while that Sabrina was a light comedy, this new version is being described as much darker, akin to something like Rosemary's Baby or The Exorcist. Here's how the show was being described back when it was being developed for the CW:

SABRINA will draw from the critically acclaimed CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA comic book series from Archie Comics written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and artist Robert Hack, detailing the compelling and shocking re-imagining of Sabrina the Teenage Witch's occult origins. This dark coming-of-age story deals with horror, the occult, and witchcraft and will see Sabrina struggle to reconcile her dual nature of being half-witch and half-mortal while protecting her family and the world from the forces of evil.

Now the hunt is on for the actress to play the lead witch. THR says the CW and Warner Bros. Television already had a list of actresses in consideration for the role, and now that list is being revisited with the commitment from Netflix. No word on when the show will arrive on Netflix, but filming is expected to begin in February 2018.