You probably noticed in the last few months the good people here at Cinemastance have released a series of articles commenting on the lack of originality in movies. Fans of these movies or not, they make a boat-load of cash, even the crappy ones. We lament the fact that there is “nothing new” coming out of Hollywood, but then we go see movies like Green Lantern. The movie-paying public decided to spend $219 million dollars to go see this mess of a film. Thank god it cost $200 million to make; otherwise, we could have also gotten Green Lantern II: Hal Goes Home for Christmas. But, alas, we will never see Hal save Christmas. We will never see him turn into a freakishly muscular Green Santa that delivers presents to scared, confused kids across the world. People would eat that stuff up. You release this mother-jammer two weeks before Christmas and you’re looking at an easy $250 million.
But I digress. With all these mega remakes and reboots, I noticed that this has started to creep into TV. So I made a list of TV shows based on movies. Not surprisingly, I realized that this is not a new phenomenon at all. In fact, Hollywood has a very, very long history of this practice. They have done it over and over again. Shows that were either a retelling or continuation of a movie have been made consistently since TV was rolled out of the assembly line. And people love it. Sometimes, we get so wrapped up in the characters, they become familiar, like a friend or part of the family. We want to see what happens the next day after Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. We want to see what Jackson does next when the Stargate closes. How else do I explain to my kids why School of Rock is going to be a TV show?
The seventies have TV shows like Serpico (yes, they made this into a TV show – is nothing sacred!), Alice, The Odd Couple and M*A*S*H*. [EDITOR NOTE: The latest incarnation of The Odd Couple was co-created by Matthew Perry!!! Please explain, oh dear Hollywood, how that works.] In the 80’s we had In The Heat Of The Night, Alien Nation, and Dukes of Hazard. The Clinton years were no different with Stargate, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and Uncle Buck. If fact, Uncle Buck is probably going to be remade yet again. Why? I don’t know, but it is. God help us it will be remade for a 3rd time; but, this time the plot is based on an African-American family, starring Mike Epps in the title role. Who said new ideas can’t come out of Hollywood?
[On a side note, apparently Dukes of Hazard has more to offer us than I thought. This thing is like a zombie, never really dying and always coming back. Originally, it was a movie called Moonrunners, about you guessed it, Moonshine runners. Then a few years later it was adapted to a hit TV show. Finally, it was rebooted back in to a movie a few years back. That’s a pretty long shelf –life for a franchise most famous for its bars and stars painted car and super short-shorts.]
So what does all this mean? As people age, they tend to look back on their life. What they did well, what they didn’t. What they liked and what they disliked. So is it really that surprising that as Baby Boomers and Gen X age, there is a wave of nostalgia? Like their movie cousins, most of these TV shows don’t last longer than the movies did in the theaters. For every Fargo, there is a My Big Fat Greek Life; for every Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there is a Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The point is Hollywood would not make these unless we were willing to watch. As bad as it feels for me to admit, a remake of Wargames brings out some curiosity and I will probably watch it. Only because it reminds me of how much I enjoyed the original.
