There was apparently a pilot for a TV series based on The Spirit comic strip which aired in the late '80s. I had no idea it even existed until I came across it on the DC Universe streaming service. It was…not very good, but it did have a sort of campy earnestness, and a few genuinely funny moments. It also had Sam (“Flash Gordon”) Jones as The Spirit, Bumper Robinson (at the beginning of his somewhat meteoric child/teen actor career) as his sidekick, and a pre-DS9 Nana Vistor as his love interest.
I’m retroactively disappointed it never made it to series. At the time it would have aired, it would almost certainly would have been a favorite for me.
It was given a theatrical release, but you can tell it was intended for TV. There are a couple of abrupt scene changes that are obnoxious in a theater, but would have worked well as bookends for a commercial break.
The initial movie had a bigger budget than most kid’s shows of the era, but I think it would have made a good Saturday-morning series.
That “pilot” turned me off NCIS forever. I mean, look at it: Gibbs is supposed to be this genius investigator, but he can’t see that Rabb is (Obviously!*) not guilty of the crime, and (as I remember it) came across like a jerk as he was fumbling through the so-called investigation. Who’d want to watch that guy week after week? not me!
*sure, you say, we KNOW Rabb isn’t guilty, because we know the lead of the show won’t be. But since he actually WASN’T guilty, you’d think a hot-shot investigator would have caught on.
Honestly, I think he also deserved better than that 80s pilot, but it was a lot closer in, well, spirit to Eisner’s work than the theatrical movie was.
Married with Children did this with an episode titled “Radio Free Trumaine”, starring Keri Russell as a college student who started a radio show. IIRC, the tie in was that Bud lusted after her, but it was 95% non-MWC characters.
MWC also had a spinoff starring Matt LeBlanc. He had been in several episodes as one of Kelly’s idiotic boyfriends (his character was even dumber than Joey), and after his father appeared in an episode they gave them their own show. It got 2 7 episode seasons.
Northwest Passage - Book One: Rogers’ Rangers (1940)
From IMDB: “The subtitle “Book One: Rogers’ Rangers” shows that MGM and King Vidor intended to complete the story in a second film, which was never made due to the lengthy production obstacles that plagued this film. This explains why the characters never actually make it to the Northwest Passage.”
The Sword of Doom (1966)
From IMDB: "The abrupt ending of the film is due to the fact that it was originally intended to be the first part in a trilogy of films based on a lengthy Japanese novel. Nakazato Kaizan’s 41 volume historical novel focused on the Edo period in Japanese history…
There are at least three other versions of the same story, all of them trilogies. I have seen one other version (Satan’s Sword I-III, 1960-61) and the first movie of that series has an even more abrupt finale.
Flash Gordon (1980) - Serialized in the ‘40s, but alas, no sequels came from this one.
The Rocketeer (1991) - I have just now discovered there was a Disney Jr. TV series that used the comic book and movie as a point of departure. I am not sorry I missed it.
The Shadow (1994) – Multiple movies based on the character were made in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s, but this one didn’t make enough $$$.
Master and Commander (2003) – A sequel may yet materialize….
Green Lantern (2011) – I haven’t seen this and may never in this lifetime, but it seems obvious that sequels were intended.
I’d actually love to see some follow-on Hornblower movies. Now that Ioan Gruffudd is older, he’s right to play say… Captain, Commodore or Admiral Hornblower.
I was big into Remo Williams books and was happy when the movie came out it was with the new PG-13 because I was 13 and could go see it. I enjoyed it then but saw it recently and only liked it with nostalgia. I am bummed nothing else ever happened with it. That could be a fun Netflix series now.
I really liked The Shadow movie with Alec Baldwin. Again, a big Shadow fan, read the books and what comics I could find, then read the comic series that was new at the time. I still think it’s watchable.
I think what I would like is a movie set in the 20s or 30s but with a group that has better tech, however it is explained. Maybe not to smart phone level but computers, satellites, and better tech. I don’t know why and in the end, it probably wouldn’t work well. I think of this because it could be fun to find out the Shadow is more like a high tech gadget guy than mesmorist.
I saw that movie as a Saturday matinee in the local theater when I was 8 years old. To an 8-year old, it was a great movie and absolutely terrifying. The green death gave me nightmares for weeks. Thinking back, it still makes me nervous…but I haven’t seen the movie since then. I’d probably think it was totally corny now.
I can’t find any indication that they wanted to make a series of this, but considering that there were 11 novels and one collection written by George MacDonald Fraser, it seems likely that someone was thinking of making a film series out of the Flashman books.
I never read the books, but I saw the 1975 film Royal Flash, and can understand why it flopped. Even if you’ve got an antihero at the heart of your story, you’d like him to have some redeeming features so the audience can identify with him.
As it was, the film got terrible reviews overall and left the author “…so embarrassed by it that he spent the whole time with his head in his hands.” according to his daughter.
I’ve read comics of various eras, listened to a lot of the old radio shows and seen the Baldwin film. I thought the heart of the character was hypnotic powers backed up by twin pistols.
Back To The OP
White Dwarf- it was a pilot about an odd far off world where it alway day on one half and night on the other. The writing had its moments. The acting was good. The special effects and make up were great. It got shown a few times on different channels and I always thought somebody would pick it up. Nobody ever did.
Ralph Bakshi never made the second half of his animated Lord of the Rings adaptation.
The Percy Jackson books. Obviously they had designs on filming the complete series - they hired the director of the first two Harry Potter films, they aged up the characters to be teenagers so as to avoid the aging child actor issues that forced the HP franchise to film at such a rapid rate. The first one underperformed and got weak reviews. A few years later, they tried the second one, which performed even worse. Apparently there will be attempt to reboot as a Disney+ series.
There was another popular YA book series that originated as a Harry Potter fanfic. Instead of “Deathly Hallows” it was “Mortal Instruments”. Sequels were announced before the first film was even released, but cancelled after the first installment bombed.
Do The Chronicles of Narnia count? So far we’ve had an animated made-for-TV version that never had any follow up, a BBC series that got as far as Book 4 of 7, and the big budget film series that petered out at 3.
The correct title is: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins which hinted to non-followers of the book, it was supposed to be part of a series.
Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings was supposed to the first part of of a two or three part series, followed by The Hobbit
“In 1975, Bakshi convinced United Artists executive Mike Medavoy to produce The Lord of the Rings as two or three animated films,[13] and a Hobbit prequel.[14] Medavoy offered him Boorman’s script, which Bakshi refused, saying that Boorman “didn’t understand it”[15] and that his script would have made for a cheap film like “a Roger Corman film”.[16]”
The Rocketeer was supposed to be a series of throwback films of the 40’s serials.
“The film was released on June 21, 1991, and received positive reviews from critics.[6] Plans for Rocketeer sequels were abandoned after the film was a disappointment at the box office, grossing a relatively modest $46 million on a $35 million budget. However, a television series based on the movie, premiered on Disney Junior in November 2019”
There was a TV version called “Shadowhunters” that lasted 3-4 seasons on ABC Family/Freeform (forget which name the channel was going by at the time).
There was another version of Stephen King’s Carrie made for one of the premium channels besides the two that were theatrically released. It features a change to the ending Carrie lives at the end because it was intended to lead into a series that never wound up happening.
Similarly Cruel Intentions 2 was supposed to be a TV series based on the movie, but when it didn’t happen they added some nudity etc, and it became a direct to video “movie”.
I seem to recall a wave of movies based on YA novels hoping to be the next Harry Potter/Twilight/Hunger Games. For instance, the semicolonically named “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant” which sank without a trace.
An episode of “Happy Days” apparently was intended to be a backdoor pilot for a genderflipped Fonzie but evidently nobody thought highly enough of the actual pilot to give the series a chance; there’s nothing on IMDb about it ever being on TV.
Gene Roddenberry produced three TV movies in the 1970s that were pilots for series that never got picked up-- The Questor Tapes, Genesis II, and Spectre.
Cannon Films was actually planning on making a sequel to it and a live action Spider-Man film but was in financial trouble and lost the licenses to both properties. They had already spent $2 million on costumes and sets for both films and ended up trying to using them to make a new film to recoup that money.
That film was Cyborg starring Jean Claude van Damme which ende being worse than the Masters of the Universe film