Teen Spirit

A refresher on the teens of Riverdale may seem anachronistic in 2023, but it's a different story when Zoya Akhtar is holding the reins. SADAF SHAIKH gets a frontrow seat to The Archies as the director talks about the film and the cast shares unscripted moments of levity.

- BOWEN ARICÒ

It's unlikely that anyone had an Archie Meets The Punisher crossover comic on their bingo card back in 1994. Nor did anyone expect Jughead Jones's insatiable hunger to be rooted in his lycanthropic lineage, or for him to face off against Veronica Lodge, who is turned into a vampire by a centuries-old bloodsucker. And yet, at some point, all of these events did occur in the Archie comics, which have charmed teenagers since the first edition was published in 1941. When filmmaker Zoya Akhtar was charged with depicting the never-ageing Riverdale teens in their first-ever live-action movie, she decided to place them in a fictional utopia set in Ooty, where dancing, singing, biking and picnicking need no occasion, and the only looming dark cloud seems to be Archie's doomed pursuit of both bookish Betty and vixenly Veronica. It's really what us '90s kids liked best about the original comics: they opened a portal to a place where nothing could go wrong even as realworld threats the onset of global warming, recession, skinny jeans-closed in on us.

As luck would have it or should I say 'luck by chance'-the film fell into Akhtar's lap serendipitously. "I had a meeting with Sharad Devarajan, co-founder of Graphic India, who contacted me because he wanted me to adapt another comic," says the director. "While we were speaking, I happened to tell him that I'm a huge fan of the Archie comics. He said, 'Oh, it's ours and we just leased it to Netflix.' In my head, it was gone since it had been handed over to a streaming platform. The next thing you know, he spoke with Netflix and they contacted me to ask if I would like to make the film."