FROM TV TO MOVIES

Honestly, I love AND envy America’s film history, not because it’s the largest film industry in the world but because of so much talent and a huge history of film making and T.V series. So much so that a lot of their rested T.V series later became adapted into films; like Charlie’s Angels, Thunderbirds,
Starsky and Hutch ,Miami Vice, Mission Impossible (yes naija folks, it was a T.V series back in the 60’s) and one I’m not familiar with, The Dukes of Hazzard. And not just T.V series too, but their comics; we’ve been treated to SUPERMAN, BATMAN, MASK OF ZORRO, THE FANTASTIC 4, THE X-MEN, SPIDERMAN, SUPERGIRL,CONSTANTINE, GHOST RIDER, DARE-DEVIL , ELEKTRA even THE FLINTSTONES. And now, we’re now treated to the film adaptation of one of the old animated series I loved as a child, SPEED RACER about the driver of the Mack 5, Speed Racer, who was continuously helped by the mysterious Racer X (his banished elder brother, Rex). Maybe there might be a film adaptation of TERRAHAWKS (The original THUNDERBIRDS were puppets weren’t they?), VOLTRON, BATTLE OF THE PLANETS and I really hope, THUNDERSUB. Besides SPEED RACER, we’re also being treated to another Marvel comic adaptation, IRON MAN, starring Robert Downey Jr.as Tony Stark/Iron Man and Terence Stamp as Jim who later became WAR MACHINE. And I heard last week there’ll soon be a film adaptation of THE JUSTICE LEAGUE.
Nollywood’s T.V series still have a long way to go, for one thing, do more biopics where the name are used instead of being ridiculously rearranged and changed, like the film about the Bakassi boys, the film was called ‘Issakaba’. Most of our T.V series today are SO short-lived, yet it seems ‘Family Ties’ and ‘Treasures’ are showing promise of lasting for quite a while. The best one was Checkmate, which had a good run and a reasonable ending as well as a spinoff, Fuji House of Commotion which has been on since 2001, and although Fortunes (renamed Mega fortunes) was cancelled abruptly, it was adapted to a movie named after the bitchy protagonist DANGEROUS GODDESS, the same with the series, FAMILY CIRCLE. In terms of comics adapted to T.V, we have SUPERSTORY, PAPA AJASCO and BINTA& FRIENDS. Just remaining the adaptation of the FUN TIMES; its characters Benbella, Lulu, Alhaja and Bobo Odenson WOULD be a scream on television. It’s not fair the comic was phased out without warning in the first place.