Since its premiere in 1959, The Twilight Zone has gone through several revivals and one big-screen movie in 1983 that involved such directors as Steven Spielberg and John Landis. Now, Leonard DiCaprio's production company, Applan Way, wants to make another big-screen revival of the franchise.I'm not sure what DiCaprio could do with the franchise that hasn't been done before. It's basically science fiction, fantasy and horror stories with a twist ending (M. Night Shyamalan owes his entire career to The Twilight Zone). Rumor has it that the new movie will be a set of interwoven stories based on classics from the original run of the show that were written by Rod Serling himself, albeit with more pretty computer-generated special effects. For some reason, I find that unoriginal and possibly downright scary.
Still, The Twilight Zone was groundbreaking for its time and a very flexible concept. If Star Trek could be successfully reinvented for the movies, why not this franchise?
The TV Squad Podcast: Vik Sahay of Chuck, Oprah talk, brutal timeslots, and more!
TV Squad Ten: Top Ten ESPN shows from worst to first
Andy Richter: The TV Squad Interview
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-20-2009 @ 12:54PM
Logan said...
"Wanna see something scary?"
Reply
7-20-2009 @ 2:03PM
Scott said...
The 1983 movie wasn't bad. The Lithgow "There's a man on the wing of this plane!" segment was by far my favorite.
I think the best thing they could do is NOT use Serling's scripts. Stop tying the show back to the past. Take, for example, the mid-1980s TV revival. Very well done. They took OTHER SF/fantasy short stories, mostly from very famous and award-winning SF writers, and built episodes around them. "The Twilight Zone" is a great concept that could be revived to fit any era. The key is to find well-written stories that say something about contemporary society. Reviving the same 1960s scripts with new special effects is pointless. People act differently now in society (note I didn't say people ARE different), and most of it would not translate well. You'd just be dragging around a corpse, a la "Weekend at Bernies".
Reply
8-16-2009 @ 1:34PM
Tina Berkley said...
All I want to say is that if whoever wrote this peice thinks that the "Twilight Zone" is "basically science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories with a twist" has not been paying very close attention to the show.
Any self respecting "zonehead"(like myself) knows that Rod Serling was a very serious and much sought after writer at one time (He had won six emmy's during the course of his television writing career).One of his passions was to use television not only as an entertainment value venue, but also saw it's potential as a teaching tool. Unfortunantly, the issues that he wanted addressed had to do with our own social structure and this did not sit well with the sponsors. So enter "The Twilight Zone", a place where social problems can be addressed under the disguise if science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories with a twist.
Reply