Archie Comics has been an enormous pop culture insтιтution since the тιтle first began in 1941, and the series will soon receive a movie that could adapt one of these incredible stories. The new Archie movie comes from Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, known for 21 Jump Street and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and is written by Tom King.

The upcoming film will be a new live-action take on the Archie mythos, and is certain to have a different tone from Riverdale, the CW’s recent series that liberally adapted the same source material. Riverdale pasted Archie Comics characters onto a Twin Peaks-like setting from its beginning, before swinging further into dark absurdity as the series went on.

Lord and Miller’s movies have shown that the directors are big fans of comedy and have incredible pop-culture awareness. Their take will likely skew closer to Greta Gerwig’s Barbie than to the CW’s Riverdale. With that in mind, there are a number of different directions, pulled from the comics and shows, that could make sense for the new film.

Life With Archie

Life with Archie has been one of the longer-running offshoot тιтles in the series, releasing more than 300 issues between its two runs beginning in 1958. The comic was the earliest attempt to modernize Archie into more dramatic storytelling that focused on longer stories of relationships and character drama rather than humor.

The jokes were still present, but the characters especially mattered. This source material could make for the most obvious by-the-numbers approach for a new Archie movie. Showing the town of Riverdale in its out-of-time state, with high-school students constantly cycling in and out of relationships, might be the perfect direction for the new film.

Archie: Pureheart The Powerful

Archie has had several superhero spinoffs through the years, including the new Superman-inspired Mr. Justice, but the best of these was in Pureheart the Powerful. In these comics, which began in the 1960s, Archie and his friends gained superpowers and fought crime alongside one another.

Featuring support from Jughead’s Captain Hero and Betty’s Superteen, the team fought against Reggie’s Evilheart in this campy, parodic spinoff of the superhero craze that swept the world during the silver age of comics.

With parody movies coming back with The Naked Gun and the upcoming Spaceballs 2, a superhero spoof that features the familiar Archie characters might be the perfect direction for the upcoming film. This could lean into the action-packed, big-budget feel of familiar epics, while also crafting a funny time at the movies with familiar faces.

Archie Marries Betty/Archie Marries Veronica

The central idea of Archie is familiar: he is a teen boy in Riverdale, and he cannot decide if he wants to be with the blonde girl-next-door, Betty Cooper, or the fabulous debutante Veronica Lodge.

This idea has been done to death, and a film that adapts the Archie story might be most effective by making a sequel to it, where Archie finally makes his choice.

This was done in the comics with a series of concurrent books. Archie Marries Betty and Archie Marries Veronica grew out of Life with Archie, and told two different stories imagining Archie’s future if he had made either choice. While this worked for a comic book, a movie would likely need to pick one path or another.

Whether choosing Betty or Veronica, a story that looks at Archie’s life, growth, and even his regrets after his time in Riverdale, could make for an excellent film. This could tell a fresh and original story that could reflect well on the past and future of Archie and his world.

An Archie Crossover

There have been so many Archie crossovers throughout the comics history, and any one of these could make for a compelling film. Archie Meets the Punisher, Archie Meets Glee, and Archie vs. Predator are only a small sample of the absurd crossovers that appeared in the comics, many of which could make for a compelling film.

Juggling multiple intellectual properties is a difficult task, but if anyone is up for it, it would be Lord and Miller. The two were major forces on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which brought together countless iterations of the hero into a single narrative, and both were involved in the unfortunately scrapped Men in Black and 21 Jump Street crossover movie.

The film is coming from Universal, which might limit its options for crossovers. Still, the thought of a Archie in Jurᴀssic Park, or Archie Meets King Kong, or Archie vs. the Universal Monsters sounds too good to miss.

Archie’s Weird Mysteries

Leaning into the absurd, Archie’s Weird Mysteries was an animated adaptation of the characters that aired for 40 episodes beginning in 1999. The series took the setting of Riverdale, and made it a nexus point that attracted monsters and ghouls from all over the world and beyond.

The show was primarily a monster-of-the-week format, and saw Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and the other kids of Riverdale, dealing with horrible monsters, often inspired by B-movie premises. These included killer potatoes, aliens, androids, and more.

Directly inspired by various Scooby-Doo series, the show could make for a strong film adaptation. Taking the familiar characters, but leaning into monster mayhem, might be an effective way for Lord and Miller to be able to project their unique sensibilities onto this project.

The Archies

The Archie Show aired for only one season on CBS beginning in 1968, but its impact was huge. The hit song “Sugar Sugar” came from the show and has remained an earworm for decades. Drawing from the fictional band from the comics, stories of The Archies are rife with possibilities for fun, musical films.

This was done recently with the Netflix release The Archies, from 2023. The Hindi-language movie adapted the comics and the show in a 1960s setting in India, telling the story of the band as they attempt to save a park from being demolished. The film leaned into the 1960s aesthetic and adeptly integrated music into its story.

An adventure like this could also make for a great story in America. Whether cast back into a period setting, or skewing closer to the earlier underrated Archie comics adaptation Josie and the Pussycats, there are several ways that a story of The Archies could make for a great film.

Afterlife With Archie

Afterlife with Archie played off the тιтle of the classic Life with Archie, and it told a story where the town of Riverdale became overrun by zombies. Begun by the death of Jughead’s beloved pup, H๏τ Dog, the heartbroken owner turned to Sabrina the Teenage Witch to resurrect him.

Unfortunately, this came with a cost. H๏τ Dog became infected, and immediately inflicted his curse on Jughead with a bite. It spread across Riverdale, turning into a strange story that could be used to make one of the scariest zombie movies of all time.

With a Lord and Miller twist, this could result in a film akin to Shaun of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ by embracing the fundamental silliness of the comics and applying that over a twisted tale of the unᴅᴇᴀᴅ. With such casual connections to the characters grounded in pop culture, turning this immediately into a zombie film could be a great choice.

Mark Waid’s Archie Relaunch From 2015

Rewatching Riverdale season 1 shows that the first season was almost onto something great. Despite its dark sheen, the initial setup shared some similarities with Mark Waid’s Archie relaunch event from 2015, in setting up strong romantic drama between Archie and his classmates.

This first major relaunch of the character since 1941 was a perfectly grounded teen story. Archie and Betty navigated relationship tensions while living in a more realistic, yet still idyllic, iteration of Riverdale. Veronica’s move to town complicated things, especially as Archie’s klutziness made a mess of Mr. Lodge’s construction properties.

Archie was everything that Riverdale should have been but wasn’t. The comic still had the goofy humor and charm of the classic comics, and the tensions were rooted in relationship drama.

Mr. Lodge’s attempt to hire Fred Andrews to force their family out of town, for example, was a central conflict in the early issues. The effectiveness of this dramatic story, while preserving the original comic’s outsized humor, proved that the series didn’t need murders, gangs, or magic to work.

Perhaps adapting this iteration of the Archie Comics might not be as out of the box as what Lord and Miller have tended to do in their work, but it would make for a very special film. Either way, modernizing the beloved comic for the big screen will be a difficult endeavour. Hopefully, it pays off.