TV adaptations of hit movies seem to be the in-thing nowadays, despite being a bit hit (see Hannibal, Bates Motel, and Fargo) or miss (see the Zombieland TV pilot). Unfortunately, the 2003 LA Confidential pilot was firmly in miss category. The LA Confidential pilot was originally conceived as a 13 episode series for HBO and starred a pre-24 Keifer Sutherland and Melissa George as a second-rate Kevin Spacey and Kim Basinger respectively. A smattering of familiar faces that pop up on seemingly every TV show every now and again filled out all the other roles. Now to its credit, the pilot pays homage to the original novel and the film's noir tone but tries to be its own independent thing. Unfortunately, in trying to avoid copying the source material too much, the pilot alters the story in such a way that all the good stuff in the film and novel are cut out and what is leftover is just awful. The pilot was shot in 1999 but HBO lost interest and FOX took over. The pilot then sat on the shelf before finally being aired to little fanfare in 2003. By that stage, Sutherland had landed 24 and FOX had decided that ordering a TV series set in the 50's based on a terrible 4 year old pilot is probably not the best decision to make. http://dai.ly/xstbdb
My life story is nothing special. I haven't cured ebola, I'm nowhere near stopping terrorism, and I'm still working on that climate change problem.
Instead, all I've done so far is put a few hundred words together in an attempt to make people laugh.
You can follow me at @Fry_ying_pan but don't be offended if I don't tweet back. It's usually because I've spent too long trying to think up a witty response that the reply window has closed.
