Today, we at Knight Edge Media have learned that casting is currently underway for the upcoming Archie Comics live-action TV series, Afterlife with Archie. The series was announced last year by showrunners Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Francesco Francavilla (via Deadline). Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa previously worked on The CW’s Riverdale and Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. The casting call is looking for a Latino actor to take on the role of zombie Jughead Jones:
[JUGHEAD JONES] – Character portrayed is male, 18+ to play High School, Latino. Nicknamed “Torombolo” by his blue-collar parents, Jughead helps out however he can—by babysitting his kid sister Jellybean while his parents are at work, by making food deliveries for Pop’s diner to chip-in for household expenses. The “fringiest” member of our core-four, Jughead’s closest to Archie. In fact, if not for their friendship, Jughead might be even more of an outsider at Riverdale High—though he’s got his own thing going on, including a secret relationship with a certain teen-witch… When the unthinkable happens to his beloved pooch Hot Dog, Jughead sets in motion the events that will bring about the apocalypse—and his own untimely demise. But though he’s the first of our main characters to “turn,” we’ll see Jughead as his human self throughout our series—even as “Jugdead” assumes a status previously denied him—and who’s to say being a zombie lasts forever…? ROLE WILL REQUIRE HEAVY MAKEUP/PROSTHETICS WHEN IN ZOMBIE FORM.
This new series will not be connected to Riverdale and will be based strictly on the comics of the same name for Disney+. The logline for the series reads, “Afterlife with Archie finds the town of Riverdale in the throes of a zombie apocalypse—where the only thing scarier than the undead is trying to survive your teenage years. When a supernatural spell unleashes an army of the possessed dead, Archie and his friends must fight to stay alive, testing the friendships, romances, and loyalties that have always held them together.” Production is expected to begin this December and run through April 2027 in New York.
Afterlife with Archie will stream exclusively on Disney+
