I don’t know that it’s ever a good idea to air TV shows made from movies. It doesn’t matter how successful a movie is, it usually doesn’t transfer well to TV. This doesn’t mean that the TV show will always be a flop because there have been a few exceptions to the rule. Here are seven TV shows made from movies, even though most of them weren’t the best idea.
I’m not really a big fan of the movie “Napoleon Dynamite,” so I thought that was why I couldn’t get into the show, but I think it was just done poorly. FOX tried to add this to its animation domination line up, but it lasted all of six episodes before getting the ax. Sometimes movies are better left untouched, without any sequels or TV shows, and this is definitely one of them. The writers just seemed to be trying too hard to make this as popular as the movie, but clearly it didn’t work. This is probably one of the worst TV shows made from movies.
I’ve never actually seen this movie, but I can only hope that it was better than the TV show. I assume it had to be or they would never have thought of making it into a TV show to begin with. This is just one of those stories that, when drawn out, can get frustrating, where you feel like yelling “get to the point already!” The pilot was two hours long and less than halfway through, I was ready for it to be over. It’s no surprise that it didn’t last more than a season.
I love “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Well, the movie that is. To be quite honest, I’ve never seen the TV show, but yet again it didn’t last more than a season, so how good could it have been? What I have heard about it is that they actually poked fun at the movie that it was based off of. That concept could have been what got this show into trouble. I mean, why criticize the whole reason for the show's existence? It just doesn’t make sense. I’ve never even seen the show and I can say that the movie is way better!
Just like “Ferris Bueller,” this is a movie that I love, but a show I never bothered watching. Sometimes you just know that something won’t be good and this was one of those times. This was yet another movie to show creation that lasted only a season. The “10 Things I Hate About You” movie had great writing and really amazing actors, while the show had some pretty sub-par acting in comparison. “10 Things I Hate About You” was already a modern day take on Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.” Did we really need an even more modern take?
As cheesy as both the TV show and movie are, I can’t help but love them. Clueless is the first show on this list that lasted more than a season – it lasted three! What made this show work better than the others was probably that a lot of the cast members from the movie were also in the TV show. Also, the movie didn’t have a story that had to be told in a certain amount of time before it got too drawn out. In reality, “Clueless” the movie and TV show weren’t about much of anything other than rich kids. Either way, it obviously worked better than a lot of other attempts.
This is one that I didn’t even know was originally a movie. From what I gather, the movie didn’t do too well. This makes “Parenthood” different than the other shows previously mentioned on this list because the show has had more success than the movie. “Parenthood” has only had four seasons, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be stopping anytime soon. That being said, if it does go off the air soon it’ll be a sad day because it is a really amazing show. I’m not on the current season, but from what I’ve seen it’s one of the most underrated shows on TV right now.
This is another one that I didn’t know was originally a movie. Of course, once I found out I ran and watched the movie. Let’s just say that the show is way better than the movie. The movie is even campier than the TV show, if you can believe it! The show isn’t exactly like the movie (thankfully!), so that’s probably why it worked so well. Not only is this the most successful show on this list, but it even spurred spin offs! There’s no other show on this list that can say that, and that’s why “Buffy” is the top choice on this list.
I bet there are a lot of people who didn’t even know that these shows were ever on TV. Most of them didn’t even last more than one season. It raises the question as to why people keep trying to turn movies into TV shows. Are there any of these that you enjoyed? Which other TV shows were made from movies?