The era of streaming TV means never having to say you’re sorry, especially if you’re a corporate overlord mining the IP you already own for ideas. Per The Hollywood Reporter, ViacomCBS is developing a whole bevy of TV series for the newly rebranded Paramount+ based on classic Paramount movies, because why make something new when you can make something vaguely new based on something old.
The movies up for TV-ification include Love Story, the 1970 weepy that Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage (of The O.C. and Gossip Girl) and Lis Rowinski are developing as a series, which sounds like it could become a teen drama, but set in a college in Boston — well, not Boston, Cambridge, specifically.
A TV version of 1987’s Fatal Attraction, meanwhile, is being developed as a “deep-dive reimagining†of the original thriller, written by Alexandra Cunningham and Kevin Hynes of Dirty John. Good luck doing that without Glenn Close and her curly hair!
On the political-thriller side of things, Paramount+ is also developing a show based on Alan J. Pakula’s 1974 movie The Parallax View, with Mission: Impossible’s Paula Wagner executive producing, though per THR, “a writer has not yet been determined.†Seems like an important role! Hope they find one.
Among the other movie-to-streaming show projects: a present-day version of 1983’s Flashdance about a Black woman trying to make it in the world of ballet, written by Tracy McMillan (Good Girls Revolt); and a new version of 1969’s The Italian Job that’s about “the grandchildren of the legendary Charlie Croker,†Michael Caine’s character in the original, who hopefully know how to blow their own bloody doors off, or something.
In addition to all that, there are the Paramount properties that were already in the whole “beloved movie to hopefully okay enough TV show†pipeline. There’s a making of The Godfather series no longer starring Armie Hammer, and a Grease series about the Pink Ladies that was originally for HBO Max but got moved to Paramount+. Reusable IP, you’re the one that I want, ooh-ooh-ooh, baby!