I've been thinking about the 'Failed TV Show made into a movie' line I've read in a few places, and I can think of at least one example of this happening before.

Police Squad! was permaturely cut short, and three Naked Gun movies were made from it.

I can't think of any more examples though.

Caleb | June 02, 23:33 CET

It is very rare, the only other one I can think of is the upcoming (eventually) Clerks: Sell Out a movie of the TV series that was cancelled after 6 episodes.

Ghost Spike | June 02, 23:40 CET

Isn't there already a Clerks movie? Or is that a different Clerks?

eddy | June 02, 23:56 CET

Ghost Spike is referring to the Clerks Animated Movie that is based on the short lived (but excellent) Clerks: Animated Series, which was based on the Clerks movie.

Incidentally there is also a sequel to the original Clerks movie in pre-production entitled The Passion of the Clerks.

In a way this isn't really comparable to the Firefly situation since Clerks was a movie first and the animated series was using already established characters.

ringworm | June 03, 00:02 CET

Clerks is a wierd one. Clerks was first a movie then a live action TV series that Kevin Smith had nothing to do with and condemns anytime anyone mentions it. It never got past the pilot.

Then there was the animated series which was ok but not great or anything.

And now another movie (Passion of the Clerks) plus an animated movie (Sell Out) which I guess is directly descended from the animated show rather than the live action movie.

So while I guess the animated show was technically cancelled, it does have the success of the movie behind it.

sTalking_Goat | June 03, 00:08 CET

Great comic, Samatwitch. Congratulations on your first post.

electricspacegirl | June 03, 01:00 CET

He condemns the animated series a lot too, mainly because ABC butchered it.

And the animated film, from what I can tell, is no long going to go ahead. There was originally going to be an animated film, this is true, but I think that fell through and he's doing another live action one instead.

Plus, another failed TV series that was turned into a movie?

Star Trek.

Gonnas | June 03, 01:05 CET

Three seasons is not a failure.

ringworm | June 03, 01:06 CET

I don't think it's the series Kevin Smith condemns so much, but the network (and that other networks like UPN and MTV offered them much more, but they wanted to be on one of the big ones), which he complains about for probably about an hour of the 3 hours of commentary for the show, that and animator Han. It's a very funny show. Kevin Smith himself has said as recently as a few months ago that Clerks 2 will not effect Clerks: Sell Out, and that the animated project is still going ahead, now straight to DVD, there was even talk of one a year.

This has really gone off topic.

Three seasons isn't a failure, still is quite strange that networks no longer feel shows are profitable, yet movie studios are willing to put millions of dollars behind them.

Ghost Spike | June 03, 01:18 CET

Even movie studios these days accept that most movies will never make a profit at the box office. It's all about DVD sales, TV sales etc. Box office is way under 20% of a studios income for the typical movie.

So while a network may not get enough viewers/advertisers to make a show profitable a movie is completly different. An enthusiastic fan base who will buy DVDs until the cows come home easily justify making the movie. The actual movie release, while important to "Launch" the movie with a bang, is just that. A Launch, a two hour advert for the DVD. See here for details.

zz9 | June 03, 02:13 CET

Can people stop bullying the ewoks? I love those guys, they are definately my favorite alien race in Star Wars.

Djungelurban | June 03, 02:15 CET

"Plus, another failed TV series that was turned into a movie?

Star Trek."

"Three seasons is not a failure. "

In terms of the history of this show, it was. Many of the same things done to "Firefly" were done to "Star Trek." Shows were switched around and preempted. Star Trek was cancelled after the second season, but brought back by a massive fan campaign. When it was brought back, it was put on Friday night, first at 9 p.m. and then at 10 p.m. The budget for the show was cut, and Gene Roddenberry and staff had to make compromises in the stories with NBC, which led to a lot of really bad evil-alien-of-the-week episodes and Spock's Brain.

Star Trek may have lasted longer, but it suffered from network and studio interference. I think these days, the networks are even more cut-throat than they used to be, so they don't even wait to see if a show will succeed or fail. If they don't have top numbers in the first week or two - especially on FOX - they are history.

In the case of "Firefly," though, they messed with Joss and us. That was a very bad move. Fans of the Whedonverse are just as tenacious as Star Trek fans - perhaps even more so now, because Star Trek has been around for 39 years, and the Whedonverse hasn't yet reached adolescence.

[ edited by Nebula1400 on 2005-06-03 01:03 ]

Nebula1400 | June 03, 03:01 CET

I feel like I need to wash my ears out - "Joss Whedon", "Ewok" and "Gungan" in the same sentence! Two universes collide!

catalyst2 | June 03, 07:35 CET

I had a heck of a time seeing it, seems the site was overloaded, so I made a mirror here:
http://venusenvy.keenspace.com.nyud.net:8090/d/20050528.html

TaraLivesOn | June 03, 07:42 CET

I can't see it at all! On either one!

Firefly Flanatic | June 03, 08:24 CET

Eh try this then...

TaraLivesOn | June 03, 09:51 CET

Nope, got that error page that tells you to refresh the page and tried that and that didn't work either! Thanks for trying to help!

Firefly Flanatic | June 03, 18:21 CET