I just saw an advertisement for a new television series on FX based off of Stephen King’s The Dead Zone. Okay, so technically, it’s based off a book, but I know about it through the movie staring Christopher Walken, so I’m saying it’s based off a movie. ANYWAY, the story is a guy gets in a car wreck one night leaving his fiance’s, and ends up in a coma for six years. When he wakes up, he’s got the abililty to see people’s futures, and sometimes pasts, upon coming in contact with them. At one point, he touches a man’s hand who is running for senator, and sees that if this man wins, he’ll eventually become president, start a nuclear war with Russia, and kill millions of innocent people, so he decides to assasinate the man. The thing that gets me is: In the original story, the main character dies. How the fuck can you have a television series about a guy who’s most important accomplishment costs him his life? That’s the point of the movie, is it right to sacrifice one for the greater good of the many? I can’t see that coming through in a ongoing series. The only way I can see it working is if he becomes a fugitive by succeeding (or maybe even attempting is enough to be wanted by the FBI), and so the series takes on a more “Fugitive”-esque quality. And that would suck.
I know most movies converted to television re-write scripts to help, but this is just stupid. Aside from Buffy, what other television shows do you know of that came from movies? What changes were made to them, and did you like/dislike them?
I was under the impression that The Dead Zone was a miniseries, so, yes, the main character can die.
As far as movies-to-tv is concerned, the obvious first choice is MAS*H. The TV show toned down the characters a bit (Frank Burns in the movie was a dangerous psychopath; in the TV show, he was a bumbler), removed others (Duke Forrest, for instance), and took on a more overt antiwar tone (the movie is not an antiwar film).
Well, there was a Friday the Thirteenth series which pretty much had nothing to do with the movies. In the series, there were three characters who worked at an antique store. They had a bunch of items all of which had been posessed by evil that had been sold and the three of them were travelling around trying to get the items back. Weird.
The TV series Alice was based on the movie Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
I’m sure there are others but those are the ones that come to mind.
The IMDb lists The Dead Zone as a TV series but that could be incorrect and/or changed to (mini) TV series later on.
Here’s another movieÞTV series for you: Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore begat Alice.
Heh. Okay, how about The Magnificent Seven and F/X?
- “MAS*H” (a hit)
- “Dirty Dancing” (a flop)
- “Alice” (people often forget it was based on “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any More”)
- “In The Heat of the Night”
There was a TV show based on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. As I recall, Jennifer Aniston played Ferris’s sister Jeanie.
The popularity of the Nightmare on Elm Street series spawned the TV series Nightmare Cafe. Even gave Robert Englund a new forum to play Freddy in.
Let us not forget that Clerks became a sadly short-lived animated series.
I don’t know if this counts, but the miniseries V and V: The Final Battle spawned a TV series named, imaginatively, V.
As an aside, I figure that The Sixth Sense would make a better TV show than it did a movie. Every week, Kid-Who-Sees-Dead-People meets another dead person and helps 'em accomplish something so they can rest (you know, like he did with the poisoned girl in the movie).
There was a short-lived prime time series, as well as a Saturday-morning cartoon series, based on the Planet of the Apes movies.
And wasn’t there also a Logan’s Run TV series?
There was a surprisingly good animated series based on Starship Troopers.
Oh yeah, and Happy Days was (very loosely) based on American Graffitti, IIRC. At least the concept was derivative, right down to Ron-Howard-as-50’s-teen.
Stargate.
A few good men.
And leave us not forget the Beetlejuice animated series.
And wasn’t The Brady Bunch based on With Six You Get Egg Roll or some such movie? And wasn’t The Waltons based on Spencer’s Mountain?
The real question is:
Are there more TV shows based on movies, or more movies based on TV shows?
There was the (fortunately) short lived “Delta House” from “Animal House”.
Okay, I’m going to show my age here. The TV series “Twelve O’Clock High” was base on the movie of the same name.
The TV series “Mr. Lucky” was based on the movie of the same name.
And even farther back, the TV series “Topper” was based on the various “Topper” books and movies.
Lots of TV series were not based on movies or books, but obviously were made because of the popularity of the earlier works. For instance, “Garrison’s Gorillas” was made because of the popularity of the movie “The Dirty Dozen.” Years later, there was a “Dirty Dozen” TV series using the movie title, but apparently not using any of the original characters - not even the ones who survived.
My guess would be that overall, there are are more TV series based on movies, but for the last few years, it seems to be the other way around.
There was a short-lived Serpico TV series with David Birney (???) as Frank Serpico.
There was a series based on the film Baghdad Cafe.
A series based on the old ghost comedyTopper.
Working Girl
9 to 5
Droids
Starman
Tons of others, mostly bad flops, but these are the first to pop to mind.
Yes, there was. IMDb has more info:
Movies they turned into a cartoon Series>
Men in Black
Toy Story ( they turned it from computer animation to plain cartooniness -or whatever)
101 Dalmations
Movies they got from Shakespearean plays>
“O” - Othello
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Hamlet
Taming of the Shrew
Romeo and Juliet
Movies/Series they got from comics>
Spiderman
Batman
Superman
Wonder Woman
Josie and the Pussycats
The Justice League
Stephan King based movies>
Langoliers (ok)
It ( ehh…)
Hearts in Atlantis (pretty darn good)
Insomnia ( coming out)
Salem’s Lot
Pet Semetary ( disaster)
Misery
Delores Claiborne ( I think)
Bag of Bones
Cujo
Storm of the Century (?)
No, that series starred Robert Englund but had nothing to do with the Nightmare on Elm Street films. You are thinking of “Freddy’s Nightmares”.