Home Featured Content

8 Sci-Fi Movies That Would Make Great TV Shows

As we've explained elsewhere, Westworld is the latest hot ticket on television. A loose adaptation of Michael Crichton's 1973 movie about a robot theme park gone wrong, it's an ingenious 21st century update of the source material that keys into modern concerns and ideas, like artificial intelligence and the uncanny valley.

3) Men In Black

Recommended Videos

Men in Black1

The Movies: Since 1998, The Men in Black franchise has spawned three movies that have all been commercial successes. With the dream team of cocky young Agent J (Will Smith) and stuffy mentor Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones), the films mix family-friendly alien intrigue with great comedy. The next move for the series is the touted Men in Black/22 Jump Street crossover, which probably won’t feature Smith or Jones.

The TV Show: We can’t say that we’re really hooked on that crossover idea. Instead, it would be a lot more interesting if the franchise switched mediums and a TV show was produced in its place. 1990s kids might remember the animated series that spun off from the first movie, but we would love a live-action version.

The Men in Black organization is so vast there would be no problem with replacing J and K – just follow a different pair of alien-busting secret agents, saving humanity from extra-terrestrial threats. Come on, it’s a premise that’s tailor-made for the monster-of-the-week television format.

Something the show could do to distance itself from the films is take a different tonal approach, perhaps something closer to the much darker comic books that the movies are very loosely based on. That’s not to say we want to lose all the fun of the films, just an increase in scares and dramatic scale.