The Riverdale movie Companion: Let's do it for Johnny, man. We'll do it for Johnny!
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa sure is a big Coppola/Scorsese/De Palma fan. There were many throwbacks to their respective mob movies, but this week Riverdale went the Coppola-does-indie direction.
All these fractions in town: The mobsters, the detectives, the serial killers, the Hitchcockian Grey Gardens, but let's not forget the motorcycle gang.
The inspiration for the Serpents could come from movies like The Wild One, or even cheesy Roger Corman flicks, but the primary inspiration it's right there in front of us. In the face of Jughead Jones. Look at him, doesn't he fits right in? Didn't we see that bone structure before? Rob Lowe, Ralph Macchio, and Matt Damon. In a little movie called The Outsiders.
Just writing it gives me goosebumps, loves that movie so much.
That's how you could pitch Riverdale these days; it's The Godfather meets The Outsiders.
Everybody knows, but to the sake of accuracy. The Outsiders is the movie Coppola made after a librarian and her students wrote to him, about a Young Adult book by S. E Hinton. Susie wrote it in High School and used a pseudonym to hide the fact that woman might have written a coming of age classic.
Coppola enjoyed working on The Outsiders so much, that he shot is back to back with S.E. Hinton's second book Rumble Fish. And every famous actor from the eighties, nineties, aughts—and well Tom Cruise is still doing pretty well for himself—is in it.
With the brawl between the Dark Circle and The Serpents, Riverdale made the homage pretty clear. Didn't you love that last turn Jug And Archie took towards each other? They could have been on stage playing in Hamilton; it was that theatrical and rhythmic. Now I wouldn't base my predictions for the Riverdale finale on The Outsiders; even if we've been promised a tragic rift between Archie and Jughead.
The Outsiders would spell trouble for the likes of Jug, Sweet Pea, Fangs, Toni and FP Jones.
In The Outsiders a brawl/rumble against the upper-class rival gang Socials, where one member of the Socs dies, results in the death of the Greasers Johnny and Dallas. So there could be something catastrophicin store for the Serpents...
But let's not focus on the dark side...Instead, let's fall in the hole that is an The Outsiders YouTube search and enjoy this recap of the strange audition process. Has there been a movie with a better male cast? Don't think so. Enjoy.
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