The casting for the Sabrina the Teenage Witch reboot is complete.
Netflix's reboot of the popular '90s comedy is already booked for a spot for 2018. Not only that, it takes a creative reversal of expectations from the light-hearted original. And this time Sabrina will have a much larger audience.
Sabrina, the main role, will be played by Kiernan Shipka from Mad Men. Shipka will fill the shoes Beth Broderick used to fill when it aired on ABC and the WB, written as a sitcom, which ran from 1996 to 2003.
Lucy Davis from Wonder Woman has been cast as Aunt Hilda, and Miranda Otto from Homeland will be Aunt Zelda. Miranda Otto was also in War of the Worlds and The Lord of the Rings franchise, but most recent is her presence in Homeland and 24: Legacy. Zelda is the stricter of the two aunts, while Aunt Hilda is laid back, the pair going back and forth at each other as they raise Sabrina.
The reboot will take its cue from the graphic novel by Archie Comics The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, a fresh untitled series from content creators Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Greg Berlanti, delving into the origin and adventures surrounding Sabrina from Sabrina the Teenage Witch, turning it into a grim bildungsroman, drawing inspiration from Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist. Sabrina who is a half-witch, half-mortal, struggles with her identity and fights evildoers of all horrifically fantastical kinds, according to Entertainment.
And Sabrina will have to fight some pretty impressive villains, Michelle Gomez from Doctor Who will be the anarchic possessed teacher holding the evil spirit Madam Satan.
Richard Coyle also has come into the fold on the Sabrina reboot as Father Blackwood who is a top of the chain priest in the Church of Night and the head in charge of the Academy of the Unseen Arts, with dark secrets that create conflict with Sabrina.
Richard Coyle played Jeff Murdock in Steven Moffat's sitcom Coupling, although he's recently gone into darker fiction by playing roles in The Fall, Crossbones and Hard Sun.
Netflix will pave the way for two full series of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, with it premiering around the globe in later 2018, according to Digital Spy.
The Sabrina reboot definitely has talent on it and is coming from a different creative slant, with audiences now wanting dark fiction more often, as seen in recent years with Horror as a genre, also thrillers. What will be interesting is what the finished product will look like? Since the reboot is not going with the original happy go lucky version will it be turned into a grim comedy, or a grim drama, or even a thriller?