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A Riverdale Producer Was Almost Sued For His Gay Archie Parody
Riverdale is the current big hit teen drama. This hot and heavy take on Archie Comics finds Arch and the gang solving murders, battling gangs, and having all the sex we pretty much always assumed was happening off-panel anyway.
Warner Bros. TelevisionWhat, we were the only ones who thought Jughead was supposed to be a sex symbol?
Riverdale showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa began his career writing plays, which are like Netflix but with real people and the audience has to wear pants. One of his early works happened to be Archie's Weird Fantasy, in which the iconic redhead comes out of the closet and pals around with famed 1920s murderers Leopold and Loeb.
The day before the "loving pastiche" was set to open, Aguirre-Sacasa heard from Archie Comics. While you might expect they heard about this revisionist take and immediately put him to work on more revisionist Archie stories, the letter was in fact a cease-and-desist. It turns out the company thought that a gay Archie would "dilute and tarnish his image." The play's producers were forced to change the characters' names, and the title was changed to Weird Comic Book Fantasy.
Years later, Aguirre-Sacasa would be vindicated. After penning the zombie comic series Afterlife With Archie, he was made chief creative officer of Archie Comics, which paved the way for Riverdale, which paved the way for you to be more invested in Ethel and Moose than your own friends and family.
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Star Wars Fans Offered To Build Droids For The Force Awakens, And Got The Gig
Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been criticized for cramming in too much fanservice, and behind the scenes, they even hired fans to provide a service. Instead of turning to beady-eyed desert scavengers hocking stolen merchandise, the production procured droids from a couple of guys who loved Star Wars. You'd think Lucasfilm would have R2-D2s lying around their offices like paperclips, but even the iconic robot was rebuilt for Episode VII (and thanks to that notorious glory hog BB-8, he spent most of the movie powered down in a filthy corner).
LucasfilmWho could've foreseen that a marvel of modern special effects might overshadow a walking trashcan from the '70s?
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