If you adore a good romantic comedy, movies based on young adult novels, and rising stars Katherine Langford and Nick Robinson, well then, get thee to a movie theater, because Love, Simon is definitely for you. However, there's another factor that you may not have considered when deciding what films to put on your must-watch list: your potential passion for The CW's Riverdale.
If you can't get enough of Betty, Archie, Jughead, and Veronica, you might want to check out Love, Simon as well — because Greg Berlanti, Riverdale producer, took time off the CW series to direct Love, Simon.
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If you watched Wednesday's episode of Riverdale, "The Hills Have Eyes," you definitely noticed all of the Love, Simon name-dropping. While the film's tale of a closeted teen (Robinson) who wants to find a big, romantic love story like all his straight peers do certainly resonated with Riverdale's secretly bisexual Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch), executive producer Berlanti's connection to the project may have had something to do with the tie-in.
The project was so important to Berlanti that he told Vanity Fair he left for 45 days in the middle of pilot season to pursue it. The reason?
"I read that script and I thought, [okay,] I really believe I’m the only person that should do this," the TV producer told Vanity Fair.
It's not just Berlanti's influence that might connect Riverdale to Love, Simon, which is based on Becky Albertalli's novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. On Riverdale, openly gay Kevin's (Casey Cott) dad, Sheriff Keller (Martin Cummins), is very accepting of his son's sexuality. It's a sadly rare thing for a teen drama to depict, but Berlanti's Love, Simon also incorporates a coming out experience that isn't met with parental anger.
In fact, Berlanti told Vanity Fair that he connected to Love, Simon because of his own positive experience with coming out to his now-late mother.
"[My mother] knew how important this subject matter and this story was, and she was incredibly supportive of me going to do that," Berlanti explained to the outlet. "I’ll never think of this movie and not think about it in that context."
Love, Simon, hits theaters March 16, 2018. Riverdale airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on The CW.
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