Movies to TV Shows: How producers could make bigger bucks by extending the film roll

Sometimes I watch a movie and wish it never ended. I sit through the credits with dozens of unanswered questions rolling through my head, and it makes me feel empty inside. That’s how I felt during the ending credits of the last “Harry Potter” movie, even though there were eight movies in the series.

This sense of unanswered questions, though, has an easy solution: Simply turn these stories into TV shows since a regular series allows the audience to better understand the characters and delve deeper into their worlds.

A movie becoming a TV series isn’t an original concept. MTV’s teen guilty pleasure, “Teen Wolf,” was originally a movie that premiered in 1985. Although the TV adaptation stars different actors and has a slightly different plotline, it is much more successful than the movie because of the higher revenue and developed cast.

Other more recent films should also be adapted for television. “Harry Potter,” for example, would make an excellent TV series because the books provide so much content to explore.

The “Harry Potter” series is composed of seven massive books, and the movies don’t cover nearly all the exciting events penned by J.K. Rowling. If a TV adaptation were written, produced and executed properly, it would be a hit. Furthermore, there are a thousand spin-off ideas, such as stories about Harry’s parents or Voldemort’s childhood, that would make great storylines.

Like the “Harry Potter” series, “The Vampire Academy” series includes six books, and one of them has already been made into a movie. It also has potential for TV. With more time to work, producers could squeeze out every juicy detail in the books and adapt them into a TV series. For example, the producers could even have more romantic scenes between the couples, which the audiences would love.

Popular books with so much plot development and and so many details shouldn’t just be made into a movie that ends after two hours. That’s hardly enough time for viewers to fully connect with all the characters.Another good candidate for a movie becoming a TV show is “The Avengers.” If “The Avengers” became a TV show, I could see my favorite superheroes kick butt every week. I know about the courageousness of Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow, Thor and the Hulk, but I want to know more about their personal lives and hardships to better understand why them.

For example, the “Iron Man” movies are so popular because they dig deep into Tony Stark’s character. By watching a complete set of movies dedicated to just one superhero, we can see Tony Stark’s journey in becoming Iron Man and the obstacles he must overcome afterwards. Similarly, TV show adaptations of superheroes’ stories could be even more profound than movie trilogies.

The creators of “Game of Thrones”  also made the smart move of adapting the books toaTV. Now the TV show is a worldwide sensation.  “Smallville” (2001-2011), another movie-to-TV adaptation based on the Superman franchise, is another hit; in fact, it lasted for 10 years.  

TV shows based on past movies have both pleased audiences and earned big profits. Moreover, instead of staying up all night racking my brain about the end of a movie, I can sleep peacefully knowing that I have next week’s episode to look forward to.