The CW Orders 4 Pilots – ‘Riverdale’, ‘Jane The Virgin’ Spinoffs,’The Lost Boys’ & ‘Nancy Drew’
The new year means new pilots, and The CW is ramping things up with 4 potential new shows. The US network has handed out pilot orders to spinoffs of ‘Riverdale’ and ‘Jane The Virgin’, along with a tv adaptation of cult 80’s movie ‘The Lost Boys’ and classic book series ‘Nancy Drew’.
The ‘Riverdale’ spinoff is titled ‘Katy Keene’, and is a musical dramedy centred on the lives and loves of four iconic Archie Comics characters – including fashion legend-to-be Katy Keene – as they chase their twenty-something dreams in New York City. This story chronicles the origins and struggles of four aspiring artists trying to make it on Broadway, on the runway and in the recording studio. The CW missed out on the last Riverdale spinoff, ‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’, which started out at the network, but was snapped up by Netflix who made it a massive hit. The show comes ‘Riverdale’ creator Robert Aguirre-Sacasa and ‘Riverdale’ co-executive producer Michael Grassi.
‘Jane the Novela’ comes from ‘Jane The Virgin’ creator Jennie Snyder Urman and is a telenovela-inspired anthology series based on novels “written by” Jane Villanueva, with the author acting as narrator. The first story is set in a Napa Valley Vineyard where family secrets (and family members) don’t stay buried for long.
‘The Lost Boys’ adaptation comes from ‘Veronica Mars’ and ‘iZombie’ creator Rob Thomas and has been floating around since 2016. Thomas himself is now tied up at Hulu with a new ‘Veronica Mars’ series, so writer Heather Mitchell (‘Scandal’, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’) took a new pass at a script which led to the pilot order. The story is set in Santa Carla, California, a town with a beautiful boardwalk, all the cotton candy you can eat… and a secret underworld of vampires. After the sudden death of their father, two brothers move to Santa Carla with their mother, who hopes to start anew in the town where she grew up. But the brothers find themselves drawn deeper and deeper into the seductive world of Santa Carla’s eternally beautiful and youthful undead.
‘Nancy Drew’ comes from the duo behind ‘Gossip Girl’ & ‘Runaways’, Josh Schwartz & Stephanie Savage. Set in the summer after her high school graduation, 18-year-old Nancy Drew thought she’d be leaving her hometown for college. But when a family tragedy holds her back another year, she finds herself embroiled in a ghostly murder investigation – and along the way, uncovers secrets that run deeper than she ever imagined. Schwartz & Savage will serve as exec producers, whilst ‘The Magicians’ writer Noga Landau will pen the script.
These 4 shows join the ‘Batwoman’ series which was ordered to pilot by The CW earlier this month. Bear in mind, all these shows are pilots, so it’s entirely possible only some (or even none) of them will make it to series. We’ll let you know when we hear more.
