CBS has decided to add a little more movie-to-TV adaptation razzle dazzle to their plans and this small screen reboot comes equipped with the original’s director. Well, at this stage at least.
Entertainment Weekly reports that the 1981 comedy Stripes, which stars Bill Murray and the late Harold Ramis, is being developed as a program on the Tiffany Network. Murray’s involvement appears to be non-existent, but director Ivan Reitman is said to have sorted out a pact with Sony Pictures Television and CBS to produce the show and possibly direct the would-be pilot.
EW shared the official pitch for the project as well.
“A perennial rebellious outsider finally finds his purpose in life when he joins the US military and must unite a group of ragtag eccentrics,” explains a brief summary that cozies up nicely with its source material.
How a Stripes TV series pans out in terms of quality and viewership will probably live and die on casting. A huge chunk of the appeal of Stripes (the motion picture experience™) is the charisma of Murray and a superb cast (Ramis, P.J. Soles, Warren Oates, John Candy), which amps up the degree of difficulty in transferring the material to a CBS primetime slot. Your optimism for the project may come down to your level of faith in The Whitest Kids U’ Know alums Trevor Moore, Sam Brown and Zach Cregger being tasked with the script.
No matter how this plays out, expect takes galore.
(Via Entertainment Weekly)
