This week, Neil Calloway suggests some films that would work well as TV shows…
With the new series of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. now underway, the Limitless TV show having just debuted in the US, and talk of a Game of Thrones movie being made (later denied). There’s even a TV show (the second, following a short-lived 1990 show) of the John Hughes/John Candy classic Uncle Buck coming soon. Add in the Minority Report TV show, and the just announced Lethal Weapon series and we have truly entered the age of the TV and film crossover.
The line between TV and film is growing smaller. The “small screen” is no longer seen as a step down from the cinema, largely because our TVs are no longer small, and people are watching what awful people call “content” in the same way – streaming it to their TV, laptop or tablet. Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann and Ridley Scott have all dabbled in TV (the latter in the never picked up pilot The Vatican). The best TV drama is now as revered as the best films, and the relationship between the two is blurring; the Marvel crossovers are one example and Bradley Cooper cameoing in the Limitless TV show wouldn’t have happened several years ago, when a TV spin-off would be sub par and with none of the original actors from the film.
There have been several planned TV spin offs in recent years that never made it to production. A TV series based on Duncan Jones’s 2011 film Source Code was mooted, but never made; there was certainly potential there for it to be a 21st Century version of the 1990s time travel drama Quantum Leap. The tantalising prospect of a live action Star Wars TV series, set between the prequels and the original trilogy, has come and gone and been in limbo for several years, with James Marquand, son of Return of the Jedi director Richard Marquand, lined up to direct an episode at one point. Done well, it could be very good, but done badly, it could be the worst elements of the prequels with none of the excitement of the originals. There are a few films that could be spun off into great TV shows.
It’s a little known fact that James Bond’s first screen outing was as an hour long US TV show adaptation of Casino Royale, with the character changed to US agent “Jimmy” Bond, and Felix Leiter became the Brit Clarence Leiter. There’s no reason why there couldn’t be a TV show set in Bond’s universe; Daniel Craig doesn’t need to cameo, and the focus can be on Miss Moneypenny, or if you want American audiences to tune in, why not have Felix Leiter as the star? Why not tell the story of Spectre on the small screen?
The Ghostbusters reboot is fast approaching, so why not have a TV show based on another Ghostbusting franchise in a city other than New York. Why not several, CSI style, set around the US. Ghostbusters: Detroit, anyone? The 1980s animated show proved it could work on the small screen, so why not have a live action show?
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation has proved that the film series can keep audiences watching despite being almost twenty years old, so why not return to its small screen origins? Another IMF team can be featured, and the format is familiar and works on TV.
The Godfather is ripe for epic mini series treatment. Francis Ford Coppola hasn’t had a hit in years, so his involvement, even as a producer, would put him back on top. TV gives you time, and the writer is king. If someone hasn’t pitched it to HBO already, I’d be very surprised.
Colonial Marines has been a successful video game. Why couldn’t it be a successful TV show? With Prometheus 2 and Alien 5 coming our way, who wouldn’t want to see Hudson and Hicks and their comrades in a TV show? Drop your linen and stop your grinning…
Done well, they could surpass their filmic originals – think Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Friday Night Lights. Done badly and they are the Ferris Bueller or Working Girl TV shows, which might have given early roles to Jennifer Aniston and Sandra Bullock but were cancelled after one season.
Neil Calloway is a pub quiz extraordinaire and Top Gun obsessive. Check back here every Sunday for future instalments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=qvTY7eXXIMg
Originally published October 4, 2015. Updated November 12, 2018.
