12 Movies You Didn’t Realise Were Originally TV Shows

8. The Mod Squad

Another movie that, were you not a fan of the show it was based on, you might have no idea actually existed as a television show first. Age has a lot to do with this one. Putting Omar Epps, Claire Danes, and Giovanni Ribisi in an undercover cop flick as agents looking to bust a drug ring probably looked fantastic on paper in 1999. Those three names still represented three hot young stars after all. Three stars who would bring in young fans. Who cares if the movie was a heartless clone of the show it was based on? Certainly not the studio! The fact is, the Mod Squad television show starring Clarence Williams III and Michael Cole was actually fairly popular, and ran for five seasons in the late '60s/early '70s, garnering multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. Yet the younger audiences the big screen adaptation was aimed at would likely have had no idea the series ever existed, and re-runs of it are scarce, though the series began being released on DVD in 2007, with the full run available as a box set as of 2013. The fact that the 1999 movie came off as just another generic action flick certainly didn't help.