Horror-Tinged 'Pretty Little Liars' Reboot From 'Riverdale' Creator Ordered To HBO Max

As anyone who watches Pretty Little Liars knows, nothing stays buried forever. That includes secrets, bodies, and of course, the show itself. Just three years after the ABC Family/Freeform teen mystery series went off the air, a Pretty Little Liars reboot is in the works from Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who is developing a "horror-tinged" take on the series with co-executive producer/writer Lindsay Calhoon Bring for HBO Max.

HBO Max has given a direct-to-series order a Pretty Little Liars reboot from executive producer and writer Aguirre-Sacasa and co-executive producer/writer Bring. The Max Original drama will be titled Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, and is described as a "horror-tinged" take on the mystery series set in a new town and with a "new generation of Little Liars."

Here is the description of the new reboot:

Twenty years ago, a series of tragic events almost ripped the blue-collar town of Millwood apart. Now, in the present day, a group of disparate teen girls — a brand-new set of Little Liars — find themselves tormented by an unknown Assailant and made to pay for the secret sin their parents committed two decades ago...as well as their own. In the dark, coming-of-RAGE, horror-tinged drama Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, we find ourselves miles away from Rosewood, but within the existing Pretty Little Liars universe — in a brand new town, with a new generation of Little Liars.

The original series ran for seven seasons on ABC Family/Freeform and followed a group of friends whose queen bee Alison mysteriously goes missing one night and is presumed dead, only for all of them to begin receiving mysterious blackmail texts from "A" one year later. The series was based on Sara Shepard's bestselling YA novels of the same name, though significantly departed from the books.

I'll admit that I watched a few episodes of the first season, and can see the appeal — with its high stakes and high melodrama and, Pretty Little Liars is basically Desperate Housewives for teens. A horror twist on this does sound intriguing, and considering Aguirre-Sacasa and Bring's success with the very creepy (and very camp) Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, I could see them giving Pretty Little Liars a similar treatment.

Aguirre-Sacasa and Bring said in a statement, "We're such huge fans of what I. Marlene King and her iconic cast created, we knew that we had to treat the original series as #CANON and do something different. So we're leaning into the suspense and horror in this reboot, which hopefully will honor what the fans loved about the hit series, while weaving in new, unexpected elements."

The series is produced by Aguirre-Sacasa's Muckle Man Productions and Alloy Entertainment (Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, The Vampire Diaries, You) in association with Warner Bros. Television. Alloy's Leslie Morgenstein and Gina Girolamo are also executive producers of the series.