As Riverdale finally comes to its end after seven seasons, The CW is gearing up to adapt another Archie Comic into a series. Jake Chang will fill the soapy, noir gap left behind by Riverdale, as it follows a 16-year-old private detective in Chinatown.
The show is in development with Daniel Dae Kim’s 3AD, Archie Studios, and Warner Bros Television. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’s writer Oanh Ly and writer-director Viet Nguyen lead the project.
“We are so proud and honored to be a part of this new wave of Asian-American content created by and starring Asian-Americans,” Ly and Nguyen say in a statement to Deadline. “The world of Jake Chang is vast, compelling, and a whole lot of fun. And just like our rascally teen detective, we’re going to lean into the ‘F U’ of the original Fu Chang IP and delightfully destroy all familiar tropes and tell a unique Asian-American story.”
Per Deadline, the series will “blend soapy teen drama with the neon noir aesthetic, all while flipping nearly every Asian stereotype—honor, martial arts, destiny, lineage, parental sacrifice—on its head.” As a character, Jake Chang will traverse vast racial and socioeconomic worlds as he investigates mysteries in the his elite private school as well as his gentrifying neighborhood.
Jake Chang is a very new character within the Archie Comics universe, as the company only unveiled the trademark in February. In the comics, Chang will make his debut on July 27, with “Mystery of the Missing Mermaid.” While the connection is not crystal clear, there is some lineage between Jake and Fu Chang, the international private detective. In the Archie Comics, Fu Chang lives in the Chinatown district of San Francisco during the 1940s.
No casting announcements have been made just yet.