Three stories in a row! The Atlantic picked up my recent Quartz story about why Hollywood can’t stop turning movies into TV shows.
TV Shows Based on Movies: Often Doomed
Leave a reply
Tag Archives: 12 Monkeys
Hollywood Won’t Stop Until it Turns Every Movie Into a TV Series
What’s the opposite of “great minds think alike”? In the past month, the broadcast networks have announced plans to turn 10(!) movies into potential series. As I wrote at Quartz,
Hollywood apparently won’t stop until it turns every movie into a series. It’s the strongest indication yet that there are no original ideas left among the broadcast networks, which already packed this fall’s television lineup with comic-book adaptations and spinoffs.
Hollywood won’t stop until it turns every movie into a TV series
Can a Brad Pitt Movie From 1995 Become a Hit TV Show?
TV might be better than movies, but it has also become the movies. The latest example is 12 Monkeys, the new Syfy series debuting in January, which is based on the 1995 film with Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt.
Aaron Stanford, who plays the Bruce Willis role, told me for this Quartz story that as more and more new series struggle for viewers’ attention each year, any kind of brand recognition can help a show get that all-important leg up.
“Absolutely. The name itself seems to resonate with people,” Aaron Stanford, who is playing the Bruce Willis role, told Quartz. “Anyone who I’ve spoken to about 12 Monkeys, it clicks with them. It is a pre-existing brand. People recognize it, and they recognize it as something of quality. So it’s now our responsibility to uphold that brand and continue on and make this a quality program.”
As executive producers Terry Matalas and Richard Suckle told me, the key to potential success isn’t the title, but the idea and its execution. I really enjoyed the 12 Monkeys pilot and hope the show continues in that same rich vein.