10 Failed Movies That Should've Been TV Shows
Sometimes two hours just isn't enough.
There used to be a time when movie stars refused to take work on the small screen out of fear of being labeled a 'TV actor', but in the era of Peak TV the lines have become increasingly blurred, with plenty of shows dominating popular culture and frequently outshining their big-screen counterparts.
One of the downsides of the two mediums becoming so indistinguishable is that they have both started cannibalizing each other, with dozens of TV shows being adapted into movies and vice versa. Baywatch, Fargo, Jump Street, Westworld and plenty of others have all crossed the divide in recent years to varying degrees of success, as seemingly every property with any kind of name value is repurposed for a new audience.
Some stories are better suited to cinema, much like other narratives are better equipped for long-form storytelling. It can sometimes be difficult for a movie to get its point across in a couple of hours, and there are no shortage of failed movies that deserve a second chance on the small screen.
10. Men In Black International
Men in Black International is still playing in theaters but is already one of the year's biggest box office duds that will result in a hefty loss for Sony, with the movie earning only $220m worldwide to date in the wake of a critical bashing. These problems were blamed on a series of behind-the-scenes issues, but the truth is that Men in Black International seemed completely unnecessary from the very beginning.
After the insane-yet-plausible MiB/Jump Street crossover was abandoned, the studio decided to move ahead with a much more straightforward sequel and despite the strength of the two leads and the depth of the cast, none of the marketing made it look as though the movie brought anything new to the franchise. Which it didn't.
The Men in Black franchise is so closely associated with the Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones double-act that a sequel without them didn't interest people, but the concept could work on the small screen. A Men in Black International TV show could be something like Agents of SHIELD: it's set in the same universe as the movies, has a couple of minor recurring characters but it exists in its own world.
It would be a fresh take on a 22 year-old franchise to take a step away from the 'saving the world' stories and focus on the smaller incidents in the MiB universe, as we see everyday field agents dealing with the more minor disturbances as they battle against the scum of the universe.