sabrina

Last week, we learned that the ‘Sabrina’ TV series, based on the comic book ‘The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ had received a two-season, twenty-episode order from streaming powerhouse Netflix. This came as a bit of a shock, as the show had been developed to air on The CW, alongside another Archie Comics adaptation, the hit ‘Riverdale’.  In fact, if you saw last week’s spooky episode of ‘Riverdale’, a lot of which revolved around the mysterious neighboring town of Greendale, it seemed to set up ‘Sabrina’.

So why did ‘Sabrina’ wind up on Netflix instead of The CW?  The answer is a bit political, but it comes down to another witchy project that has been stewing at the network– ‘Charmed’.  The original ‘Charmed’ ran from 1998-2006, beginning on The WB and continuing once that network merged with The UPN to become The WB.  ‘Jane The Virgin”s Jennie Snyder Urman has been working on a new version, which reportedly won’t connect to the original, but The CW passed on the pilot this past year.  Urman is now retooling it, hopefully for a 2018 bow.  It seems that The CW is higher hopes for ‘Charmed’ and only saw room for one new witch show.

But in a business-minded light, should ‘Charmed’ make it to series, it will be wholly owned by parent company CBS.  ‘Riverdale’ is a joint production between CBS and Warner Brothers.  Moving ‘Sabrina’ to Netflix means that Warner Brothers gets to keep full ownership and not share it with CBS.  So it looks like a win for both parties.  CBS owns ‘Charmed’, while WB owns all of ‘Sabrina’.

As one insider agent said:

“Warner Bros. is looking for any way that it can own 100 percent of their shows, and that drives a lot of decision-making there.”

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, creator of both ‘Riverdale’ and ‘Sabrina’ hopes that additional Archie Comics concepts will find their way to television and if so, they could still wind up at The CW, provided they fit with the network’s directions.

Are you upset that ‘Sabrina’ won’t share the screen with ‘Riverdale’?  Or are you fine with it on Netflix?  Are you glad that the move makes it more likely that a new version of ‘Charmed’ could be arriving soon?

Source: The Hollywood Reporter