10 Insane Things Studios DEMANDED In Movies
8. Velma Needs A Boyfriend - Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
Years before he became one of the most reliable filmmakers working in the superhero space, James Gunn wrote both live-action Scooby-Doo movies, though one aspect of his vision was curtailed by Warner Bros. - making Velma (Linda Cardellini) gay.
Gunn said that Velma was "explicitly gay" in his original draft of Scooby-Doo's script, but the studio kept interfering to "water down" Velma's queer identity and largely eliminate these elements from the script.
A scene was actually filmed in which Velma kisses Daphne (Sarah Michelle Gellar), though given Warner Bros.' clear mandate to stonewall even the faintest fleck of queerness in the film, it was cut and presumably remains locked away in a studio vault somewhere.
Warner Bros.' efforts were pervasive enough that they even demanded that Velma have a boyfriend, Patrick Wisely (Seth Green), in sequel Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.
Despite being a queer-coded icon for so long, it wasn't until 2022 that Velma finally came out as explicitly gay in a canonical Scooby-Doo project - the animated film Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!.