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Feeling Familiar: '10 Things' is latest movie reboot on TV
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Published: July 7, 2009
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles had all the makings of a hit, even without Arnold.
But after just two shortened seasons, Fox pulled the plug on the blockbuster franchise's move to TV. Ratings had fallen to a series low by May, and it seemed as if the show was doomed to be unfavorably -- and maybe unfairly -- compared to its iconic source material.
This year, the networks are trying something more subtle. More movie reboots are on the way, but rather than plucking from mega properties, the networks have chosen less-obvious films to help start, but not overshadow, new series. In the fall, NBC will bring a drama version of the 1989 Steve Martin family movie Parenthood (a prior, short-lived comedic attempt aired in 1990), and ABC has slated a Desperate Housewives spin on The Witches of Eastwick, simply titled Eastwick.
And at 8 p.m. today, ABC Family will premiere the half-hour series 10 Things I Hate About You, based on the 1999 teen comedy of the same name.
Though the films themselves may no longer be at the forefront of pop culture, each spinoff feels more like a homegrown project than a marketing ploy. Parenthood continues NBC's tradition of extra-large ensemble dramas (The West Wing, ER and Heroes), Eastwick adds another female-centric soap opera to ABC's stable (Grey's Anatomy, Brothers & Sisters), and 10 Things has the comedic edge of ABC Family's hit Greek. Not coincidentally, Greek writer-producer Carter Covington (who is from Winston-Salem) works on both shows.
Time and distance between iterations offer advantages, too. When the WB slowly grew Buffy the Vampire Slayer into a cult hit in 1997, few made comparisons -- or even remembered -- the 1992 movie that preceded it.
Name recognition, even if it summons a dim memory, is important, said Angela Bromstad, the president of prime-time entertainment for NBC and Universal Media Studios. "When you're in such a crowded space, anything that resonates is good," she said. "To be honest, I haven't watched the original Parenthood in some time. It's sitting at my desk at home -- I was planning on taking it on vacation to watch again."
That means no angry fanboys burning down NBC if the Steve Martin role is miscast. Jason Katims, who is the executive producer of the series, said he likes "the fact that even if most people know the film, they won't be demanding the series be a certain thing. Hopefully, they'll be more open."
The gamble is not entirely new to NBC. The network saw moderate success with Katims' adaptation of the Peter Berg high-school football drama Friday Night Lights. Though the ratings-challenged show had a difficult time explaining itself to an audience, it found a critical following so devoted that NBC engineered a deal with DirecTV to keep the show on the air through 2011.
Of the three new shows, ABC Family's 10 Things I Hate About You might have the most baggage to shed. The original film, itself an update of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, featured Julia Stiles and the late Heath Ledger, the latter in a star-making performance as the longhaired misfit who falls for Stiles' tough-talking high-school feminist.
Their characters had to be reinvented for the show, which will follow the mismatched Stratford sisters and the students at Padua High. "It was really concerning," said Kate Juergens, ABC Family's head of programming. "Heath's role was particularly hard to cast, and we didn't want to replicate what he'd done and do ourselves a disservice by comparison. So we went in a different direction entirely."
Ethan Peck, the grandson of Gregory, will play the character of Patrick Verona. Juergens said that whereas Ledger had a "beautiful, sunny, playful presence," Peck has a "dark, brooding, deeply classical romantic thing going on."
She added that she had had her eye on the film ever since seeing a research presentation that listed 10 Things among the Top 10 influential films among "young millenials," ABC Family's target audience. Once she found out that parent company Disney owned the rights, she immediately began to develop the project.
Gil Junger, who directed the film and will direct several episodes of the series, said that the show stands on its own because the characters from the movie do.
"I think if Disney had signed the cast of 10 Things to a two- or three-picture deal -- and I'm still surprised they didn't -- there would have been a 10 Things 2 and 10 Things 3, and they would have been equally successful," Junger said, "because people fell in love not with the story but with those characters."
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