While television shows have been making the jump from small screen to big screen for as long as we can remember, until recently, it was much less common for things to work the other way around. Now, with TV getting multi-platform content, and more A-list stars and higher production value than ever before, it seems to be the format that’s generating all the excitement. And with the success of new movie-based TV shows like Fargo and Ash vs. Evil Dead, Hollywood is gearing up to expand a lot more feature films for television. The following are 12 such movie adaptations you can expect to be coming soon to a living room near you.
12. Rush Hour
Although Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker might have seemed like an unlikely pairing at the onset, they’ve actually turned out to be one of the best buddy cop duos of all time, rivaling the likes of legendary partnerships such as Riggs and Murtaugh, or Tango and Cash.
The Rush Hour film franchise grossed nearly $1 billion worldwide and now it looks like it’s destined to make the jump to the small screen with a TV series scheduled to debut on CBS in early 2016. The series will be a reimagining of the original story, featuring the misadventures of a straight-laced Hong Kong cop (played by Jackie Chan in the movies) and an LAPD loose cannon (originally portrayed by Chris Tucker).
The script for the series is being penned by Bill Lawrence and Black McCormick, with director Jon Turteltaub coming on board in place of Brett Ratner, who has moved into the position of executive producer.
11. School of Rock
Thanks to a 13 episode order from Nickelodeon, our musical shreducation will continue with a small-screen adaptation of the 2003 Jack Black comedy, School of Rock.
Much like the movie, the show will follow the shenanigans of Dewey Finn, a struggling musician who fakes his way into a substitute teaching position at a prep school where he shows a group of classically-trained kids how to unleash their creative freedom through classic rock.
After a long-rumored sequel never materialized, Nickelodeon jumped at the chance to reboot the film into a TV series that will expose a new generation of kids to rock history. Production is already underway and the show is set to begin airing next spring, with Tony Cavalero taking over Jack Black’s role as Finn. The film’s director, Richard Linklater, will serve as the show’s executive producer alongside producer Scott Rudin, who was also involved with the movie.
And, as it would happen, television isn’t the only medium that plans to bring back School of Rock, as Andrew Lloyd Webber intends to bring a musical adaption of the film to Broadway.
10. The Mist
Dimension Television has announced its plans to bring Stephen King’s The Mist to television. The 2007 film was directed by Frank Darabont (The Walking Dead) and, while it wasn’t nearly as successful as some of his other Stephen King adaptations, such as The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, it still presented a chilling horror story and made a reasonable return at the box office.
The TV series will be written by Christian Torpe and is expected to tell an original story about a “mist” that creeps into a small town and brings with it catastrophic terror. The mist forces the town’s residents to confront all their darkest fears—from psychological horrors to otherwordly monsters. King has reportedly given his blessing for the project to move forward.
9. Taken
When Taken was first released in theaters in 2009, there probably weren’t too many people who thought it was going to have the steam to generate a sequel, much less spawn a billion dollar franchise. Yet, here we stand as Taken is set to make another another implausible step and cross over into television.
NBC has expressed interest in the story of former CIA operative Bryan Mills (played by Liam Neeson in the movies), and wants to make a show that will be a prequel to the films. It’s expected to focus on Mills’ life before he got married and had a daughter, who would eventually be kidnapped. At present, Liam Neeson has no involvement in the project.
8. Shutter Island
HBO is reportedly in the early stages of developing a prequel series based on the 2010 movie Shutter Island. The series, which has tentatively been titled Ashecliffe, would take place at the isolated mental hospital depicted in the film and plans to explore the hospital’s history, including the offences committed by its founders.
With rumors that Martin Scorsese will direct the pilot, there’s a lot of hope that this series will help fill the void left by the conclusion of Boardwalk Empire. However, since Scorsese seems to have a lot on his plate at the moment, including biopics based on Frank Sinatra and World Champion Boxer Vinny Pazienza, there’s a chance that Ashecliffe could be put on the back burner.
7. Sin City
When Sin City: A Dame to Kill For went into production, the Weinstein Company, which produced the movie, expressed interest in seeing a TV series adapted from the gritty Frank Miller graphic novel. But unfortunately, since A Dame to Kill For was met with ho-hum reviews from audiences and critics alike, it could be that the demand for such a series has since been deflated. However, with the success of darker, comic-inspired shows like Gotham and Daredevil, there’s the chance that a Sin City series could still garner a lot of attention.
6. Snowpiercer
The Snowpiercer TV show sure will have a lot of cultural fingerprints on it when all is said and done. What began as a French graphic novel was then adapted into a South Korean movie, which is now being turned into and American television show.
The movie, starring Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton, is set in a post-apocalyptic Ice Age where the only living things left on the planet survive on a perpetual motion-powered train that continually circles the globe. Josh Friedman, who produced Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (another movie-based TV show), has been attached to pen the script for Tomorrow Studios, which has optioned the rights to the film.
5. Tremors
This one’s actually going to be a remake since Syfy already brought Tremors to TV with a 13-episode run back in 2003. But there’s one thing the new show will have that already makes us fairly certain it will blow the old show out of the water—Kevin Bacon. The famous actor will return to reprise his role as Valentine McKee from the original movie and take on the infamous man-eating worms known as Graboids using whatever available resources he has. And, just like the original, the show will be set in the fictional town of Perfection, Nevada.
The series is being made by Universal Cable Productions and produced by Kevin Bacon himself. However, since it’s still in the very early stages of development, there are currently no networks attached.
4. Training Day
The acclaimed 2001 film Training Day is heading to television thanks to a request for a pilot from CBS. The movie, which was directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by David Ayer, is considered to be some of the best work of Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke’s careers, and the series is expected to bring with it a certain air of authenticity thanks to Fuqua returning as director. Additional production power will also come in the form of mega producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who has agreed to take on an executive producer role alongside Jonathan Littman and writer Will Beall.
From what we know, the neo-noir cop drama will take place 15 years after the events of the movie and center on Hawke’s character and the LAPD. There are also rumors that show could see a casting twist. While the original featured Washington as a corrupt cop guiding a straight-arrow rookie played by Hawke, the show could feature a younger rookie cop being played by a black actor and the older corrupt detective being played by a white actor.
3. Big
Get ready to dust off your giant toy store pianos because Big, the hugely popular 1988 movie starring Tom Hanks, is set to be remade for television by Fox. The project comes from executive producers Kevin Biegel (Cougar Town) and Mike Royce (Men of a Certain Age) and seems to be continuing with Fox’s new programming strategy of broadcasting event series—which is really just another name for a mini-series or regular series with fewer episodes.
The Big TV show would be loosely based on the movie as it plans to explore what it means to be a kid, and what it means to be an adult in today’s world where the lines between distinct life stages seem to be more blurred than ever.
2. The Truman Show
The studio Paramount Pictures seems to be developing a lot of its existing properties into TV shows, and it looks like the 1998 movie The Truman Show could be another potential candidate for adaptation.
Just to be clear, the TV series would be a fictional story based on Andrew Niccol’s story about a man unknowingly living his life as part of a semi-scripted reality TV show. It would not be a Truman Show branded reality experiment featuring people are totally unaware they’re on camera—although that would no doubt be a smash hit in our current celebrity-obsessed world where people are handed TV shows simply because they’re famous.
Despite it being over fifteen years since the movie’s release, a Truman Show series could actually be pretty entertaining to watch. It’s got an interesting setup, compelling mystery, and is rife with comedic situations and tragic drama that can make for a lot of unexpected twists. Combine these aspects with the additional “real world” perspective of characters outside of the Seahaven archaeological dome and this series could provide a very unique and refreshing examination of humanity across multiple layers.
1. Galaxy Quest
Amazon Studios is planning a series based on the 1999 cult sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest. Unlike a lot of other sci-fi concepts, the premise of Galaxy Quest is actually quite suitable for an episodic series. The original story involved the cast of a corny Star Trek-like series who find themselves abducted by aliens who mistook their show for a documentary. They then set off on an intergalactic adventure to liberate the peaceful aliens from a ruthless planet-conquering warlord.
The film had a spectacular cast including Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman and Sam Rockwell, but, since the show is still in early development, it’s unclear whether or not any of them will reprise their roles. However, behind the camera, the crew is very much the same. The script will be penned by Robert Gordon, the film’s co-writer, Dean Parisot will remain the director, and executive producers Mark Johnson and Melissa Bernstein are both on board as well. You could say the team “never gave up, never surrendered.”
