Yes, you read that correctly. The original tone for Riverdale was very different, and it was going to be a movie.
Riverdale executive producer Sarah Schechter recently chatted about the film that could have been and why they decided to trash it. Schecter told EW,
“It just got crazy. There were, like, time portals. At one point one of my bosses said, ‘What about Louis C.K. for Archie?’”
I almost choked on my coffee. If Louis C.K. was in the mix to play Archie in a Riverdale movie, what on earth did this movie look like? It sounds as though it was almost a sci-fi indie in which the main character drones on about his dreary personal life and occasionally makes extremely crude jokes.
So what happened? Schecter said,
“I called [Archie comics chief creative officer] Roberto and said, ‘Don’t close the deal. Run away.’ Soon after I left [to run Berlanti Productions], one of the first calls was to Roberto to say, ‘Why don’t we do this as a TV show?’”
Thank you, Sarah Schecter. Thank you for making this call. Riverdale might have some questionable wild plotlines, but the Archie comic showrunners clearly knew it would work better as a teen television drama. Not to mention that Louis C.K. is a known sexual predator so they really dodged a bullet there.
