PRINTMade-for-movie TV shows
From boob tube to the big screen
May 29, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City’s sex-columnist protagonist, once asked her gal pals, “So what are we going to do? Sit around bars, sipping Cosmos and sleeping with strangers when we’re 80?” Apparently, they haven’t finished their drinks quite yet. More than four years after the series concluded, the show is making its move to the big screen Friday. Sex and the City is following a trend in which a television series turns feature-length.
“Studios want something, anything, with a pre-sold brand name,” Jesse Hassenger, a film critic for
As Sex and the City prepares to strut its Manolos on the silver screen, some moviegoers are wondering whether the city is ready for full-feature Sex. Still, the movie might be Big. But, that’s not to say that every TV show should follow in Sex and the City’s stilettos.
The Hills
An hour and a half of high-drama characters sitting around and doing nothing but text messaging each other would be excruciatingly boring. Besides, everyone knows how it would end: LC and Heidi would make up. That is, if MTV wrote a big enough check.
America’s Next Top Model
It could be a difficult task to teach models acting for America’s next top movie. But a feature-length film created by and starring Tyra Banks would be the real torture. She already has two TV shows. That’s enough Tyra as it is.
Cops
Bad boys, whatcha gonna do when they come for you? We hope nothing that involves turning this show into a film. A movie exploiting the varmints of society would be depressing — unless it documented the incarceration of whoever decides to produce it.
Seinfeld
From man-hands to soup Nazis, this classic comedy never gets old. But perhaps an entire movie of George’s angry banter, Kramer’s crazy antics, Elaine’s disturbing dancing and Jerry’s dry humor would stretch on like a stand-up routine gone long.
Greenlighted glories
Not fit for film
filmcritic.com, said in an e-mail. “A TV show, even one that is no longer particularly popular, qualifies.”
When turning a TV show into a movie, it is important to give the film its own world with a whole new story. “In a feature, you have to essentially start from square one and tell a story, which includes telling it for people who have never seen the TV show,” says Dartmouth College television and film professor Bill Phillips.
Another important element within these films: signing on the same cast. “If they change much of the cast then they won’t draw the audience that they used to have when they were a television show,” says Ned Kopp, who is a freelance line producer, assistant director and production manager.
At the end of the day, studio executives have to follow their gut feeling. “Most of it is trial and error,” says Kopp. “Most of it is taking a chance. The studio executives, who are the people that approve the money, figure that if a show has run for a hundred shows and has gone into syndication then probably some part of it is good to try to do a motion picture with.”
Greenlighted glories
“Sci-fi is usually a good bet,” Hassenger says, “because there’s always stuff you don’t have the money or time to explore in the TV version.” The Star Trek movies have developed a cult following, and Serenity, which is based on Joss Whedon’s sci-fi western Firefly, was quite good.
Also scoring big with moviegoers is the most recent film adaptation of Transformers, which made the 1984 cartoon into a big-budget blockbuster based in reality. It grossed more than $700 million worldwide, and a sequel is underway.
Wayne’s World, a film based on a popular Saturday Night Live sketch, became an instant cult classic. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, the prequel to David Lynch’s oddly entertaining television show, earned barely more than $4 million in the box office, but it played at Cannes Film Festival in 1992 and was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards.
“It all comes down to execution,” Phillips says. “You hire the right writer and the right director, and you cast it correctly, and you will probably do well.”
Not fit for film
“Sitcoms will always be harder to translate than something more action- or intrigue-oriented,” Hassenger says. “And pretty much anything based on a Saturday-morning cartoon, like Alvin and the Chipmunks, is bound for disaster because most of those shows weren’t particularly good.”
Some kids’ shows always seem to make money in the box office, but the actual stories within the films tend to suffer in quality and originality for viewers who have already survived puberty. For example, The Lizzie McGuire Movie made more than $50 million in theaters alone, but the story and recycled themes from the tweeny Disney Channel show were mediocre at best.
And sometimes, the audience just doesn’t fall for the adaptation. The 2005 remake of the popular 1960s comedy Bewitched generated buzz when Sony Pictures announced that big-name actors Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell were starring. Somehow, the film failed to capture the spirit of the classic TV show and was ultimately a disappointment.
