CW Picks Up Five Genre Pilots Including Archie Pilot ‘Riverdale’ 

New Pilot Orders at the CW

♦ The CW has picked up five pilots, including Gerg Berlanti’s Riverdale, based on the Archie comics.

The first is a paranormal thriller from Kevin Williamson (The Following, Scream). Williamson’s project follows a young woman who seeks help from a parapsychologist when she begins to experience paranormal phenomena.

Williamson will write and serve as executive producer, while David Nutter will direct the pilot and also serve as an EP. Lauren Wagner is also a producer.

Frequency will be written by Supernatural alumni Jeremy Carver, who will also serve as EP, along with Toby Emmerich, John Rickard, Dan Lin and Jennifer Gwartz. In this reimagining of the New Line Cinema time-travel film from 2000, 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 original film starred Quaid, Jim Caviezel and Elizabeth Mitchell.

Berlanti’s Riverdale is set in the present day and is based on the iconic Archie Comics characters. It is described as a surprising and subversive take on Archie, Betty, Veronica, and their friends, exploring the surrealism of small town life — the darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome façade.

Riverdale takes a subversive look at Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead’s life in their small town. Set in the present day it will take on the subjects of secrets, scandals, and teen drama. Riverdale’s creator, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, said that he drew inspiration from darker teen novels like “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “The Virgin Suicides.”

Casting is already underway for the series, which includes a self-esteem riddled Betty Cooper, a buff and flirtatious Archie Andrews, a brilliant Latina Veronica Lodge, and an emo-heartthrob Jughead Jones. Aguirre-Sacasa will write and executive produce along with Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Jon Goldwater.

The Untitled Mars Pilot comes from writer/EP Doris Egan and the official logline reads: “A team of explorers 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.”

Frank Marshall and Robert Zotnowski will also Executive Produce. The project is from CBS Television Studios in association with The Kennedy-Marshall Company.

Transylvania is set in 1880 and follows a headstrong young woman in search of her missing father, who ventures from New York City to Transylvania, where she teams up with a disgraced Scotland Yard detective. Together they witness the births of the most famous monsters and villains in history.

Hugh Sterbakov will write and serve as the Executive Producer along with Jeff Pinkner, Andre Nemec, Josh Applebaum and Scott Rosenberg. It hails from CBS Television Studios, in association with Midnight Radio.

Source: The Wrap plus additional reporting