Casper the Friendly Ghost is coming back to television in a brand new incarnation reminiscent of Riverdale‘s darker interpretation of the Archie comics. Peacock is developing Casper, a live-action, horror/adventure series, which reimagines the origin of Casper in a coming-of-age story that explores what it means to be alive.

Set in high school, Casper is written/executive produced by The Ghost Bride head writer Kai Yu Wu. In it, when a new family arrives in the small town of Eternal Falls, Casper finds himself entangled in a mystery uncovering dark secrets that have been buried for over 100 years.

Casper is produced by UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, and DreamWorks Animation.

Casper originated as an affable translucent ghost featured in a slew of animated movies by Famous Studios released between 1945 and 1959. That’s when the character was acquired by Harvey Comics, which had published Casper comics since 1952. Since then, Casper has headlined a slew of comic books, five animated television series, Matty’s Funday Funnies, The New Casper Cartoon Show, Casper and the Angels, The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper and Casper’s Scare School, as well as Universal Pictures’ 1995 live-action feature Casper. In 2001, Harvey Entertainment was acquired by Classic Media. In 2012, Classic Media was bought by DreamWorks Animation, which in turn was acquired by Universal Pictures parent NBCUniversal in 2016.

Like was the case in the 1995 movie, which starred Malachi Pearson, who voiced the title character, Christina Ricci and Bill Pullman, the new live-action Casper series is expected to feature CGI effects.

Wu serves as an executive producer on drama AZNBBGRL, which was recently picked up to pilot by Freeform. She previously was developer/head writer on another supernatural series, Netflix’s The Ghost Bride, and serves as co-executive producer on the upcoming Disney+ series, American Born Chinese. Writing credits also include The CW’s The Flash and NBC’s Hannibal.

Reported by Deadline.com