Adapting Classic Films Into Miniseries: Is This The Way?
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
I’m going to keep it brief this Friday afternoon and wonder — on the day that the Dead Ringers miniseries has been released — about an ongoing phenomenon on the small screen: films that have been adapted as television miniseries. Well, television series based on successful films have been made since the dawn of the small screen medium, so it’s not exactly a new concept, but a long form series is a bit different. A feature film does well and a network wants to make that same kind of splash in their own way? Go for it, even if it winds up being My Big Fat Greek Life or the Taken series (and I do mean television series and not the film franchise). Sometimes you will wind up with something worthwhile like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which is much better than its feature film source material).
No. I’m referring more to miniseries specifically, especially since one can look at one and see the similarities between it and a longer feature film. Outside of outright television films, miniseries is the closest form of a happy medium between television shows and films. Think of it as a many-hour long film that you won’t feel guilty over when you pause it to take breaks. Auteurs have been exploring miniseries as longer films as far back as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Ingmar Bergman, and Krzysztof Kieślowski, amongst many others. The reverse is true as well, with filmmakers making feature films based off of already-existing miniseries (Traffic comes to mind as a major example). In fact, some works have been released as both films and miniseries (looking at Das Boot, Fanny and Alexander, and Scenes from a Marriage as examples).
Again, I’m focusing on miniseries based on films. Dead Ringers just came out. Black Narcissus wasn’t that long ago. Blade Runner 2099 will be happening. Olivier Assayas himself took Irma Vep to new heights with an adaptation of his own work. There are quite a few other examples, and that’s not even including series that were meant to be longer than one or two seasons but got canceled prematurely (so they now feel like miniseries, albeit incomplete ones). It’s true. Television is at a place cinema just isn’t at nowadays, and I think many are at peace with that. In the same way that books never went anywhere despite their fall in popularity for the next big thing, or that vinyl records remained the definitive way to listen to music even decades later and past so many trial runs of other mediums, films won’t go anywhere. TV just happens to be an easy medium to hop to for those of us that are already fine tuned with visual and audible entertainment.
The point is this appears to be a trend of sorts. If Hollywood can’t keep their hands off of classic films with remake after remake after remake, then it only makes sense that television would be following suit. The kicker here is that television at least has a different feel to cinema, so there is something new out of these adaptations just in their very nature. It has me wondering whether or not this is the way to go from here on out. It has been interesting for a few projects, but there are many examples awaiting us on the horizon, getting set to drop on some streaming service at any given moment. Should this happen at a high volume?
Like anything else, I feel like something can become stale or even redundant when the business-minded side of the entertainment industry gets fixated on something and cannot let go. Remember when 3-D films were actually worth going to? It was a brief stint for sure, but it was there. The problem is that, once again, artistic integrity took a backseat so dollar signs could sit at the wheel and drive quality straight into the ground. Assayas remaking Irma Vep was on his own terms. He had more to say. There was something refreshing there. When I think of something like, say, the BBCOne/FX version of Black Narcissus, what did it succeed with? What did it provide that the previous film by the Archers didn’t? I know both are based on the Rumer Godden novel, but clearly the series took some notes from the 1947 film. The point is I felt like Irma Vep stood on its own and needed to exist, whilst never trying to erase Assayas’ original film or needing to rely on it either. I’ll forever hop to the 1947 Black Narcissus before touching the miniseries ever again.
I don’t have a problem with adaptations as long as they’re doing something new or providing a different angle. Making miniseries off of existing projects isn’t the way to go. Blade Runner 2099 is a sequel, so that covers new ground. Dead Ringers has gender swapped the twin gynaecologist leads, and even this one change (of a handful) provides enough of a reason to exist; I don’t think gender swapping will have this effect on all projects, but this is Dead Ringers, and I think the context speaks for itself. Having said all of this, I guarantee that there will be miniseries that don’t put much stock into changing much at all. They may very well rely on their name recognition alone, and studios and networks know that this will be enough to get a percentage of a core fanbase flocking to their televisions and/or devices.
I don’t have many examples to point to now, but I guarantee that this will happen, because this sort of thing always happens. We can’t have a nice thing because profitability has to supersede innovation. Always. Look at the amount of projects that have been cancelled or buried promotionally so big budgeted blockbusters can continue to gamble at high stakes. Television won’t be immune to this either, in case you haven’t already noticed the series that certain networks refuse to let die (Homer Simpson has gone through five coronary bypasses and is on dialysis at this point, and Fox won’t let him retire, especially not under the watchful eye of Disney now).
Irma Vep kind of went under the radar, but Dead Ringers has achieved a bit more notice. This trend will likely continue, and it will almost definitely attract far worse projects. I honestly don’t have a problem with films being adapted as miniseries if there are proper reasons to exist. Maybe modernizing and adding length to Boyz n the Hood to create a multilayered observation of how underdeveloped areas of the United States continue to be ignored. Maybe Quentin Tarantino — who has stated that he wants to give television series a try, amongst other endeavours — could revisit a past film of his in long form (Jackie Brown has that literary juice to warrant this, especially). I would even settle for a Back to the Future that prolongs Marty McFly’s blast-to-the-past with additional explorations and discoveries from yesteryear (as long as they add up to something poignant).
What I worry about, however, are the vapid retellings of stories we already love in ways that completely disregard our intelligence as viewers. At a time where money is tight in entertainment, it honestly feels like a waste to splurge on projects that thrive off of the success of the hard work of others. I know that this is likely the strategy: we must make money the easy way now to weather this storm. I get that. There are other ways to go about it. Should you want to adapt a film as a series (or adapt anything, really: this is a much larger problem in general), do it right. Don’t be lazy. Take this negative and make it a positive: a new take on an old tale that carries its own spirit, heart, and identity.
Don’t get me wrong. None of this has anything to do with the release of Dead Ringers, which is an idea and project I welcomed the minute I learned about it in full. It’s just a worry I have going forward, because I’m noticing a pattern: the same kind of pattern that has happened in different ways but with similar pulses. A few works do something similar, and then it suddenly becomes the norm to the point of suffocation. I hope I’m wrong. The majority of these examples have at least felt unique, even if they haven’t necessarily been better than their source materials. That’s just how it feels now. I dread this becoming the “in” thing with cut corners, a lack of effort, and zero reason to occur outside of bankability. As the kids say, I’ve seen this movie before. I hope I am wrong.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.