Comingsoon.net is counting down the seven most interesting times auteurs of the medium of cinema took the increasingly-common route of moving over to television. Indeed, it is happening more and more often. Check out our gallery of seven of the best products to come out of this changing wave of film and television!
With the changing landscape of content delivery systems and the so-called age of “prestige” television, it has become commonplace for filmmakers to make the jump to television. Of course, what exactly television means in a modern context is unclear. For example, David Lynch’s 2017 Twin Peaks revival was released episodically, but the creator himself referred to the project as a lengthy film. The lines are blurring between what were once two entirely distinct mediums.
Netflix and streaming services like it are now securing distribution rights for Academy Award nominees like Roma and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Shows like The Sopranos or Game of Thrones are lauded with praises like “cinematic.” The expanded worlds of films like Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe cross over from film to television with ease. There are holdouts to this rising trend, as there always are. Namely, Steven Spielberg has made his opinions on the matter crystal clear: Netflix and the content it carries should not be allowed to compete in the Academy Awards. But many of Spielberg’s contemporaries feel differently. Some are making the jump themselves. With this changing tide, here are seven instances of filmmakers attempting to—with varying degrees of success—create a series.
7 Times Filmmakers Tried Their Hand at Television
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'Vinyl'
Back in 2016, Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger and HBO brought audiences Vinyl. The series followed a record producer (Bobby Cannavale) in the 1970s as rock and roll was giving way to new genres like punk and disco. Though Scorsese directed the first episode himself, the series never quite caught on and was not renewed for a second season.
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'The Knick'
Steven Soderbergh is a powerhouse filmmaker. In spite of a hiatus from film between 2014 and 2016, he nonetheless has more than 30 films in his three-decade career. Much of his time off was spent directing his Cinemax series The Knick, which portrayed the life of a turn-of-the-20th-century surgeon (Clive Owen) working in New York City's Knickerbocker Hospital.
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'Twin Peaks'
David Lynch—only a few years removed from Blue Velvet, often touted even today as his magnum opus—is the first person on this list to make the jump from film to television. With Mark Frost, he created Twin Peaks, a now-cult series about an idyllic Pacific northwestern American town with a dark side burbling under the surface. He and Frost went on to make a second series, a sitcom called On the Air, which ran for only seven episodes.
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'Sense 8'
The Wachowski siblings—best known for The Matrix films as well as Speed Racer and Jupiter Ascending—joined forces with Netflix to create a series called Sense 8. The show follows eight individuals—from vastly different parts of the world and walks of life—who find themselves sensorially connected to one another.
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'The Strain'
Guillermo del Toro—the man behind Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth and Pacific Rim—put his own spin on vampires with his series The Strain. The series, which ran from 2014 to 2017 on FX, treats the sudden rise in vampirism like an outbreak of disease, and follows its characters dealing with this new reality.
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'Breaking Bad'
From start to finish, Vince Gilligan was the main man of the Breaking Bad set; about this there is no doubt. But among his rolodex of directors was Rian Johnson—best known for films like Looper and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Johnson directed some of the series' most memorable episodes, namely "Fly" and "Ozymandias."
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'Star Wars: The Clone Wars'
Back in 2008, just three years after wrapping up his prequel trilogy, George Lucas returned to the Star Wars universe yet again. Star Wars: The Clone Wars shows—in CGI animated form—the unseen battles of the titular conflict, which takes place between Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith.
