Archie Andrews was headed to Hollywood. In August last year, Universal Studios struck a deal to bring Archie, the carrot-top protagonist of the 85-year-old comic book series by the same name that brought iconic characters Veronica, Betty, and Jughead to life, to the big screen. The creators of the acclaimed Spider-Verse franchise and a former top Fox executive would produce the film, while the artist behind DC comics including Batman and Supergirl would pen the script.
It should have been a moment for celebration. Instead, it started a war.
Less than two months later, lenders from Raven Capital Management filed a lawsuit in New York Superior Court accusing Jonathan Goldwater — the son of an Archie Comics Publications founder and the company's co-chief executive officer — of going behind Raven’s back to sell Universal the rights to Archie intellectual property. Goldwater's lawyers fired back, accusing Raven of angling for control of one of the longest-running brands in comic book history just as Goldwater cinched a lucrative movie deal — and threatened to kick Goldwater out of a $5.7m Beverly Hills mansion a former Raven employee had promised years before. The dispute would become so ugly that Goldwater’s lawyers later described a phone call from Raven’s chief investment officer as having the tone of an “organized crime figure.”
Now the fight is coming to a head. In late May, Raven went on a new offensive, announcing a June UCC foreclosure auction for control of Goldwater’s family office — which includes a 25% stake in Archie Comics — at the Los Angeles offices of Paul Hastings, according to a classifieds notice in the Wall Street Journal. Goldwater is aware of the auction but hasn’t yet responded, according to a person familiar with the matter and public filings. If Raven seizes the stake through this auction, it could control the future of Archie Andrews and the Riverdale universe.
Archie’s troubles are a cautionary tale about what happens when lenders make a bet on brands with fading relevance. Even characters as iconic as Archie lose value over time without new media deals — and buyers for intellectual property are hard to find, particularly when Hollywood studios face their own financial struggles, leaving IP heirs with dwindling options.
“Inheriting intellectual property can be very beneficial, but it can also be very difficult. One feels a sense of responsibility to continue to drive value, and to continue to honor whatever the creative work was before,” Hollywood producer Tucker Tooley told 9fin in an interview. “If you dedicate your life to it and the world shifts away from you, it can be tricky. That sometimes leads to decisions that feel out of step with what made that IP great in the first place.”
Betty, Archie and Veronica. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Archie strikes a deal
Archie needed to innovate — or risk being left behind. The comic book series, which documents teenage shenanigans, heartbreak and love triangles in the fictional town of Riverdale, has sold more than two billion copies since it was first released in the 1940s. As comic book sales have declined, however, print runs of single issues that used to run in the hundreds of thousands now rarely top 10,000, according to court records.
Jonathan Goldwater, the son of an Archie founder, took ownership of the publishing house in 2009 alongside Nancy Silberkleit, the daughter-in-law of another company founder. The two fell out and sued each other more than a decade ago, with Goldwater accusing Silberkleit of erratic behavior and obtaining a restraining order against her, and Silberkleit accusing Goldwater — who pushed for digitization, modernization and new storylines like horror comics and Archie’s first gay character — of shielding her from company information she was entitled to.
They eventually settled, allowing Goldwater to pursue lucrative new business avenues like the The CW television series Riverdale in 2017, as well as more speculative ventures such as an Archie NFT line called the “Archiverse.”
In 2022 — a year away from the last episode of Riverdale, and two years after Netflix cancelled The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina television series, Goldwater made a giant new bet on the appetite for more Archie media and agreed to a loan he would later regret.
He signed a sprawling deal with Raven Capital, a New York-based lender specializing in asset-backed deals, that had two parts: a $40m loan to help him simplify his trust’s capital structure, ensuring he had control over the trust’s 25% stake in Archie Comics, and a second agreement more akin to a movie deal. The loan was accompanied by a personal “bad boy” guaranty from Goldwater himself, which could make him personally liable for the loan if he engaged in certain acts.
Former Raven principal James Masciello, an investor who also moonlit as a movie producer, arranged a deal via a separate entity called 18D Media to acquire an option to develop Archie’s famous characters like Archie, Jughead, Josie and the Pussycats and Sabrina the Teenage Witch for $80m, and outright acquired an exclusive license to develop Archie’s lesser-known characters like the Mighty Crusaders, according to Goldwater’s lawyers. Raven would later dispute this, arguing that the exclusive license covered all of Archie's characters from the outset.
As a sweetener unusual for a credit agreement, Goldwater was also granted an option to acquire a $5.7m mansion in the coveted Beverly Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles for just $1, which he exercised in January 2023, according to court records. Raven’s lawyers dispute that the option was ever exercised.
‘Studios aren’t into blindly acquiring IP’
The $40m deal helped Goldwater consolidate control of the Archie comics empire. To pay it back, Goldwater needed to make a deal. The deal hinged on Goldwater successfully monetizing Archie’s intellectual property, likely via a movie, television deal or outright sale of Archie’s IP. Should Goldwater not succeed by January 2024, he would need to immediately try to monetize it to fulfill the loan, according to the credit agreement.
But just a few months before, Goldwater hadn’t succeeded in making payments on the loan, leading to a flurry of deadline extensions. In late 2023, Goldwater hired mergers and acquisitions advisor the Raine Group to sell Archie-related assets — but the process failed. In early 2024, another sale process failed, according to court documents.
“It’s a really small world of players [who acquire IP],” a Hollywood lender who works in movie production told 9fin. “Could a studio come in and do it? Maybe, but studios aren’t into blindly acquiring IP. The idea that they’d just say, ‘Let’s go pick up the Archie comics IP,’ that’s just not something you do.”
Firms like Hilco, Shamrock Capital and Vine Asset Management are just some of the players in a quickly growing market for media and entertainment intellectual property, where receivables and royalties can lead to lucrative investments. But lending against unmonetized IP without a studio deal attached is unusual, according to the lender, who is not involved in the Archie transaction.
In April 2024, deadlines for Goldwater to secure a deal for Archie had passed — and Raven had lost patience. Raven moved to enforce, declaring default under the credit agreement. By August 2024, with defaults unremedied and further loan forbearance discussions breaking down, Raven demanded payment in full, accelerating the repayment of the outstanding credit agreement balance.
Raven went a step further and conducted a UCC foreclosure auction in October 2024 to enforce its collateral rights under the loan. On the block were equity interests in two co-borrowers, including 18D Media — the entity holding the disputed exclusive license to develop Archie’s characters. In exchange for a credit bid of $2m against a $40m loan, Raven acquired both entities, and with them, a direct path to enforce the exclusive license agreement on its own terms.
In the background, Raven’s relationship with Masciello — the Raven investor and entertainment figure who arranged the licensing deal with Goldwater via the 18D entity — was rapidly deteriorating, according to Goldwater. The fissure spilled into the public view in late 2024 when Masciello sued Raven over film ownership rights. Masciello died suddenly in January 2025, leaving Goldwater without the key architect of the original deal.
Masciello was replaced by new Raven leadership that Goldwater’s lawyers argued did not honor the deal’s original terms. "Raven Capital was supposed to be [Archie Comics’] and Mr. Goldwater’s partner in a joint venture,” Quinn Emanuel said in a lawsuit filing, “[b]ut because of Raven Capital’s infighting among its principals, that promising venture has fallen apart."
‘An ‘organized crime figure’’
Then came an announcement that upended everything. In August 2025, Hollywood news outlets The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline reported that Universal Studios was poised to develop an Archie movie, produced by film heavyweights Lord and Miller — the writer and producer duo behind the box office smash Spider-Verse franchise — former top Fox boss Emma Watts, and serial DC comic book artist Tom King as screenwriter.
The deal dropped like a bomb at Raven, which also discovered that Goldwater had allegedly agreed to license Archie characters in wine and beer products through an agreement with the company WineZ. A month after the announcement, Raven’s lawyers at Paul Hastings emailed Goldwater and his lawyers at Quinn Emanuel, demanding they turn over the agreements.
“Raven has for years sought to work with Mr. Goldwater, [Goldwater’s family office], and the other borrowers to resolve outstanding obligations,” Raven’s lawyers wrote. “[Archie Comic Publications’] unauthorized, entry or attempted entry into the wine agreement and the motion picture agreement constitutes… a material breach of the license agreement and a violation of 18D’s rights.”
The firm again once again sought full immediate repayment of the loan, this time seeking to hold Goldwater personally liable for the loan amounts owed under his guaranty, which it claims was triggered by licensing Archie for the film without Raven’s consent. Raven also asserted that the Universal deal breached the exclusive license agreement held by the now-Raven-controlled 18D Media, going so far as to threaten to take its demands directly to Universal.
“I am stunned that Raven has not jumped for joy over this incredibly exciting and value enhancing development (based on a single Archie storyline) that elevates ACP’s most famous characters into a feature film to be directed by extremely well-known directors,” Goldwater countered in an affidavit.
In October 2025, the situation reached a fever pitch. Raven sued Goldwater, and the next month Dimitri Cohen, Raven’s chief investment officer, called Goldwater directly. Cohen told Goldwater that unless he agreed to accept a settlement within a week, he would have Goldwater and his family kicked out of their Beverly Hills home and see that they were “financially destroyed,” an allegation Cohen and his lawyers dispute.
”It is a naked attempt to interfere with Archie Comics’s contractual relationships and threaten Mr. Goldwater’s livelihood as a fiduciary of Archie Comics,” Goldwater’s lawyers wrote in an email accusing Cohen of extortion. “Mr. Goldwater reported that the conversation had the tone of an 'organized crime figure' making threats. He has been deeply shaken by it.”
Films aren’t a ‘sustainable business’
After the call between Cohen and Goldwater, Raven reached its breaking point. Goldwater’s recollection of the call, according to Raven’s lawyers, “had unfortunately become a pattern whenever Raven has sought to engage with Mr. Goldwater on a compromise to allow Raven’s loan to be repaid. Raven has grown tired of Mr. Goldwater’s transparent attempts to further delay and distract from his failure to satisfy his contractual obligations.”
Raven decided to try a new tactic to collect its loan. In late May, Raven announced it would foreclose on its collateral — the equity in Goldwater’s family office, which controls a 25% stake in Archie Comic Publications — at Paul Hasting’s Los Angeles office in June, according to a classifieds listing in the Wall Street Journal. Goldwater hasn’t yet responded but could try to block the sale, according to a person familiar with the situation and a review of public records.
Goldwater owns 50% of Archie Comics’ equity, half through his family office and half via a trust, according to the Raven credit agreement. The other half of Archie Comics’ equity is owned by his co-CEO Silberkleit — the same woman he won a restraining order against more than a decade ago, who sued him again in 2020. While Raven would likely not seize control of Archie’s publishing house entirely, the lender could hold massive sway over the future of the company.
Should Raven succeed, it could come closer to controlling the fate of the Archie empire’s most valuable characters. Having obtained the exclusive license to develop certain Archie characters commercially through the 2024 foreclosure, seizing control over Goldwater's stake in Archie Comics now would give Raven a direct voice in deciding the future of these characters.
What this means for the future of the Archie movie — tentatively titled “Married Life,” after the comic book series where Archie marries Betty and Veronica in two parallel storylines, per court records — is unclear. Raven and Universal have never spoken, according to a person familiar with the matter, and the current status of the film is unknown.
Litigation of this magnitude, however, could put Archie’s star turn on the big screen on ice. Studios usually pause spending money on projects when litigation breaks out, a Hollywood producer and a media lender not involved in the Archie deal told 9fin — throwing doubt over the future of films that are already a challenge to get across the finish line.
”When you work in a business where most of the product fails financially, crazy stuff is going to exist," the lender said in an interview. “Films are expensive to make, they're glamorous and it's not a sustainable business."
