Netflix’s Riverdale companion series is starting to take shape.
The untitled Sabrina the Teenage Witch drama has enlisted Doctor Who grad Michelle Gomez and newcomer Chance Perdomo to join the Kiernan Shipka starrer.
Picked up with a two-season, straight-to-series order, the project reimagines the origin and adventures of the comic book character Sabrina the Teenage Witch as a dark coming-of-age tale that traffics in horror, the occult and witchcraft. It is described as in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, and finds Sabrina Spellman (Shipka) wrestling to reconcile her dual nature as a half-witch, half-mortal while fighting the evil forces that threaten her, her family and the daylight world humans inhabit. She is an empowered young woman who is just beginning her dark education as a sorceress, even as she tries to maintain a normal life as a sophomore at Baxter High. Intelligent, compassionate and brave to the point of recklessness, Sabrina is all that stands between us and the forces of darkness that threaten our world.
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Gomez will play Mary Wardell, Sabrina’s favorite teacher and mentor at Baxter High. When she is possessed by the Devil’s handmaiden, Madam Satan, Ms. Wardell turns into a sultry, cunning manipulator who is always trying to lure Sabrina down the Path of Night. Gomez’s credits also include The Book Group and Green Wing. She is repped by Industry Entertainment and Independent Talent Group in the U.K.
Perdomo, meanwhile, will play Ambrose Spellman, Sabrina’s warlock cousin from England. Placed under house arrest by the Witches Council, Ambrose is forbidden from leaving the funeral home where he lives with the Spellman women. Witty, puckish and pan-sexual, he is one of Sabrina’s partners in crime, always up for mischief. The part is U.K. native Perdomo’s first U.S. television role. He is repped by Authentic and the U.K.’s Scott Marshall Partners.
Gomez and Perdomo join a cast that also includes Jaz Sinclair (Easy, The Vampire Diaries) and Mad Men‘s Shipka.
Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who also serves as chief creative officer of Archie Comics, penned the script for the series. Aguirre-Sacasa will direct the drama and executive produce alongside Riverdale collaborators Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, Archie Comics CEO Jon Goldwater and Lee Toland Krieger. The project hails from Warner Bros. Television-based Berlanti Productions.
