Network announces plans to turn the film which earned Tom Hanks his first Best Actor Oscar nomination into a half-hour comedy "event series."
With an Odd Couple reboot, a Full House revival, and an I know What You Did Last Summer remake all in the works, Hollywood has clearly been hoping to capitalize on the nostalgia of Generations X and Y. Fox is the latest network to jump on the rising trend, since the network announced Tuesday that they plan on turning Tom Hanks’ 1988 film Big into a half-hour comedy “event series.”
Big revolved around a boy whose wish to become big was granted by a Zoltar fortune-telling machine on the New Jersey boardwalk. Hanks portrayed the boy in his adult body, and earned his first Best Actor Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe for his performance. Screenwriters Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg were nominated for Best Screenplay, and the film won in the Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical category. Big has grossed over $151 million worldwide since its June 1988 release, and spawned a Broadway musical in 1996.
The Hollywood Reporter states that the television series will be based on the hit movie, and “explore what it means to be an adult and what it means to be a kid — and how in today’s world, those two things are more confused than ever.”
Kevin Biegel and Mike Royce, the writers and producers of Fox’s short-lived U.S. Army sitcom Enlisted, will act as the show’s co-writers and executive producers. Biegel co-created Cougar Town with Bill Lawrence, and Royce co-created TNT’s Men of a Certain Age and served as showrunner on HBO’s Lucky Louie and NBC’s 1600 Penn.
The series is the latest nostalgic feature adaptation announced by Fox this year; the network recently announced plans to adapt thriller Minority Report into a television series as well. Fox will also air a live version of Grease in 2015.
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