The recent Simpsons’ movie opens with the family at the cinema watching the film adaptation of “Itchy and Scratchy”, a violent TV cartoon in the Simpsons world. Homer stands up and calls the audience stupid for paying to watch something they could see for free at home. The first Charlie’s Angels film has an flight movie of the big screen version of TJ Hooker and one of the Angels wonders out loud if there is any seventies show that they will not turn into a movie.
Hollywood has been keen on movie versions of TV shows for years; certainly since Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It is this franchise which has spawned the most film adaptations; ten to date with an eleventh in pre-production. There is a rule of Star Trek movies that says the odd-numbered ones are terrible and only the even numbered ones are any good. This does not bode well for the forthcoming prequel.
Generally, it is successful shows that are adapted for the big screen. There is one notable exception; the show Police Squad ran for just six episodes, but spawned three movies.
Despite the appeal to movie execs of taking an idea with an already proven appeal, making films is expensive. The tenth Star Trek movie cost an estimated $60m, compared to the $5m per episode cost of the last Star Trek TV show. If you assume that a typical movie runs to the length of three TV shows, then a film is four times more expensive per minute to make. Here in the US, our local cinema has a solution; don’t bother with making a movie adaptation of the TV series – just show a double episode story of the original series. Next week, the “Menagerie”, a two episode story from Star Trek:The Original Series is showing at cinemas across the country. The original cost of these two episodes was in the region $200,000, so this is clearly a lot cheaper than making a real movie.
I wonder how long it is before we see re-runs of “I Love Lucy” in lieu of new comedy films; although this would be preferable to more comedies in the spirit of Little Man
