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“Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” had all the makings of a hit, even without Arnold Schwarzenegger.
But after just two 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 the show was doomed to be compared to its iconic source material.
This year, the networks are trying something more subtle. More movie reboots are on the way, but the networks have chosen less-obvious films to help launchnew series. In the fall, NBC will bring a drama version of the 1989 Steve Martin family movie “Parenthood” (a previous comedic attempt aired in 1990), while ABC has slated a “Desperate Housewives” spin on “The Witches of Eastwick,” simply titled “Eastwick.”
Tonight, ABC Family will premiere the half-hour series “10 Things I Hate About You,” based on the 1999 teen comedy of the same name.
“Parenthood” continues NBC’s tradition of 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.”
Name recognition, even if it summons a dim memory, is important, said Angela Bromstad, president of prime-time entertainment for NBC. “When you’re in such a crowded space, anything that resonates is good,” she said.
There likely won’t be any angry fanboys burning down NBC if the Steve Martin role is miscast. Jason Katims, 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.” Although the ratings-challenged show had a difficult time explaining itself to an audience – the story centers on the issues facing a small-town community in Texas more than it does on high school football – it found a critical following so devoted that NBC engineered a deal with DirecTV to keep the show on the air through 2011.
Katims thinks his new show will be a much easier sell. “ ‘Parenthood’ is simpler – it’s all there in the title,” he said. “It’s dealing with the beauty and heartache of everyday life, specifically for parents.”
As in the Ron Howard-directed film, the show will revolve around the daily dramas of a supersized adult family: four adult siblings (Peter Krause, Maura Tierney, Erika Christensen and Dax Shepard), their spouses, kids and parents (Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedelia).
“Like with ‘Friday Night Lights,’ I think there’s positive attachment to ‘Parenthood,’ ” Bromstad said. “I don’t remember the specifics, but I do remember it being a rare comment on how challenging parenthood was, but also how great.”
“Eastwick” executive producer Maggie Friedman concedes she initially found it troublesome that “The Witches of Eastwick” might be a little too memorable.
A couple of series attempts had already been made in the aftermath of George Miller’s 1987 supernatural comedy-horror movie, which starred Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer as a trio of lusty, vengeful witches and Jack Nicholson as “your average horny little devil.” Pilots were produced in 1992 and 2002, with Marcia Cross, Kelly Rutherford and Lori Loughlin playing the women as mothers with teen sons (all three are regulars in series this fall).
“What I wanted was to be evocative of the fun and sexiness and danger of the movie but also do something different and contemporary,” Friedman said. “More than magic, mine is a fantasy about female friendship.”
For the series, she abandoned the campy ’80s trappings in favor of something more grounded. Each of the three new witches in sleepy seaside Eastwick – here played by Rebecca Romijn, Lindsay Price and Jamie Ray Newman – is granted a gift specific to her midlife hang-up. (Price’s character, for example, is a meek wallflower who suddenly finds herself with the power to bend men’s wills.)
Of the three 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 ABC Family head of programming Kate Juergens. “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 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’s had her eye on the film since seeing a research presentation that listed “10 Things” among the Top 10 influential films among “young millenials,” ABC Family’s target audience. After she found out parent company Disney owned the rights, she began to develop the project.
