Should 'The Conversation' Head to Television?
Filed under: Drama, Deals, Scripts, Home Entertainment, Remakes and Sequels
The film garnered Francis Ford Coppola Oscar nods for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. It's ranked at #184 out of IMDb's Top 250. And now, after 34 years, The Conversation might be headed for television. Variety reports that AMC is looking to develop a series based on the film, as part of the decade-long efforts of producer Tony Krantz. Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) and Erik Jendresen (Band of Brothers) have been tapped to write a new script.
The interesting twist in this tale -- it won't be a modernized version. "The TV project will be set in the early 1970s -- emulating the time period of the original thriller -- and center on electronic surveillance expert Harry Caul, played in the film by Gene Hackman." Krantz says that the film will look at our present issues with privacy and spying, through the filter of the '70s.
However, this isn't yet set in stone. The project previously failed to get off the ground at ABC, and before that, it almost came to fruition at NBC with the one and only Kyle MacLachlan starring. After the likes of The Lives of Others and Red Road, the project certainly fits -- but should it be directly tied to Coppola's film? Rant or rave in the comments.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-09-2008 @ 7:30PM
akaison said...
I know you might not want to hear this but some of the best story telling and writing right now is happening on TV rather than film. You can take more chances with TV than film because of the business model. With film, you are made or broken by the bodies in the seat within a short window of time. With tv, you can still somewhat grow your audience. With cable, you don't even have to grow the same level of audience as with film. With premium cable, you can create a film that's even more non 'commericial' according to the Hollywood's standard. Gill's much talked about speech would seem out place if one placed it into a tv setting. look at some of the most popular programs on TV- ie, Lost or battle star galatica are down right dark realism. I can't image those shows in the theatre doing well. I also can't imagine one have a chance to build an audience. Films a single shot chance. As a director I once talked to explained- tv shows, when done well are the most like novels. They allow you to dig into characters and cover them in a way that a good actor would never be able to do in film. A good film actor can create a memorable performance that's unforgetable. A good tv actor in a great show can create one that becomes a part of the culture.
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8-09-2008 @ 11:09PM
Rupert said...
It's my favourite film. I guess a TV show would work as a clever way to explore our own surveillance culture without getting bogged down in boring tech storylines. That Tony Scott Will Smith/Gene Hackman film Enemy of the State made several nods to it in a half-assed kind of way, but it *did* get bogged down with trying to be technologically clever at imagining how futuristic spy tech would work.
And Akaison (above) is right about TV writing.
On the other hand, Harry Caul in the film is a tragic figure. The film works on many layers as a self-contained tragedy, and the suspense lies as much in watching him contrive his own downfall as it does in the MacGuffin of the plot. That's due to Hackman's incredible performance, Coppola's brilliant writing and direction and the year that Walter Murch spent alone with it in the cutting room, restructuring it completely.
That's what's great about the movie - not what it has to say about Watergate or about technology and privacy.
So making it into a TV series to tell other stories about Harry Caul spying on people is not really a continuation of what's great about the film. But maybe it'll be a good device.
And anything that brings a wider audience to the original movie is good in my book. I think it's one of the all-time great movies in all of world cinema.
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8-10-2008 @ 10:34PM
kip said...
Ummmm..... It was updated. It was called Enemy of the State. Redo Redford's Three Days of the Condor seems like it is a much better candidate to be redone.
The conversation introduced the world to how the espionage game works. Attempting to redo it by introducing "meta tech" and "jump the shark" like solutions seems like it will wreck the idea.
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