That’s right: Jughead’s going to Mars. Deadline reports that the Riverdale star is joining Lana Condor in Moonshot, HBO Max’s science fiction film about two college students who sneak onto a space shuttle. Both are headed to Mars because that’s where their significant others are—but given that the film is described as a “romantic comedy with a sci-fi twist,” it’s probably safe to guess that those extremely long-distance relationships are not going to last.
Sprouse is, of course, currently best known for playing Jughead on the increasingly (and delightfully) bananas Riverdale (pictured above). In 2019, he starred in the movie Five Feet Apart, in which he and Haley Lu Richardson played teens with cystic fibrosis who meet and fall in love in the hospital. He’s also the lead in the narrative podcast Borrasca.
Moonshot appears to be screenwriter Max Taxe’s first screenplay to be produced, but likely not his last; it was announced in February that Netflix bought the film rights to his short story “Ripple,” which is also a sci-fi love story. Christopher Winterbauer (Wyrm) is set to direct Moonshot.
Riverdale executive producers Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter are part of the producing team; the film is the second collaboration between HBO Max and Berlanti/Schechter Films (last year’s Unpregnant was the first).
No release date is yet announced. Sprouse claims he’s the last person you’d want to be trapped on a spaceship with—but we’ll see.
