You've heard that phrase a ton of times by now. Your favorite tv show or book is being adapted for a theatrical format. We've seen it happen in books like Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. TV Shows like Firefly and Star Trek have jumped to the big screen too. Or in my case, this show:
I had to throw that one in there. That'll probably be my favorite tv to movie adaptation, mainly because I remember how excited I was when I saw that trailer as a kid. I distinctly remember jumping off the neighbor's fireplace.
But back to action! Or, back to the point I was making here. You're probably very aware of how Hollywood loves adapting pre-exisitng franchises and properties to the big screen. I had the pleasure of meeting with the president of a production company here in Hollywood and he told me just that. The pitches that get the most attention come from a pre-existing property. So we can keep expecting books and tv shows to get on the big screen.
Now I'm going to take a planned tangent here. TV shows are old school now, and web content is the newest form of entertainment. There's one off videos that are meant to be consumed on their own, like the fun video I made with Hyperdrive Pictures, JJ Abrams' Star Wars.
Or you can watch content with longer, recurring narrative arcs, ie web series. Instead of sticking to the strict time restraints of tv shows, they have more freedom with how long or short each episode is. They range in production costs too, but are largely cheaper to make then a tv show. But when it comes down to it, you can get some friends together, write something up, and produce a web series. On the higher end of a web series costs, you could come up with something like my favorite series so far:
Now lets think about entertainment. Books and plays have been around for thousands of years. Those have become movies. You could even say radio has been adapted to the big screen, but the only example I can think of is War of the Worlds. Then tv came around, and that's been adapted to feature films. Now, in the 21st century, we have web series, and some of these look really good! DTLA, a web series produced by a former Longhorn, recently got picked up and is now a tv show. I personally think VGHS should be picked up as a tv show. I used to say it should go on G4, but that ship sailed long ago. But do you think the day is coming when web series will make it to the big screen now? Seems like it. I think that would be cool to see. And with the extra freedom that comes with writing a web series, it's interesting to think about what stories might look like when they become feature films. Cool, huh?