Netflix India on Thursday debuted the trailer for Zoya Akhtar’s much-awaited The Archies.
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A nostalgic retro musical, the film is an Indian adaptation of Archie Comics, reimagining Riverdale as a cosy hill station in 1960s India.
Co-written by Akhtar, Reema Kagti and Ayesha Devitre, The Archies features a host of young debutants, including Agastya Nanda as Archie Andrews, Khushi Kapoor as Betty and Suhana Khan as Veronica. As the trailer begins, Archie is bent on leaving Riverdale and becoming a serious musician. Meanwhile, his equation with Betty is complicated by the return of her best friend from London, Veronica. We also meet other characters like Jughead (Mihir Ahuja), Reggie (Vedang Raina), Ethel (Dot) and Dilton (Yuvraj Menda).
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As these kids navigate friendship, love and ambition, a conflict presents itself in the form of an expansive redevelopment project proposed by Veronica’s capitalist father. As their beloved Riverdale threatens to undergo an ugly transformation, Archie and gang are forced to band together and fight the good fight.
As per the makers, the story of The Archies is narrated through the lens of the Anglo-Indian community in India. Talking about the film, Zoya Akhtar said in a statement, “Having spent a lot of my childhood living in an Archie Comic, I’m thrilled to introduce Riverdale to this generation. The characters are iconic, their teenage life innocent, the world simpler, a time when less was more. Archie Comics, Netflix, Tiger Baby (Akhtar and Kagti’s banner) and Graphic India were in complete sync and wanted the adaptation to be as wholesome as the original comic was. It’s clean young adult content and was very fresh for Reema and me to work on.”
The Archies will premiere on Netflix on December 7.