TV shows and movies shouldn't mix

TV shows and movies shouldn't mix

I could live without a Friends movie.

TV Stevie is back from vacation but doesn't quite feel rested. Email TV Stevie



You've probably heard the rumours that both Arrested Development and Friends might be getting adapted for the silver screen. Jason Bateman and Courtney Cox just won't stop talking about them (possibly because neither has had much success since).

But as much as I enjoyed Arrested Development (and even Friends) when they were on the tube, I'm not sure that either one warrants a movie. I mean, as hilarious as it was, why would Arrested make a movie when it couldn't even draw enough viewers to stay on television?

Friends, on the other hand, was a blockbuster of a smash of a hit disguised as a TV show. It inspired haircuts and gave birth to (middling) movie careers. But would I pay 12-something to watch a two-hour episode in an uncomfortable movie theatre for the right to see a giant David Schwimmer while munching on $8 nachos? I can't give you a definitive "no," but I can promise you that I'll feel stupid if I do it.

The fact of the matter is that if Arrested Development or Friends make a really good movie, it'll be among the first TV-to-movie adaptations to ever do so. And it's not for a lack of trying, or even for a lack of profits. Other than franchises and sequels, TV shows that are made into movies appear to be the most common and lucrative movies one can make.

But that doesn't mean they're good, or even anything resembling good. Here's a quick list of TV shows that became movies (excluding SNL spin-offs, anything I couldn't force myself to care about, and anything that came before the mid-1990s, for those of us who enjoy quizzically random cutoff dates...and also in no particular order):

• Get Smart
• Dukes of Hazzard
• Brady Bunch
• Charlie's Angels
• The Fugitive
• Lizze McGuire
• The X-Files
• Mr. Bean
• I Spy
• Scooby Do
• The Beverly Hillbillies
• Lost in Space
• Trailer Park Boys
• The Mod Squad
• George of the Jungle
• Starsky and Hutch
• Serenity (based on Firefly)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• South Park
• Transformers
• The Simpsons

Only Brendan Fraser could've captured George.

As expansive as this list may seem, it's basically just what I was able to research during the same five minutes in which I was checking fantasy baseball stats and also eating six Premium Plus crackers. So you can assume that there are others I haven't mentioned.

I could've easily thrown in titles like The Fugitive, Mission: Impossible, The Brady Bunch Movie and even A Very Brady Sequel, the point being that making a TV show into a movie is no uncommon thing.

But you already knew that. I'm more interested in focusing on what we don't know. Within this article, I want to...

a. Explain why so many TV shows eventually become movies.
b. Gain a better understanding of what makes a good TV-to-feature adaptation, and what can sink one.
c. Take a few more (justified) digs at The Sex and the City Movie, which was at least 12 times worse than the actual show.

*****

So why do TV shows get made into movies so often?

This question is simple to answer. TV shows are made into movies because we're dumb, and people smarter than us exploit this dumbness to make money.

Even shows that were pretty much pointless like George in the Jungle and The Beverly Hillbillies become movies, and we, the public, ending up showing up at the box office to the tune of at least $100 million every time (except, of course, when that doesn't happen, which is sometimes).

Somewhere between cancellation and movie time, we seem to talk ourselves into believing that a show was better than it actually was. I fully expect there to be a movie version of Gilligan's Island at some point, but that doesn't mean that show made any sense at all, or was anything more than a show that was popular because it played during a time when there were four channels and few reasonable options.

But just because we're familiar with characters and a concept doesn't mean a show can be extended to make a whole film. I may have thought George of the Jungle was funny for about 10 seconds when I was four, but that doesn't mean I'd pay money to see Brendan Fraser in anything. After all, it's Brendan Fraser, and he's the Drew Barrymore of male actors.

One of my favourite TV adaptations.

The bottom line is that TV shows get made into movies because we're dumb, which means we'll pay to watch them. I'm not saying that you're personally dumb because you spent your hard earned dough to watch a crappy show that became a crappy movie. I'm saying that we're all dumb because we've all done it at some point. And if you haven't done that, then you're probably not reading TV Stevie right now. So you can stick it, person who isn't reading this!

But what makes a successful TV-to-movie adaptation? What can sink one?

First of all, if the show was a piece of junk when it was on TV, it's highly unlikely that it'll make anything that resembles a decent movie. The exception to this rule was The Brady Bunch Movie, which was actually somewhat brilliant in placing TV's most wholesome family of the 1970s and displacing them into the hardscrabble (cinematic) world of the 1990s.

Sadly, a lot of TV shows become movies because producers know that simply updating a product is much easier (and often more profitable) than coming up with an original idea. There's a better chance of the public connecting with a remake of The Addams Family than connecting with an equally boring movie starring weirdo with whom we're unfamiliar.

Typically, TV movies are made long after the series has been cancelled with a completely new cast and a totally revamped look. Producers think it's cool to make I Spy with helicopters and special effects that would've killed at least six members of the crew if attempted at any point during the 1980s. It's assumed that the public will swoon beneath the charms of a circa-2000 robot as part of a new Lost in Space.

Plain and simple, the movie can't simply be a continuation of the show. People hold feature films to a different standard than they do television. Movies have to be better, more spectacular, because we're expected to make an effort to go out and drop some money on this thing. We need value in return.

Transformers made a ton of money because it was light years ahead of the cartoon we watched as kids. It took the story to another level with explosions, CGI graphics and Megan Fox. And that's precisely what a TV-turned-movie needs to do.

Not that I really liked Transformers.

How do you explain the disaster that was The Sex and the City Movie?

The short answer is that it was simply because Carrie Bradshaw is such an irritating character. But that's only part of it.

The biggest reason is that there was absolutely no point to making this movie, other than to cash in on girls who drink Cosmopolitans and blow their money on expensive shoes. Nothing really happened. It was a cash grab of the most obvious sort.

One of my favourite TV adaptations.

In the film, we basically pick up with the Sex girls where we left off at the series finale. We catch up with the characters, who've basically become characters of who they were when the show was interesting (especially Samantha) enjoy a bit of conflict, and then end up right back where we started. It was no less formulaic than a typical episode of ALF or Perfect Strangers. In attempting to please the masses while buidling a story that could be enjoyed by somebody who didn't watch the show, Sex and the City betrayed its core fans and ultimately made a very crappy movie.

But what made Sex and the City bad on a truly historical level was the scene when Carrie confronted Mr. Big when she thought he was ditching her at the altar (it rivals anything you might have seen in Gigli). Kristin Davis' overacting borrowed from the school of Jim Carrey, and if Sarah Jessica Parker ever plays a role in a movie where she discovers her entire family was murdered in cold blood, she'd still have to tone down her reaction from how she performed this scene. I was delighted and horrified all at once (not by the movie, but by the fact that I was taking a sick enjoyment from it).

Sex and the City was very nearly the worst case scenario for a TV show being turned into a movie, saved only by the fact that I love to hate Carrie so very much, and I was just waiting for her to do something that would make my blood boil. I suppose if that was the lone criterion I had in judging this movie, Sex and the City is a 10 out of 10.

Hmm, let's just forget the 1,300-and-however-many words I wrote before this sentence. Thanks. I appreciate the understanding.