Movie producers relying on the selling power of television

Kirk Baird

Wednesday, July 16, 2003 | 8:28 a.m.

Possibly coming to a theater near you: "Gilligan's Island: The Movie." "Dallas: The Film." "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids: The Motion Picture."

Believe it or not these TV classics, along with other boob-tube fare such as "The Six Million Dollar Man," "Bewitched" and "Father Knows Best" all have been earmarked at one time as potential film adaptions.

Has Hollywood finally lost its creative edge, as critics have suggested for years? Hardly. The studios are simply blinded by box-office potential.

"It's the same as making any franchise-related movies, such as a comic book or a sequel," said Brandon Gray, founder/editor of boxofficemojo.com, a website that tracks box-office activity. "It's a similar appeal and you hope that its built-in audience will see the movie no matter what."

Plus, added Larry Jones, executive vice president and general manager of TV Land network and the "Nick at Nite" programming block on Nickelodeon, many studio executives are actually fans of the shows.

"They have fond memories of these TV shows, so it's a little easier for them to greenlight these TV shows into movies," he said. "And now that movies are all about opening weekends, to have that high recognition factor, while it's not a guarantee, it really helps."

While the TV-to-film trend can be traced as far back as "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in 1979, Gray said the current craze can best be attributed to 1991's "The Addams Family," a surprise holiday hit that went on to make nearly $115 million at North American theaters.

"I think that's the starting point for the TV frenzy," he said. "After that movie you have a spate of TV-to-big-screen movies all with varying degrees of success." Among them:

"Mission Impossible," "The Fugitive," "Wild Wild West," "The Brady Bunch Movie," "Scooby-Doo," "Maverick," "The Beverly Hillbillies," "My Favorite Martian," "Beavis and Butt-head Do America," "Flipper," "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut," "The Mod Squad" and "Sgt. Bilko."

This summer alone there are two TV adaptations: "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle," itself a sequel to 2000's "Charlie's Angels"; and "S.W.A.T.," a loose remake of the '70s TV cop drama starring Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell and LL Cool J, that opens nationwide Aug. 8.

And early next year Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson don badges in the comedic film version of "Starsky and Hutch," with Snoop Dogg in the role of pimp-turned-informant Huggy Bear.

While the casting alone might elicit premonitions of "can't-miss" status for "Starsky and Hutch," Hollywood history, however, says differently.

Of the more than 70 television shows to play cineplexes across the country counting cartoon adaptions only 12 have reached the $100-million mark.

Meanwhile, junkers such as "Leave it to Beaver," "McHale's Navy," "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" and "The Gong Show Movie" are left as reminders that TV gold does not equal box-office riches.

"It seems to fail more often than succeed if you look at most TV movies made," Gray said. "Is the original show so unique that you can't recapture the magic on the big screen, or is it a movie that could be reworked easily and fit in different people and different plotlines? Which ones were lasting cultural phenomenon, or ones that weren't so indelible that you couldn't remake them?"

Nor is there any guarantee the film will ever be made.

TV legend Sherwood Schwartz has spent 18 years trying to land "Gilligan's Island" on the big screen.

Schwartz said at this point, "only God knows" when the movie will be made -- if ever.

"I talked to him (God), but he hasn't answered yet," the 86-year-old joked recently in a phone interview from his home in Beverly Hills. "It's a complicated thing because I don't own all the rights, so I can't just say, 'We're going to do it.' But I was born hopeful."

The TV producer is also positive about the film's box-office chances.

"As a business venture it makes perfect sense. Nothing is more familiar to people than characters who have been in their home -- in the case of 'Gilligan' for 40 years," Schwartz said. "Those are friends, they're not just pictures on the screen."

He even has an actor in mind for Gilligan: Sean Hayes, who plays the self-absorbed and high-strung best friend, Jack McFarland, on TV's "Will and Grace."

"He would be perfect. He's slight and very athletic and great with comedy and timing," he said. "But 10 years from now, when they're still talking about making the movie, it could be a different Gilligan. But he's the ideal person right now."

While Schwartz struggles to launch "Gilligan" to the big screen, he can at least take comfort in knowing another of his TV creations, "The Brady Bunch," fared well in movie form.

"The Brady Bunch Movie," released in 1995, was a sly cinematic satire of the '60s cult fave, and proved enough of a hit to even merit a followup -- "A Very Brady Sequel" -- a year later.

"I thought ('The Brady Bunch Movie') was a good movie. It was the first time in my knowledge that the creators of the show saw fit to satirize their own show," he said. "It was done tongue-in-cheek."

But duplicating that same ironic approach to a "Gilligan" movie would not work so well, he said.

"You can't satirize satire," Schwartz said.

However, it's the films that take themselves and their TV legacy seriously that are more successful than satires.

High-tech capers "Mission Impossible" and its sequel combined for nearly $400 million, while the whodunit drama, "The Fugitive," earned nearly $200 million.

"Those were serious-minded productions like 'The Untouchables' with tremendous star power and production values," Gray said. "With 'The Brady Bunch' and 'Charlie's Angels,' they went as far as you can go with camping it up. It only worked once, as both movie sequels have shown."

"Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" has made about $82 million at the box office, roughly $40 million less than either its production cost or the original film. It was a similar tale for "A Very Brady Sequel," which, with a $21 million haul, did less than half the business of the first film.

The poor showing of "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle," which some film analysts predicted to be a box-office heavyweight, will give movie honchos something to consider before greenlighting future TV adaptations, Gray said.

"I think it will give producers pause, not only because of 'Charlie's Angels' but because of the malaise of franchise pictures in general this summer," he said. "I think 'Starsky and Hutch' will be a real determiner if they go that route -- more comical and campy -- in the future."

In the meantime, fans of "Mork and Mindy," "Police Woman" "Marcus Welby," "The Flying Nun" and "That Girl" will have to content themselves knowing that, given enough time and genre success, almost any movie is possible in Hollywood.

"When the studio releases a picture and it's a success, they look to repeat the success by plumbing the depths of that genre for future releases," Gray said. "It's kind of a secondhand industry. After all, we're in the year of remakes and movies that are based on theme-park rides."