Listen to this articleBy Romeo San Vicente
UK’s Cucumber and Banana get American accents
Russell T. Davies (Queer as Folk), the man who created the UK dramedies Cucumber and Banana (both ran on Logo in 2015), is teaming up with American TV super-producer Shonda Rhimes to bring both shows to the United States. They’ll be folded together into one series for ABC currently known as Adult Behavior, with a pilot written by Wonder Woman scribe Allan Heinberg. And if you missed Cucumber and Banana when they aired on Logo, you should know that the gay white male world that QAF thoroughly explored is only part of the intersecting narratives of the two series, where characters from all corners of the LGBTQ+ world get their time to be the center of attention (think Sense 8 without the globe-trotting and supernatural mind powers). There’s no cast yet and no timeline for when the public gets a chance to see the finished product, but any queer primetime series by us and about us is something to celebrate well in advance.
Colton Haynes joins cast of American Horror Story
If you saw the comedy Rough Night, but still think you don’t know who Colton Haynes is, think again: He was the freaked out stripper in the thong. And now that you’ve made his acquaintance, you can look forward to his next job, co-starring in season 7 of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s American Horror Story. It’s under wraps at the moment, but we do know that the upcoming season centers around the aftermath of the 2016 Presidential Election, with the horror starting on the day after That Man won. (We still refuse to write out his full name and will probably never – what if a demon infects our laptop?) Other cast members include fellow valued queer performers Billy Eichner and Sarah Paulson, as well as Scream Queens co-star Billie Lourd and returning AHS cast member Evan Peters. Now, the question remains as to how much more horrifying the fictional version of this story can get when real life feels like a slowly-unfolding apocalypse? Come through, Ryan Murphy.
Every Day will be sort of gay
The popular YA novel Every Day, from author David Levithan, is coming to the big screen. Gay filmmaker Michael Sucsy (Grey Gardens) will direct from a script from Jesse Andrews (Me and Earl and The Dying Girl). Up-and-comer Angourie Rice – who played Ryan Gosling’s precocious daughter in The Nice Guys and will earn a wider audience this summer with Spider-Man: Homecoming – will star. But it’s not the fact that a gay director is at the helm that makes this story interesting. Every Day is a story that involves its young heroine falling in love with a supernatural entity called “A.” This entity moves into a fresh host body, sometimes male and sometimes female, each new day. In other words, Rice’s teenage protagonist will be getting a crash course in gender fluidity, bisexuality and speed dating all at once. We’re interested, and we hear this one will most likely move into host theaters sometime in 2018.
Chris Colfer Does everything at once now
It’s entirely possible that the last you heard from Chris Colfer was during the series finale of Glee. Well, guess what? The boy – OK, man; he’s 27 after all—hasn’t been sitting around waiting for his next gig. He’s been getting his life. Colfer is the author of a series of fantasy books known as The Land of Stories, a saga that spans six novels, an illustrated picture book, audiobooks and an upcoming graphic novel. Not content simply to be an actor, singer and best-selling author, he’s now signed a deal with 20th Century Fox and producer Shawn Levy to take the first of those books to the big screen. It’s called The Wishing Spell, and it’s about twin boys who find themselves transported into a world where classic fairy tales come to life. Colfer will not only adapt his own book into a screenplay, he’s also going to direct the movie. Feeling somewhat less than accomplished right now? Perhaps you should. And maybe his old boss Ryan Murphy will be asking him to collaborate one day.
Romeo San Vicente has already heard your cucumber and banana jokes; he’s just happy to see you.
