[27] The duo brought the project to Warner Bros., where a VP recommended a more high-concept direction involving time travel or interdimensional portals, suggesting Louis C. K. to portray an older Archie.

[28] Dan Lin and Roy Lee became producers on the project, which eventually stalled as priorities shifted at the studio towards larger tentpole films, and was reimagined as a television series.

[53] Lili Reinhart almost didn't land the role after her video-based audition, but after moving to LA and attending in-person casting, she managed to get chosen to play Betty Cooper.

[58] In March 2016, Marisol Nichols and Mädchen Amick joined the cast as Hermione Lodge and Alice Cooper, Veronica and Betty's mothers, respectively.

[59][60] A few days later, Ross Butler, Daniel Yang and Cody Kearsley were cast in the roles Reggie Mantle, Dilton Doiley and Moose Mason, respectively.

[64] The next month, Charles Melton was cast to take over the role of Reggie from Ross Butler in season 2, due to his status as a series regular on 13 Reasons Why.

[65] In July 2017, True Blood star Brit Morgan was cast in the recurring role of Penny Peabody, an attorney the Southside Serpents call in case of any run-ins with the law.

[85] Sets included Pop Tate's Chock'lit Shoppe, a copy of the functioning diner used in the pilot that is so realistic a truck driver parked his 18-wheeler there, believing that it was open.

[107][108][109] An album of Blake Neely's scoring for season 1 was released on compact disc by La-La Land Records, and simultaneously on download by WaterTower, on July 18, 2017.

[110] The season 2 album with scores from Neely and Sherri Chung was released on CD by La-La Land on October 30, 2018[111] and on digital by WaterTower on November 16, 2018.

[143][144] In July 2016, members of the cast and the executive producers attended San Diego Comic-Con to promote the upcoming series, where they premiered the first episode "Chapter One: The River's Edge".

The site's critical consensus reads, "Riverdale offers an amusingly self-aware reimagining of its classic source material that proves eerie, odd, daring, and above all addictive.

[153] Dave Nemetz of TVLine gave the series a "B+" saying that it turned out "to be an artfully crafted, instantly engaging teen soap with loads of potential.

"[159] Over the course of its run, Riverdale received widespread attention from critics and on social media for its increasingly campy and outlandish storylines, as well as for subverting teen drama conventions and the expectations of the source material.

[160][161][162][163] Rebecca Atler of Vulture deemed the series "one of the weirdest teen soaps ever made," adding that it "took tropes from gothic horror, fantasy, telenovelas, soap operas, comic books, gay art-house films, dark high-school comedies, musicals, and mafia movies and smushed them together into a pop-culture polycule—while the ensemble held it all together, putting it on like some sort of weekly vaudeville act.

"[163] Sam Bramesco of The Guardian called it "a sprawling soap opera with a liberated relationship to reality, the finest specimen of its genre in its era" and an "unending parade of camp [that] never once committed the cardinal sin of being boring.

"[160] Emma Stefansky of The Ringer opined that while some fans and journalists criticized subsequent seasons for "relying less and less on coherent plotting to craft its mazelike narrative," such storylines "only enhanced an already heightened experience.

"[161] Critics have attributed the escalation to more absurd storytelling to the series' standard-length seasons of approximately 20 episodes, no longer the norm, especially for teen dramas, in the wake of the streaming boom.

[160][161][163][164][165] Kristen Baldwin of Entertainment Weekly opined that "the world where a network allows a lavish, sexy, teen genre drama to run off the rails for seven gloriously outlandish seasons no longer exists," and also noted that Riverdale amid the CW's programming shift toward unscripted, sports, and acquired content under its new ownership by Nexstar Media Group.

In ranking the show's wildest storylines, Abby Monteil of Rolling Stone noted that the series' initial high school-based plot "soon mutated beyond its teen-drama trappings, transforming from a Twin Peaks-esque reimagining of the comics' squeaky-clean source material into a campy, Frankensteinian mash-up of genres, pop-culture references, and pie-in-the-sky melodrama that's frankly unlike anything that came before it.

"[162] Stefansky noted that the series "never played by conventional teen television's rules; it poked fun at certain clichés while embracing others and mixed the strange with the familiar" and took "more inspiration from Stephen King and Twin Peaks than from John Hughes or Gossip Girl.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, this trend started with "fans posting clips or video compilations of moments from the show on social media, which drew a lot of harsh comments and reactions from people.

"[166] Bramesco opined that the show's signature dialog "made the program a perennial laughingstock on social media, its juiciest soundbites posted without context for the gawking masses.

"[160] Stefansky observed that while "fans embraced the show's cringey tendencies[...] those who weren't watching could still feel the bewildered delight of reading word-salad headlines about what was going on.

"[161] Monteil referred to the series as "a popular internet punching bag, with sneering detractors taking to social media to mock the latest out-of-context viral clip," while also noting that plenty of the criticism aimed at the storylines is valid.

Lili Reinhart responded to the criticism, expressing that it had been difficult for the cast to be "the butt of the joke" online, adding, "We all want to be actors; we're passionate about what we do.

[170] This was later referenced on multiple occasions by The CW's president, Mark Pedowitz, who noted that they would watch Netflix numbers more closely for new series after seeing how Riverdale did on the platform.

[215] In the episode "Chapter Sixty-Seven: Varsity Blues" from the fourth season of Riverdale, Ty Wood reprises his role as Billy Marlin from Sabrina.

"[212] By January 2019, The CW issued a pilot order for the series stating that the plot will: "[follow] the lives and loves of four iconic Archie Comics characters—including fashion legend-to-be Katy Keene (Lucy Hale)—as they chase their twenty-something dreams in New York City.

In the second season, subtitled Summer School, recurring character Greg Mantzoukas reveals that he is the cousin of Kevin Keller in the sixth episode, further cementing the connection between both series.