‘Afterlife With Archie’ Live-Action Series In Development At Disney+ From ‘Riverdale’s Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

The reports of Archie Comics‘ death have been greatly exaggerated — or perhaps they were right on the money, just pointed in the wrong direction. While recent reports have been dire news for the publisher on the Archie Comics digest front, today has been a whirlwind of Hollywood news. And not only is there going to potentially be a live-action Archie movie being written by Tom King, but now word comes out that Disney+ is reportedly prepping a live-action Afterlife With Archie streaming series, showrun by none other than Riverdale creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.

The rumor of a potential series dropped earlier in the morning, but today’s Heat Vision newsletter from The Hollywood Reporter seemed to confirm the news. Read an item bulletin below the link to the Tom King/movie story, “And also: the zombie-themed Afterlife with Archie is heading to Disney+ as a live-action series with Riverdale creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa showrunning.”

While that was the long and short of it, on October 1, just in time for spooky season, the more official announcement dropped: Afterlife With Archie is indeed in development for Disney+, with Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television behind it. Not only that, but the show has a script-to-series order — meaning they’ve commissioned multiple scripts, and will pay a fee if they don’t go forward.

This marks the fourth live-action Archie Comics-based series for Aguirre-Sacasa, if it does indeed move forward into production. Previously, he developed Riverdale for Fox, before the series landed at The CW and ran for seven seasons. Also at The CW, he created a spinoff, Katy Keene, which included the classic Archie character as well as elements of Josie and the Pussycats, which ran for one season. And he also created Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, based on the comic he wrote for Archie, which ran for four “parts” on Netflix.

Afterlife with Archie was a 2013 comic book series written by Aguirre-Sacasa, with art by Francesco Francavilla, which helped revolutionize Archie Comics. Seriously. Not only was it the first Archie title sold directly to comic book shops, but the success of the book, alongside other titles of the time, helped Archie climb back to cultural relevance after a relatively stagnant period… Even though it only released 10 of a planned 12 issues.

And not for nothing, but this has clearly been a dream project for Aguirre-Sacasa for a while: back in the Riverdale days, when I would interview him for other outlets, he would often opine about how badly he wanted to do an adaptation of Afterlife with Archie on Riverdale. The show did briefly touch on zombies and the undead, but nothing close to what happens in the comic.

“We’ve talked about it, we’ve for sure had conversations about it,” Aguirre-Sacasa told a comic book fan at 2017’s WonderCon. “We’d love to do something that was a Halloween episode, or something that was related to that.”

There was even some extremely idle talk (if I remember correctly) of trying to do a crossover miniseries or movie version with the Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina actors… Though given this is headed to Disney+, it’s not likely we’ll see KJ Aja and Kiernan Shipka united on screen next to episodes of Bluey… Though given Warner Bros. TV is producing, depending on available rights, not out of the question.

In addition to the above-mentioned Aguirre-Sacasa and Greg Berlanti, Jimmy Gibbons will also executive produce via Muckle Man Productions. Sarach Schechter and Leigh London Redman will also executive produce, for Berlanti Productions. And Jon Goldwater will executive produce for Archie Comics Studios.

While there was no official release (yet) from Archie Comics about this project, a rep shared with Comic Book Club that, “we’ll have more to say about zombies soon.”

Here’s the official synopsis of the series, from the Archie Comics online shop:

When Jughead’s beloved pet Hot Dog is killed in a hit and run, Jughead turns to the only person he knows who can help bring back his canine companion—Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Using dark, forbidden magic, Sabrina is successful and Hot Dog returns to the land of the living. But he’s not the same… and soon, the darkness he brings back with him from beyond the grave begins to spread, forcing Archie and the gang to try to escape Riverdale!

There’s no news on casting or premiere date. But we can’t wait to bite into this one.

This article has been updated as of October 1, 2025, with additional information.

Comic Book Club Live Info:

Want to watch Comic Book Club live? We stream every Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET on YouTube and Twitch. Come hang out, and ask questions of our guests (and us!). And you could potentially win a $25 gift card to Midtown Comics. You can check out a current list of upcoming guests and other live appearances on our Shows page.