Over the last few years, Archie Comics has garnered a lot of mainstream attention for stories starring its namesake character, Archie Andrews. Whether it be introducing an openly gay character by the name of Kevin Keller, have Archie engage in an interracial relationship with Valerie of Josie and the Pussycats, or to provide an alternate reality look at what Archie’s life would be like if he married new love Valerie or old girlfriends Betty and Veronica, Archie has been in the news a lot lately. So it’s especially humorous to me that the only time Archie get Hollywood’s attention is when he had to face down a zombie apocalypse.
Collider reports that Warner Brothers has signed a deal with the comic company to adapt the Afterlife with Archie comic for the big screen. The comic, one part of the Archie Comics vast media empire, features stories where Archie and the Riverdale gang encounter horror concepts like The Stand, The Evil Dead and, yes, the zombie apocalypse.
The writer of the comic, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, will be writing the screenplay and Pitch Perfect‘s Jason Moore is set to direct.
Fun fact: Aguirre-Sacasa faced legal action from Archie Comics in 2003 over a play he wrote called Archie’s Private Fantasy. The comic company sent a cease and desist letter to an Atlanta theater that was about to put up the show, which featured a gay Archie, stating that the play would “dilute and tarnish his image.” The playwright reworked the play into Golden Age and turned Archie Andrews into a near-duplicate pastiche called “Buddy Baxter.” The show was put up on Off-Broadway back in 2005 with no known squabbles from Archie Comics. It’s good to see the two sides move past that little dust up and go on to make a bunch of money.
