‘Riverdale’ Spinoff ‘Katy Keene’ Adds Ashleigh Murray’s Josie

When Riverdale airs next season, Josie McCoy will no longer be a resident, but her address is still at The CW. The character is reportedly being transferred to the upcoming Katy Keene, a spinoff centered on another classic Archie Comics character.

According to TVLine, Ashleigh Murray, who plays Josie on Riverdale, will have a lead role in the new show.

“Katy Keene follows the lives and loves of four iconic Archie Comics characters — including fashion legend-to-be Katy Keene and singer/songwriter Josie McCoy — as they chase their twenty-something dreams in New York City,” reads the official synopsis of the show. “This musical dramedy chronicles the origins and struggles of four aspiring artists trying to make it on Broadway, on the runway and in the recording studio.”

Murray has been a major part of Riverdale since the show launched in January 2017. She started as the lead singer for Josie and the Pussycats, but the group split and the other members of the band, played by Hayley Law and Asha Bromfield, have rarely been on the show since.

News of the Katy Keene spinoff broke in late January. Like Riverdale, it will be produced by Berlanti Productions and Warner Bros. Television. Michael Grassi and Robert Aguirre-Sacasa are writing the pilot and executive producing with Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Jon Goldwater.

Maggie Kiley, who has directed episodes of Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, will helm the pilot.

While many spin-offs usually launch with back-door pilots or crossover episodes, The CW chief Mark Pedowriz told reporters at the Television Critics Association Press Tour last week that Katy Keene happens too far into the future for that to work.

“Katy Keene takes places years after Riverdale High School,” Pedowitz said, reports Deadline. “There are no plans to do anything [regarding a crossover]. Any of the Riverdale characters who come to Katy Keene will be older. Robert [Aguirre-Sacasa] is getting the pilot right.”

Katy Keene will be the third series in the Riverdale franchise. Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is set in the same universe, with mentions of Riverdale dropped periodically in its first 11 episodes. However, Pedowitz said there are no talks with Aguitte-Sacasa about a Sabrina/Riverdale crossover.

Katy Keene debuted in Archie Comics in 1945. The character was “America’s Queen of Pin-Ups and Fashions,” working as a model, actress and singer. The character disappeared in the early 1960s, but was revived in the 1980s and has sporadically been used in the comics since.

New episodes of Riverdale air on The CW at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesdays.

Photo credit: The CW