TV series based on well-known film titles have clearly become a big thing across the pond. On the heels of Fargo’s success comes news that not one but two more films will be reborn on the small screen. First up: word of a show based on the 1988 Tom Hanks comedy **Big.
The original focused on Josh, a 13 year-old lad who just wishes he could grow up faster. He makes a wish at a Zoltar sideshow machine and he’s soon a boy in a grown man’s (Hanks) body. Cue duets on giant piano floors and funny feelings about ladies.
Quite how the film will be converted for TV remains to be seen, though according to Deadline, “the series will be loosely based on the movie and will explore what it means to be an adult, what it means to be a kid, and how in today’s world those two things are more confused than ever.” Does that sound like the protagonist might switch back-and-forth between childhood and adulthood or is it just us?
It’s in the hands of people who know how to create entertaining blends of comedy and emotion, since the show will come from Kevin Biegel and Mike Royce, who last brought the late, lamented sitcom Enlisted to screens across the pond.
In related TV news – partly related because it’ll be co-created by Bill Lawrence, Biegel’s old Scrubs/Cougar Town boss – Warner Bros. TV is looking to turn Brett Ratner’s Rush Hour films into a series.
Lawrence will work with Blake McCormick (another Cougar Town veteran) to write a series based on the same premise as the films, that a by-the-book Hong Kong police officer is assigned to follow a case in Los Angeles, where he reluctantly joins forces with a cocky, talkative black LAPD officer. Can the concept work on a weekly basis? We may find out next year…