Films based on a Television Series

Films Based on a TV Series Part One

This week the news that chuck star Zachary Levi is to star in a sequel to Alvin And The Chipmunks got me thinking about films based on Television Series,’ Which ones were good bad and surprisingly average, Most of these films often do great business and in most case have a large fan base of loyal fans who will no doubt loath and despise every second of the movie (especially if its new actors) sometimes the tone is perfect paying enough credit to the original work whilst making it something new and entertaining, as long as they stay clear of Colombo I think we will see a lot more of these films with news of a possible Veronica Mars and Buffy The Vampire Slayer continuations.I will try to cover a new series every few days which ones worked, which ones should have stayed canceled and why no one has bothered to try and make a Due South film.

Starting off with The Addams Family

They began as a single panel cartoon series in the 1930’s featuring in The New Yorker Magazine created by the conveniently named Charles Addams. The adventures of the paranormal gothic satirical take on the American Family was brought to television by ABC in 1964 as a live action series which ran for two seasons, almost completely concurrently to the series The Munsters of which they both share more than a few similarities. The show ended in 1966 and in 1973 an animated series began on NBC, there was a failed variety show pilot and a made for T.V. movie but nothing really done with the family until Orion inherited the rights in 1990, put some actual effort in to it and created the 7^th highest grossing film of 1991 and one of the best TV adaps I can think of. Barry Sonnenfeld ‘s film stayed very faithful to the television series using the original description that Charles Addams made for the show, along with an incredibly talented cast of Raul Julia as Gomez and Angelica Houston as Morticia and rounded off by Christopher Llyod’s excellent Uncle Fester. The film grossed about $190 million worldwide plus an extra $50 million in rentals, mixed reviews from critics but that was kind of to be expected anyway, it’s not Schindlers List or anything. The film boosted a new generation of fans and a new animated series was created in 1992 to cash in on the first films success, 1993 saw the release of the inevitable sequel The Addams Family Values which weaved together the story of a murderous gold digging wife with the creepy and kooky family. The film actually received better reviews than the first and has a Rotten Tomato percentage of 76 compared to the firsts 58. Unfortunately the next year Raul Julia died and the prospects of another sequel were pretty abysmal. It wouldn’t be until 1998 that another Addams adventure would take place and by this point Angelica Houston and Christopher Lloyd turned down the role, plus Christina Ricci and the kid who played Pugsley were considered too old for the part and almost the entire cast were recast. Gomez and Morticia with Tim Curry and Darryl Hannah and the project went straight to video, also in 1998 a short lived Canadian live action series begun but apart from the family have been left alone since, but with things being the way they are I expect a reboot in a couple of years.

Verdict: two great films doing justice to its source material and a pretty entertaining new animated show, but greed definitely happened and the reunion will hopefully be the last time this family gets together.