Damn, I thought this was about Archie Bunker. Sigh...
If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it?
These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.
Fosse76 said: "Globefan said: "Do you think there will ever be an Archie musical on Broadway?"
Who would the audience be?"
The Archie comics have been published since the 1940s, with various TV adaptations, cartoons and movies over the years. So I assume that there are people in many generations that are aware of or fans of The Archie franchise. So there would definitely be an audience. However, whether it would ever work as a musical? IDK. I'd see it though.
If a compelling story with great songs are attached to an Archie musical (any musical based on a book, a film or an original idea) that catches on with the public (and maybe the NY Times critic) it would be viable.
Source material alone has NEVER made for a hit musical. It's what one does with the source material.
It’s not as if Archie was a dead franchise before Riverdale- the famous supermarket digests and free religious tracts were hackneyed as always, but the horror-focused side series which launched in the 2000s was critically acclaimed, and the “Archie universe” reboot in the 2010s became a prestige comic series, with major indie comic creators and figures from the then current boom in animation contributing, like Rebecca Sugar.
Well, interestingly enough, Roberto Aguirre Sacasa originally made a stage parody of Archie called Archie's Weird Fantasy at Dad's Garage in Atlanta, which got a cease-and-desist from Archie Comics. And then he went on to create Riverdale.
I think I would be down to see an Archie musical if it divorced itself from Riverdale. But I see them in this moment of time being so culturally tied, that I don't think it would ever happen. I just don't think the dark re-imagining really suits the material. The reboot of Sabrina--totally different story (though it really went off the rails towards the end, almost Ryan Murphy still).
Yeah, give me the reboot universe over Riverdale any day. I want the asexual, autistic, snarky Jughead whose only sexuality comes in a weird vore fetish that even HE finds troubling.
darquegk said: "Yeah, give me the reboot universe over Riverdale any day. I want the asexual, autistic, snarky Jughead whose only sexuality comes in a weird vore fetish that even HE finds troubling."
Agreed! Seeing Jughead and Betty going at it constantly is NOT appealing. Any way another adaption of the series could take over the current universe would be welcome.