When it was just a TV series, ”The Addams Family” lasted only two seasons before ABC decided it had no future and canceled it. It never made the list of the Top 20 shows for either year, finishing behind such lowbrow programs as ”Gilligan`s Island” and ”Green Acres.”
But a quarter-century after ABC shoveled dirt over it, ”The Addams Family” is a $30 million movie from Paramount, playing in theaters all over America. Paramount is even seeking commitments from the cast for possible sequels.
Actually, Paramount has been through it all before. Its science-fiction series, ”Star Trek,” didn`t finish among the season`s Top 25 shows for any of the three years it was on NBC. The likes of ”My Three Sons,”
”Bewitched” and ”Gomer Pyle, USMC” consistently kicked sand in the faces of Capt. Kirk and his crew from the Enterprise.
But Paramount has released ”Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,”
sixth in a series of feature films based on the old TV show and starring the original cast. It`s on its way to becoming one of the major box-office attractions of the holiday movie season.
Even stranger things have happened. In spring 1982, ABC put on a wacky comedy series called ”Police Squad!” that was admired by few, scorned by millions. It was canceled after just six episodes.
But six years later, Leslie Nielsen, the show`s original star, found himself in a big-budget movie called ”The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad.” It turned into one of the biggest box-office smashes of 1988. Nielsen starred in a 1991 sequel, ”Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear.”
A prequel to `Peaks`
What`s going on here? Why would TV shows that viewers grew tired of-or barely saw at all-start reappearing as major motion pictures? And, even more puzzling, why would some of them turn into runaway hits?
There are lots of possible answers, but the most persuasive surely is linked to the growing influence of TV on contemporary American culture. Like it or not, memories of most TV shows are locked away in our collective subconscious, where they`ve become part of the fabric of our culture.
In the coming year, this peculiar phenomenon is going to take an even stranger turn as writer-director David Lynch appeals directly to the movie-going public to prove ABC shouldn`t have dumped his ”Twin Peaks” series last year.
Lynch is finishing up a feature movie version of the kinky serial drama that was an overnight sensation in 1990 until it self-destructed by dragging out the solution for its ”Who killed Laura Palmer?” mystery so long that viewers no longer cared.
Tentatively called ”Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me-Theresa Banks and the Last Seven Days of Laura Palmer,” it`s actually a ”prequel” to the short-lived TV show, and deals with events leading up to the murder of Laura Palmer. Kyle MacLachlan and most of the TV cast are reprising their roles.
Several factors have lead to the rebirth of these shows. Although ”The Addams Family” and ”Star Trek” never really were hit TV shows, they still reached millions when first telecast in the 1960s. They reached tens of millions more once they slipped into syndication, where huge ratings aren`t necessary for success.
Programs such as ”The Addams Family,” ”Star Trek,” ”Twin Peaks” and even ”Police Squad!” always appealed to a small but loyal segment of the TV audience. That core of viewers wasn`t strong enough to make any of those shows a network hit, but the economics of syndication are different.
Marketed directly to its cadre of fans, ”Star Trek” became an enormous hit for local TV stations. And sponsors were delighted with ratings that would have driven an ad executive into deep depression.
It`s also important to remember that shows such as ”The Addams Family”
and ”Star Trek” have been around for a quarter-century of reruns, gathering fans every year and holding them. Even more recent cult favorites, such as
”Police Squad!” and ”Twin Peaks,” continue to be talked about, building a potential audience among the curious.
A winning formula
Is it then surprising that so many current moviegoers already know about Gomez and Morticia Addams, Capt. Kirk, Mr. Spock, Laura Palmer and Agent Cooper? That awareness is worth tens of millions of dollars in publicity to studios bringing those characters to the big screen.
There`s also a huge reservoir of fond nostalgia for some of the shows among the Baby Boomer audience and movie-studio executives. Their children also know these characters well-from reruns on local stations and cable networks such as Nickelodeon, TBS and the Family Channel.
That`s surely why old TV favorites such as ”The Untouchables,” which became a blockbuster hit as a 1987 feature film starring Kevin Costner, are being remade on a grand scale with today`s stars in leading roles. They`re presold to moviegoers who are conditioned to like them because they remember the old shows fondly. For younger filmgoers, the presence of contemporary stars such as Costner will do the trick.
This is a tried-and-true strategy, developed by TV network programmers such as Brandon Tartikoff, who began the rage for reviving old TV shows with his ”Gilligan`s Island” and ”Perry Mason” TV movies on NBC a decade ago. Tartikoff now runs Paramount, the movie studio most active in the TV spinoff trend, and nobody expects him to stop making more of them.
Although the unceasing nostalgia boom may be the reason a big-screen remake of ”The Fugitive” is in the works and a live-action version of ”The Flintstones” TV cartoon show is planned, it`s not the only reason movie studios are turning to TV for subject matter.
Television is now so pervasive a presence that we often take it for granted, failing to appreciate its ability to create an instant audience for practically anything.
When the syndicated kiddie cartoon show ”Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”
became a radical hit among youngsters on local TV stations in 1989, a small independent film-distribution company called New Line Cinema took a wild chance on a feature-film version using live actors in turtle suits. At the time, it was widely viewed as one of the dumber ideas in Hollywood history.
”Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” did go down in Hollywood history, all right, but as the most successful independently released movie of all time. It was one of 1990`s biggest hits and inspired a 1991 sequel, ”Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze,” which also racked up huge profits. Although New Line might have been content with a quick turnover in the small but lucrative market for children`s movies, reaching the needed profit margin through home-video sales, it wound up instead with a hit that clearly demonstrated how well a presold TV concept could succeed in theaters. Right now, New Line is looking to score again by turning another syndicated TV kids` show, ”Toxic Crusaders,” into a feature film for 1992.
Late-night inspiration
Tartikoff and his shrewd colleagues at Paramount also are busy on their next entry: turning the popular TV comedy sketches done by Mike Myers and Dana Carvey on NBC`s ”Saturday Night Live” into a ”Wayne`s World” feature film for 1992, featuring the two TV stars. It`s not the first time ”Saturday Night Live” has supplied story material for feature films. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi took ”The Blues Brothers” to the big screen in 1980 as a big-budget comedy extravaganza.
In fact, it was only after 1979`s big-budget ”Star Trek: The Motion Picture” that studio bosses began to see the wisdom in doing grand-scale versions of TV shows. Done in the right spirit, they could rise out of the quickie exploitation market into the blockbuster league and reap mighty profits. They might even become series again, as the ”Star Trek” movies did, only on the big screen.
So far no studio has come up with a big-screen series of TV remakes to rival the success of the ”Star Trek” movies, but several have earned big-league dollars, including ”Twilight Zone: The Movie” (1983), the Dan Aykroyd-Tom Hanks comedy sendup version of ”Dragnet” (1987), and director Brian de Palma`s 1987 homage to Eliot Ness, ”The Untouchables.”
If ”The Addams Family” and ”Star Trek VI” continue to do well at the box office, they`ll only prompt more copycat ventures for a movie business starved for fresh ideas. In the meantime, the networks might think twice before canceling any low-rated shows and save the millions they`ll have to cough up to play the movie versions a few years later.
