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Repairman Jack for Cable TV - ConstantGeographer - 12-06-2008
On the point about Beacon owning the rights, yes, that is a brick wall, unless they want to get into production for cable. Maybe they already do that and I haven't found that connection, yet.
The main problem I have with movies is what I will call the Bond Dilemma. Most of the Repairman Jack stores take place within a very limited time frame, a few months to a couple of years. To remain true to the novels, then the character of Jack must be played by the same actor. Between the time movies are scripted to filming, years elapse, people age, and then we dive into the maelstrom of rewriting people, events, etc., to accommodate the passage of real world time. I like the Bond movies, but how many Bond actors have we been through? Six? How many Batmans have we been through? Four? I would like to see the character of Jack played by the same bloke throughout. Same for Gia, and same for Abe.
Cable would lend itself better for this. HBO would probably be the best venue. Jack tends to wax violent sometimes, swear, and to maintain the content and context of the stories, HBO or Showtime would be best, in the same vein as OZ or Deadwood or The Sopranos. Though for a larger audience, some of the mature themes could be reduced for common consumption via USA, FX, or SCIFI.
This year, "The Legend of the Seeker," was brought to TV. This show is based on Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth novel. I have been following the development of this show for a while. From concept to broadcast, it didn't take very long, a couple years. I did not like the book much, the show is okay. When I see these shows like this come to air, knowing there is better stuff out there, I'm like, Man, why can't they do this for RPJ?
And, you know, while we hash this out, it gives FPW time to get the complete series written. The complete story arc for RPJ would then be available. Then, in a few years, we might have something like what J. Michael Strazinski did with Babylon 5. We could have the entire series produced, beginning to end.
I'm really just worried about what I'll watch when Burn Notice, House, Monk, and Psych are canceled.
quigglemouth:
Repairman Jack for Cable TV - wdg3rd - 12-06-2008
ConstantGeographer Wrote:I'm really just worried about what I'll watch when Burn Notice, House, Monk, and Psych are canceled.
DVDs. Everything ever on TV is coming out on DVDs. (Except the stuff that was erased, like most of Ernie Kovacs' shows).
Repairman Jack for Cable TV - Automatic Jack - 12-08-2008
Aside from the logistical problems of legality and time slots and all that (and the fact that if it turned out to be amazing, whatever network it ended up with would cancel it after season 1 for some trivial reason like "not enough yellow", leading to the show ironically attaining "cult hit" status), an episodic format would be very doable.
I don't think that an episodic format is intrinsically detrimental to the quality of a story, and in this case might very well be a plus for all the reasons the OP stated. In the current state of technology and media standards, it might be difficult to impossible to get a project like AJ off the ground; but if this were a perfect world in which deserving properties were immediately snatched up and treated with Tender Loving Care and went on to make tons of money upon release, I think I'd have to go with the episodic format. (NOTE: I don't necessarily mean television. There is plenty of episodically formatted content that exists exclusively on the web, and I think the medium of television is going to be going through some strange permutations over the next few years.)
Personally I feel the juxtaposition between Jack's "normal" life and his supernatural outings are what interests me. I think a movie can focus on one or the other, but building up all the little details like Jack's B-movie fixation, his interior decorating skills, Gia's graphic design career (as an animation student, I can appreciate a paragraph dedicated to the perusal of comic strip artists from the 30's), Abe, Entenmann, conspiracy theories and Parabellum- I prefer that stuff to accumulate over time. Not to mention the fact that Jack's "urban mercenary" bit contains enough material for a series all on its own (also networks find the phrase demographically sexy).
I know in a full-length feature I would rather see a detailed CGI-laden account of Jack taking down the Otherness rather than watch Abe talk about oil cabals and spray bagel crumbs, but I maintain that someday it might be possible to have both and it would likely be more effective in the form of a series of episodic story arcs rather than a series of movies.
...But Ryan Reynolds + good script = I'm cool.