Coming Soon... From a TV Near You

So word coming out of Hollywood right now is that the popular 1980's television show, "Knight Rider" will be making it's way to the silver screen in the near future. Being a child of the 80's, this was one of the staple shows that I watched growing up. Sure it was campy and cheesy and often time repetetive, but it was pure escapist drama made for an hour long adventure every week. That's pretty much what all television was and was meant to be. These days all we get on television is reality. It used to be that we would turn on the TV to get away from reality. Now we turn it on to see more of it. So where do we go to watch television then? Why to the movie theatre of course.

The proposed "Knight Rider" movie is yet another in a long list of movies being brought back to the big screen for 'possible growth into a franchise'. There's nothing wrong with bringing a television show to the big screen provided the material and the source is treated with respect. One of the biggest problems I had with the original "Mission Impossible" was that Jim Phelps (originally portrayed by Peter Graves) was the team leader, not the criminal mastermind as shown in the film. Those who had watched the original show on television were dismayed that this could happen and I didn't blame Peter Graves for not wanting to reprise the role. For the sake of shaking things up we can't ruin things like that.

Movies like "The Brady Bunch", "Starsky and Hutch" and others of similar ilk tend to poke fun of the era in which they were based. That's fine and that's definitely one way to go about it. But for the people who grew up watching the show or remember it fondly, it's almost like a slap in the face. Now some would say that it's just a television show and that it shouldn't be taken so seriously. Well... if you want to see outcry about something like this, what if they decide to remake "Star Trek" and have Ben Affleck playing Kirk, Mike Meyers playing Spock, Beyonce playing Uhura and such. The Trek fans out there would go ballistic!

So now with "Knight Rider" coming to the screen, I can only imagine what the story line will be. The original creator of the show, Glen Larson, is supposedly writing in so there is at least a glimmer of hope that the show will remain relatively true to its roots. I just find it ironic that to see television we're off to the movie theatres. Is it any wonder then that DVD rentals and purchases are what earn Hollywood money these days? Why shell out $8 a person to see a TV show in the theatre when you will be able to rent it in a few months for about half that and watch it with a room full of friends? As a financial analyst and economics graduate, that makes fine fiscal sense to me!