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When Hollywood runs out of new ideas, it has two options: remake an old movie or update an old TV show. With the latter, audiences of a certain age are then expected to troop along to relive their childhoods, as with the 2004 revival of US buddy-cop favourite Starsky & Hutch.
Even though Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson brought the cops back to life with gusto, I thought it was sad to see a classic brand undermined by mocking irony and facile homoerotic quips. At least Mission: Impossible and The Fugitive were respectful to the spirit of the originals.
Ultimately, television and film are like battling siblings. The younger one is forever trying to emulate the elder, and when the elder screws up he is accused of acting like the younger. (Witness the readiness of critics to dismiss a film as "a glorified soap opera" and the unfair sneer that usually accompanies the words "TV movie".)
But they're inseparable. The television industry remains a fertile training ground for those wishing to move into film, and where would Tinseltown be without the stand-by of successful shows that it can turn into movies, be it The Simpsons or The X-Files (the second big-screen version arrives here in August).
Sex and the City, which decisively ended after six years when lead character and seemingly incurable singleton Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) finally got together with Mr Big (you had to be there), has already hit cinemas amid a shrill chorus of marketing hype. All concerned will hope that the film "does a Star Trek", breathing new cinematic life into a defunct small-screen concern and spawning a money-making franchise.
The UK used to have a fine tradition of turning hit TV shows into lucrative movies. In the 1970s, ITV's On the Buses spawned three feature films (including Mutiny on the Buses), each based on the thin premise that old men lusting after "clippies" was very funny.
These were massive box-office hits – the first made more money than
Diamonds Are Forever in 1971. Quite why they didn't precipitate a new TV series, On the Buses: the Next Generation, perhaps with some nice new uniforms, I don't know.
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