The story behind Troma’s all-drag sci-fi comedy Vegas in Space will be told in a new film based on Craig Seligman’s 2023 book Who Does That Bitch Think She Is?: Doris Fish and the Rise of Drag. Deadline reports that Peaches Christ, the drag persona of Joshua Grannell (All About Evil), will direct Who Does That […]
The story behind Troma’s all-drag sci-fi comedy Vegas in Space will be told in a new film based on Craig Seligman’s 2023 book Who Does That Bitch Think She Is?: Doris Fish and the Rise of Drag.
Deadline reports that Peaches Christ, the drag persona of Joshua Grannell (All About Evil), will direct Who Does That Bitch Think She Is?from a script they co-wrote with their Midnight Mass podcast co-host, Michael Varrati (“The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula”).
In the 1991 cult classic, directed by Phillip R. Ford and co-written by star Doris Fish, three male space travelers from Earth undergo sex-change operations in order to solve a jewel heist on a planet occupied solely by women.
Principal photography on Vegas in Space spanned 18 months, but it took Ford and Fish eight years to raise the funds to complete the movie. Fish died from complications with AIDS mere months before the film’s premiere.
“I first discovered Vegas in Space as a teenager in Maryland, and it completely blew my mind,” said Grannell. “Doris Fish was a visionary—a drag trailblazer lightyears ahead of her time. After years of celebrating the film through Peaches Christ screenings in San Francisco, and learning more about the behind-the-scenes journey, it became clear to me that the story of making this movie is its own epic—a dazzling, defiant film that demands to be told.”
“The story of Doris Fish and Vegas in Space is about so much more than the making of an underground movie, but rather represents a significant chapter of queer history,” added Varrati. “Just as Tim Burton did with Ed Wood, we want to showcase how a dynamic group of outsiders were able to come together to create something groundbreaking that continues to be deeply relevant today.”
Jonathan Fernandez and former Troma exec Marty Sokol, who have optioned Seligman’s book, will produce the feature.
Vegas in Space will screen as part of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures‘ Summer of Camp series on July 11 in Los Angeles, accompanied by a conversation with Ford and Varrati.
