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Paramount developing The Truman (TV) Show

Small screen versions of The Truman Show and Ghost? What other films would make a good TV series?

2014-04-10_1545Paramount Studios are getting back into the television production game .

Before it split from Viacom 8 years ago, Paramount was known for such titles as Star Trek, Cheers, Frasier, Family Ties and The Brady Bunch.

It has now announced Jason Fisher as its Head of Production. When he was Head of Production at AMC Fisher oversaw production for shows such as The Walking Dead, Mad Men, Breaking Bad and the The Killing.

Paramount is turning largely to the big screen for inspiration for the small screen.

One of the projects it has announced is a re-imagining of The Truman Show, the Jim Carrey film which was actually a futuristic take on television itself.

It’s also returning to the Terminator franchise, a television series based on Ghost, plus a drama inspired by The Alienist, a novel by Caleb Carr.

“While we are just getting started, there has been a terrific amount of momentum at Paramount TV as we look to develop new ideas as well as harness some of the studio’s most iconic titles,” Powell said in a statement.

Mining film archives for inspiration is certainly not new, nor is the reverse. But everything comes down to execution. While I generally prefer originally to adaptation, I quite like the idea of Truman as the basis of a small screen project, but it has a lot to live up to in matching the original.

What other films do you think could work as an ongoing series? I’ll throw Pleasantville into the mix.

Anyone?

Source: LA Times

10 Responses

  1. @David Knox – as opposed to the countless Asian period dramas that are produced by CCTV and Pearl in China and Hong Kong, as well as the ones made in Japan and Indonesia?

    Why would we want to see Americans create a show like that? Its not like the Chinese produce TV shows about the Spanish colonising North America or about the Vikings…

  2. I second the Pleasantville suggestion. With the success of Mad Men, Downton Abbey etc. period pieces are clearly ‘in’ at the moment, plus Pleasantville’s original plot of 2 teenagers from the present being stuck in the 1950s could give it a fascinating premise and a good point of difference from other period shows too.

  3. What about the Doctor Who movie? I reckon a few people might be interested in a series about a time-traveller who gets out of impossible situations using a magic screwdriver or by travelling in time some more. They could call it “Deus Ex Machina”.

    1. I’m also staggered cable television is yet to give us a sprawling, period Asian dynasty. Think Game of Thrones in China, with lavish settings, costumes, martial arts, emporers, mythology, kingdoms and passion. Marco Polo series hints at it, I hope it works.

  4. All this talk of a Ghostbusters 3, I think should be scrapped in favour of a TV series. Not a reimagining, but a canonical follow-up where the remaining original cast can cameo on occasion, but it’s about a new team and their ongoing hunt for ghosts. Sort of a cross between Scooby Doo and X-Files.

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