Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, the filmmaker behind Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Prime Video’s Hunters, will direct the pilot of Afterlife With Archie for Disney+, Deadline reported on Monday. He will also direct the second episode and serve as an executive producer on both.
Disney+ ordered the show to series in July for a Halloween 2027 premiere. He has horror experience, too: he earned an Emmy nomination for directing American Horror Story: Coven.
What Afterlife With Archie Is About
The series is based on the bestselling comic by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Francesco Francavilla. In it, a spell from a certain teenage witch backfires and unleashes an army of the possessed dead on Riverdale. Archie and his friends have to fight to stay alive, and every friendship, romance and loyalty in the gang gets tested. As the logline puts it, the only thing scarier than the undead is trying to survive your teenage years.
Aguirre-Sacasa, who co-created the comic, executive produces the show with Jimmy Gibbons through Muckle Man Productions. Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Leigh London Redman executive produce through Berlanti Productions, and Jon Goldwater is on board for Archie Comics Studios. Muckle Man and Berlanti Productions both have overall deals at Warner Bros. Television, which is producing.
Who Is Alfonso Gomez-Rejon?
Gomez-Rejon is best known for Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, and he also directed The Current War with Benedict Cumberbatch. He also works often with Martin Scorsese, most recently on the upcoming documentary Aldeas: A New Story, which features Pope Francis’ last on-camera interview.
Next up, he has the Apple TV series Stowaway starring Oscar Isaac, the film The Fortress of Solitude and an Amazon series based on Edna Ferber’s novel Giant.
Still No Cast
The show will introduce a new live-action version of the Riverdale gang, but no cast has been announced yet, so there is no word yet on who will play Archie and his friends. Our earlier coverage has more on the Disney+ series order.
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