Welcome to the show folks.
James Cameron is rapidly replacing Jeff Zucker and Harvey Weinstein as a source of material. When he's not loosing trial balloons about Avatar sequels and other flicks that will probably take another decade and a half to see the light of day, he's making a deal to adapt his 90s spy-caper/marital comedy True Lies into a TV series.
Let's look at the pros and cons of this plan:
PROS:
1. Rene Echevarria, the show-runner for the proposed series, is an experienced writer and producer with credits as far back as Star Trek: TNG, DS9, to his own show The 4400. I'm sure he has his detractors, everyone in Hollywood does, but I'm not going to judge him without giving him a shot.
2. With Cameron involved it will definitely have a lot of expensive production values.
CONS:
1. The formula of the spy balancing domestic life and espionage has been a little overdone lately. There's bound to be a saturation point.
2. Cameron has a spotty record with television. Namely his series Dark Angel, which had a big start, but rapidly fizzled, as if everyone involved lost interest, including the audience. This could easily happen again here.
3. Chemistry between the leads. One of the main reasons for the success of True Lies was the great chemistry between its stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. Both are 16 years older, and unlikely to commit to the grind of a action-oriented series. New leads will have to be found, and they have to somehow put lightning in a bottle the second time. That is very unlikely.
4. Sanitizing the characters. The husband character is a bit of a dick, when he's not boring her half to death by being emotionally and mentally absent, he's emotionally and mentally torturing her. It's a very sado-masochistic movie, and no doubt everything about them will have to be sanitized for a TV network. That mean turning them basically into every other TV spy done before.
That's why I'm not seeing much hope for this as a series.
What do you think?
James Cameron is rapidly replacing Jeff Zucker and Harvey Weinstein as a source of material. When he's not loosing trial balloons about Avatar sequels and other flicks that will probably take another decade and a half to see the light of day, he's making a deal to adapt his 90s spy-caper/marital comedy True Lies into a TV series.
Let's look at the pros and cons of this plan:
PROS:
1. Rene Echevarria, the show-runner for the proposed series, is an experienced writer and producer with credits as far back as Star Trek: TNG, DS9, to his own show The 4400. I'm sure he has his detractors, everyone in Hollywood does, but I'm not going to judge him without giving him a shot.
2. With Cameron involved it will definitely have a lot of expensive production values.
CONS:
1. The formula of the spy balancing domestic life and espionage has been a little overdone lately. There's bound to be a saturation point.
2. Cameron has a spotty record with television. Namely his series Dark Angel, which had a big start, but rapidly fizzled, as if everyone involved lost interest, including the audience. This could easily happen again here.
3. Chemistry between the leads. One of the main reasons for the success of True Lies was the great chemistry between its stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. Both are 16 years older, and unlikely to commit to the grind of a action-oriented series. New leads will have to be found, and they have to somehow put lightning in a bottle the second time. That is very unlikely.
4. Sanitizing the characters. The husband character is a bit of a dick, when he's not boring her half to death by being emotionally and mentally absent, he's emotionally and mentally torturing her. It's a very sado-masochistic movie, and no doubt everything about them will have to be sanitized for a TV network. That mean turning them basically into every other TV spy done before.
That's why I'm not seeing much hope for this as a series.
What do you think?
"True Lies" worked for two reasons:
ReplyDelete1) Blow-em-up shooty goodness as only can be done w/ a big budget Hollywood production. Come on, they -blew up one of the Florida Keys-
2) That scene with Jamie Lee Curtis. Guys, you know what scene I'm talking about...
*Trails off for a moment*
Sorry, where was I? Oh, yeah. TV series bad idea, b/c as you say it's been done to death (Alias, La Femme Nikita, Covert Affairs, just off the top of my head)
Also, you would not be able to do 1) or 2) above. 1) would not be possible on a TV budget, not to mention you can only do 'nuclear armed maniac' so many times before it gets boring. 2) would probably not make it past the censors...probably.