With hundreds of cable channels, a fragmented audience, and competition from cheap reality series, it’s harder and harder to get networks to take a chance on an original idea for a TV series. So what are they doing? TV producers are falling all over each other to adapt ideas from successful movies and rework them into continuing series. Do you think these will have a chance?
Tremors
Kevin Bacon vs. goo-filled giant worms known as “Tremors,” round 2. It can’t be any worse than The Following, so the second TV adaptation for Tremors gets the Den of Geek stamp of approval. Bacon will reprise his role as Valentine McKee and the series will be set in the fictional town of Perfection, Nevada, just like the original 1990 film. After four straight-to-video sequels, Syfy brought Tremors to TV for a 13-episode run in 2003.
There’s currently no network attached as the project is in its infancy, but we do know that Universal Cable Productions and Blumhouse Productions are developing the series reboot, with Andrew Miller (The Secret Circle) to write the adaptation and Bacon to produce.
Taken
When Taken hit theaters in 2009, few would have dared to guess that it would ultimately turn into a franchise that grossed nearly $1 billion at the box office. Yet here we are, with French filmmaker Luc Besson’s Taken franchise responsible for earning Liam Neeson millions of dollars and what will go down as an iconic role for the Irish actor. Taken may take another unlikely step (though as this list continues to grow, we can’t say that anymore), crossing over to the television world. NBC is interested in the story of former CIA operative Bryan Mills. So much so, the network is willing to push forward with a prequel following Mills before he was married and had a child that would eventually be kidnapped and rescued. As of now, Liam Neeson is not involved in the project.
Den of Geek has synopses for 42 such projects, some only in discussion, others with a budget for a pilot or even a network deal already. And some of the movies are decades old. Read about them all.