Riverdale Star Cole Sprouse Says Most of Cast Wants Series to End

Riverdale is currently smack-dab in the middle of its sixth season, with the Archie Comics-inspired series bringing some unique storytelling onto The CW. The live-action show has grown into something of a cultural phenomenon, turning its ensemble of new and veteran actors into household names. Even as Riverdale was just renewed for the upcoming 2022-2023 season, taking it into its seventh season, the long-term future of the series is being speculated about. New comments from star Cole Sprouse, who portrays Jughead Jones on the series, recently added fuel to that fire, with the actor apparently telling GQ that the most of the actors on the series are "wrap it up with a bow."

"I'm not a creative force behind [Riverdale]. I actually have no creative control," Sprouse said of working on the series. "We show up, receive the scripts often the day of, and we're asked to shoot."

This lines up with comments that some of Sprouse and his costars have made in recent months, with some of them indicating that the end of the show could be in the near future.

"I give it another season," Camila Mendes, who portrays Veronica Lodge, told Entertainment Tonight earlier this year. "I think we'll go through season 7. Here's hoping. We'll see."

"I think just in a straight-up legal sense, contractually it started at seven seasons, which is a pretty standard contract for film and television, so I don't know what happens after that," Sprouse previously told Entertainment Tonight late last year. "But the world of Riverdale is open-ended enough to kind of flex alongside that."

Previously, Archie Andrews actor KJ Apa had spoken about the doubled-edged sword of working on the show, as the cast have limited time to pursue other projects outside of the show. 

"All of us want to shoot movies," Archie Andrews actor KJ Apa explained in a 2020 interview. "I think we're all, in a way, craving to work on other things because we're stuck in Vancouver on the show. Which is great — we all love working on the show. But we're all craving something else to bite into. It's awesome that we can do that too, because I don't know if that's common that a lot of TV actors can funnel into film that easily. I was always kind of scared of that, like, 'Man, I hope I can shoot movies, because I don't want to be pegged as Archie for the rest of my life.'"

Riverdale airs Sundays at 8/7c on The CW.