YOU CAN ALMOST hear a collective sigh of resignation around Hollywood every time Variety announces that a studio has given the green light to yet another film based on a television series.
In the past few years, multiplexes around the world have been filled with them, from action franchises such as Charlie's Angels and Mission: Impossible to comedies such as Bewitched. Some - such as the first two Mission movies - did well at the box office, while some others fell by the wayside. But the risks haven't stopped studios from investing hundreds of millions of dollars in big-screen versions of once popular television series, in the hope that there's an in-built audience and an instantly recognisable brand name.
The latest of these, Miami Vice, hit US cinemas a couple of weeks ago to a solid US$25.7 million on its opening weekend, knocking the formidable Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest off the top of the box-office charts. But by the second weekend, those numbers were down significantly, leading some to speculate that the Michael Mann-directed film may not even recoup the reported US$150 million cost from its release in US cinemas.
It's not clear whether that's because Mann's Miami Vice is yet another remake in a cultural landscape crowded with them - with no end to these remakes in sight. The latest to have been picked up are Magnum P.I. and The A-Team - both due for release next year. Many of the remakes are culled from the 1970s and 80s, and typically rely on a mixture of action and humour. A big-screen version of Knight Rider - which turned David Hasselhoff into a household name - is due to be released in 2008.
And those are just the action films. Comedies and dramas seem almost tailor-made for the trend, which explains why shows such as I Dream of Jeannie and Dallas are also being remade as movies. British director Gurinder Chadha, who hit box-office gold with Bend it Like Beckham, is said to be directing both.
