Entertainment
5 Failed TV Pilots Based on Movies, Ranked
TV shows based on movies have long been a go-to for networks, and it’s easy to see why. The potential audience is already there, the title is familiar, and there are usually beloved characters or worlds worth revisiting. Sometimes that works, as with shows like Stargate, Fargo, and Cobra Kai, which all found new stories to explore and gave audiences a reason to keep coming back.
The same claim can’t be made for every attempt to spin a hit movie into a returning TV show, since the list of those that tried and failed is far, far longer than the successes. From questionable adaptations of cult classics like Darkman to blockbuster comedies starring Eddie Murphy, these failed TV pilots confirm that not every hit movie can support an ongoing series.
‘Coming to America’ (1989)
In the first of two Eddie Murphy movies on this list, Coming to America had barely landed on video before CBS rushed to make a pilot for a family-friendly sitcom. You can almost see why the network believed this was a viable TV show idea. The movie was a huge box-office hit, and its clear fish-out-of-water setup is very TV-friendly, and Murphy was going to be involved as one of the executive producers. Instead of rebooting the story entirely, the pilot is more of a spin-off that follows Tommy Davidson (In Living Color) as the previously unmentioned Prince Tariq, the younger brother of Murphy’s now-King Akeem.
Tariq is exiled to Queens to go to college, with his royal assistant Oha (Paul Bates from the original movie) by his side. The pilot works a little too hard to force the characters into the same situations from the film, and while Tommy Davidson is a fantastic comedic performer, he’s clearly been told to do his best Eddie Murphy impression. Even by 1980s standards, the jokes feel dated, and the cast has practically no rapport. The pilot aired only once alongside other failed TV shows as part of the short-lived CBS Summer Playhouse. A low-quality version can be found online, but it’s still not the worst comedy project Eddie Murphy has been involved in.
‘Darkman’ (1992)
Two years after Sam Raimi‘s gonzo superhero movie Darkman, Universal Television tried to turn Peyton Westlake into a half-hour TV hero. British actor Christopher Bowen took over from Liam Neeson as the synthetic-skin scientist whose work becomes horribly useful after an explosion leaves him scarred and his wife dead.
Larry Drake returns as crime lord Durant, and that’s not the only thing from the original cult classic movie that makes a comeback. The pilot shamelessly reuses multiple action scenes, and even some of Durant and Westlake’s fights get recycled. Aside from trying to turn a dark, complex, and violent character into a standard TV vigilante, the pilot never leans into the movie’s inherent madness. Raimi’s movie is pulp horror mixed with superhero tragedy while being on fire and screaming. Those elements don’t neatly fit into a half-hour procedural crime drama. The pilot wasn’t picked up, though there is a version on YouTube if you’re feeling brave. This failed attempt shows how quickly something as unique as Darkman becomes ordinary when it’s forced into a TV formula it was never built for. While Darkman did return for two TV movie sequels starring Arnold Vosloo (The Mummy), recent talk from Raimi suggests that an official sequel could be in the works.
‘Zombieland’ (2013)
Made as part of Amazon Prime’s long-defunct pilot season, Zombieland came full circle. Its writers, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick initially developed the idea as a TV show before it was retooled into a movie. The duo returned to write the pilot with Eli Craig (Tucker and Dale vs. Evil) stepping in to direct. In what may have been the pilot’s biggest issue, it used the same characters from the movie, which remains one of the funniest zombie films of all time.
The episode picks up shortly after the first movie with Tallahassee (Kirk Ward), Columbus (Tyler Ross), Wichita (Maiara Walsh), and Little Rock (Izabela Vidovic) now searching for somewhere new to call home. The problem wasn’t that it had no potential as a TV show, a zombie road trip series could be a lot of fun. The pilot might have worked with new characters exploring a different corner of Zombieland. But by recasting the characters, it immediately invited comparisons to the movie cast, and that was always going to be a tough act to follow. Unlike all the other pilots on this list, the fate of the show was firmly in the hands of the audience, as they got to watch it and then vote on whether they wanted to see more. Thankfully, they did not, as it’s up there with some of the worst TV pilots of all-time.
‘Tremors’ (2018)
With seven movies and an underrated short-lived TV series, Tremors has already been a well-mined franchise. Yet none of those projects tried to bring back original star Kevin Bacon for a rematch with the Graboids. That injustice was set to be rectified with a planned eight-part series from Syfy that would have seen Bacon’s Val McKee return to the small town of Perfection.
Sadly, Tremors is the only failed TV pilot on this list that has never been released, so the main evidence it exists is the shockingly good teaser. The trailer gave audiences a taste of what could have been. Twenty-five years on, Val is no longer the charming accidental hero from the original cult classic. Worse yet, he is trapped in the one place he never wanted to return to as he tries to repair his relationship with his daughter Emily (Emily Tremaine). Middle age and family problems are not the only things Val has to grapple with, as the next evolution of Graboids returns to where it all started. Despite all the promising set pieces glimpsed in the trailer, Tremors failed to secure a series order from Syfy. Most likely, the high cost of a special-effects-driven series with a movie star had more to do with the decision than quality. Now that the rights for the franchise are back with the original creators, there is still a chance for Val McKee to make a triumphant monster-hunting return.
‘Beverly Hills Cop’ (2013)
This list concludes the way it started with a failed TV pilot based on an Eddie Murphy movie. He might have taken 30 years to star in another Beverly Hills Cop sequel, but Murphy returned to his iconic role more than a decade earlier in an unsold TV pilot for CBS. Brandon T. Jackson (Tropic Thunder) starred as Axel Foley’s now-grown-up son, who, just like his old man, is a cop. Heading to Beverly Hills to strike out on his own, Aaron quickly gets into trouble, and Axel (Eddie Murphy) shows up to help.
This should have been an easy series order for CBS. It’s directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black), written by Shawn Ryan (The Shield), and even has a cameo from Judge Reinhold as Billy Rosewood. The test screenings and network response were positive, and they all wanted the same thing for future episodes—more Axel Foley. Suddenly, the biggest reason to tune into the show became the sticking point that turned a series order into a failed pilot. Murphy had no desire to be a recurring character, and the network had no interest in a series without Axel showing up periodically. They were not wrong about that. The scenes with Murphy have all the superstar fizz and watchability you would expect, and the father-son dynamic really works. The reality is, once you’ve glimpsed that kind of chemistry, it’s almost impossible to imagine a series without it.
Beverly Hills Cop 2
- Release Date
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May 19, 1987
- Runtime
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103 Minutes
- Writers
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Danilo Bach, Daniel Petrie Jr., Eddie Murphy, Robert D. Wachs, Larry Ferguson, Warren Skaaren
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