We’ve got our new Sabrina! Yup, Kiernan Shipka has been tapped to play Sabrina Spellman in the new Netflix series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

The series is being adapted from the Archie Horror title of the same name. You may be thinking…there’s a Archie Horror imprint? That’s right! Back in 2013, Archie Comics decided to take a big leap — into horror. They started off with Afterlife with Archie, a dark zombie apocalypse story set in Riverdale, and eventually made the jump into Sabrina’s world. With all of the success, they created a whole imprint that also includes the recently added Jughead: The Hunger and Vampironica. 

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina keeps a lot of the classic Sabrina elements fans know and love, like her aunts Hilda and Zelda, Salem the talking cat, and Sabrina’s boyfriend Harvey. But outside of that, the Netflix series will follow a dark coming of age story filled with horror, witchcraft, and occult. The tone of Sabrina will be significantly different that anything we’ve seen before around this character — think Rosemary’s Baby or The Exorcist.

Taking a look at the casting calls out for the characters in this series actually gives us a bit of insight into what we can expect in this new series. In this adaptation, Sabrina juggles her half witch side with her half mortal side. It isn’t easy being an all powerful witch and a high school student! Sabrina is described as being intelligent, compassionate, brave, and wickedly funny. So how will Kiernan Shipka hold up in the role? Based off of Shipka’s previous work, I think she’s got this! She’s had a career that dabbles in serious projects, like Mad Men and Feud, but has also tackled some more fun, lighthearted series like The Legend of Korra. 

Deep diving into more of the casting calls, it looks like Sabrina will also be in the middle of a star-crossed romance with Harvey. Harvey is described as being a “Prince Charming” who is very politically-minded, charismatic, and smart — but he has no idea he actually descends from a long line of witch hunters! In previous Sabrina iterations, Harvey is typically clueless when it comes to Sabrina’s powers, so this is definitely a big twist! Sabrina’s aunts Hilda and Zelda are still in the picture; in this series they operate a funeral home. And we meet cousin Ambrose, a necromancer, pansexual, and one of Sabrina’s partners in crime. She also has a best friend named Rosalind who has a big secret — she’s slowly losing her eyesight. And finally the big bad in this series is Madam Satan, a sultry cunning manipulator, who is trying to corrupt Sabrina per the Devil’s agenda. Based on this casting description is seems like Madam Satan is just the appetizer and there’s a bigger villain out there – The Devil — who wants to use Sabrina.

The Chilling Advenures of Sabrina comes from the same team as Riverdale: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Berlanti Productions, and Warner Bros. TV. Aguirre-Sacasa and Lee Toland Krieger, who wrote and directed the Riverdale pilot respectively, will be doing the same for the Sabrina pilot. So why isn’t the show on The CW alongside Riverdale? Apparently the series was originally being created as a companion show to Riverdale but The CW had only signed up for a development deal. Word on the street is Netflix offered them a better deal that they just couldn’t refused and has since picked up the show straight to series for a total of two seasons comprised of 20 episodes. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina could be hitting Netflix as early as the end of 2018. Bring on the magic and mayhem!

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