By Chaz McDonald
Movies are great. Everybody enjoys escaping from reality and getting lost in the story, but sometimes a movie can’t fully develop the story that is trying to be told. Sometimes the proper way to tell a story is by giving it a run on television. Television can work wonders by enhancing elements that were barely touched upon or skipped over altogether in the film. Sometimes you get lucky and they will take a movie and give it a complete makeover giving it a brand-new format for storytelling. Fox is currently doing this with Lethal Weapon, USA has Shooter and HBO has the smash hit Westworld. All three were once movies and are now popular television series. Some of these are complete reboots and others are television continuations of the film on which they are based. The potential is great when it comes to bringing great movie franchises to the small screen. Here are seven movie franchises that should be brought to the small screen and how it could be accomplished.
Dredd – Continuation
In 2012, the world got an R-rated comic book masterpiece known as Dredd starring Karl Urban. Unfortunately, the film was not a financial success in theaters, but found new life and a cult following after its DVD release. Ever since then, diehard fans, including the director and stars of the film, have been trying to find a way to do a sequel to the movie. With Netflix series becoming more and more popular, Dreddcould easily find a home on the streaming site where fans can get all of their Mega-City One fixes. The story could go on about Judge Dredd and Anderson solving more crime and corruption and clean up the streets. This could continue to be a hard R-rated take of this comic book world. Fans would get more and it would be introduced to a larger audience.
Starship Troopers – Reboot
Starship Troopers is the tale of intergalactic soldiers that fight giant alien bugs that are taking over the galaxy. Hidden within the story is an underlying political commentary on war and the state of a militaristic government. With everything that has happened in our society over the past fifteen years, Starship Troopers would provide a unique and creative way to explore themes of war. This could be more than just a sci-fi shoot’em up, providing a social commentary in a way most people wouldn’t expect. Plus we would get an entertaining alien bug versus commandos style TV series to go along with it.
Soylent Green – Reboot
Now most people will never have heard of Soylent Green. It is a story set in a dystopian future where overpopulation and corruption are the biggest problems. There is not enough food to feed the public so the giant Soylent Corporation has developed artificial food to help combat the crisis and their most popular product is soylent green. The film stars Charlton Heston as a police detective who is investigating a murder. He quickly get tangled up into a corporate cover-up that has one of the most shocking plot twists in all of cinema. In a world where giant corporations, such as Disney and Walmart, seem to control everything, Soylent Green could deliver that “big companies are everywhere” feeling and sense of paranoia that the first season of Mr. Robot did so well.
The NeverEnding Story – Reboot/Continuation
Imagine a brand-new fantasy epic that would be great for the entire family. The NeverEnding Story could stay faithful to the film franchise and could launch a whole new set of adventures. Any time the book is read the story changes. This could allow for many different story arcs and characters to be brought in and out of the show keeping it fresh and new. It would be faithful enough for fans of the old movies to watch it without complaint and introduce it to an entirely new generation, while giving everybody a new television fantasy series.
The Purge – Continuation
Set in the world were all crime is legal for one night every year, The Purge could be a great episodic anthology series formatted like the classic The Twilight Zone by Rod Sterling, or the new Netflix Original Black Mirror. Each week we could follow a new character or group of characters as they either try and survive the purge or participate in the carnage. Every episode would be something different and fans of the show would never know what to expect. Characters could become fan favorites and could be brought back and crossed over into other episodes providing a connection in the series, but also making everything as standalone as possible. This could provide a great horror series and add to the genre that is sorely lacking from TV.
(Edit: The Purge did have a 10 episode “Television event” on the USA channel. While it wasn’t critically received well, it was renewed for a second season)
The golden age of television is among us. The time for adapting great movies into new series is now. Some of our favorite characters from the big screen word film more realistic and their stories would just be better. Television can provide the perfect adaptation to many stories if given the chance.
The Nerdd 
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