A history-making leap from the small screen: the first movie based on a TV show
In an age where recycled and repurposed properties are more commonplace than ever, nobody bats an eyelid these days when it’s announced a TV show is being rebooted as a feature film, or vice versa.
Even though the current ‘Golden Age’ of small-screen storytelling has been trundling along for two decades, name value and brand recognition are still at the forefront of studio minds. If a series has run its course but remains popular, then one of the easiest ways to capitalise on that untapped earning potential is to bring it to the big screen.
It’s a process that’s delivered the good, the bad, and the downright ugly to multiplexes around the world, ranging from the highs of 21 Jump Street, the entire Mission: Impossible franchise, The Fugitive, and The Naked Gun trilogy to the lows of 1998’s infamous The Avengers, M. Night Shyamalan’s notorious The Last Airbender, and Will Ferrell’s Land of the Lost.
Somebody had to get there first, though, and it may come as a surprise to discover the first movie inspired by a TV show was released all the way back in 1954. Not only that, but it went on to become part of an expansive multimedia empire that spanned decades and underwent several reinventions.
The first iteration of police procedural Dragnet aired on radio between 1949 and 1957, which was followed by a TV series that stretched for eight seasons and 276 episodes from 1951 and 1959. Right in the middle of that run came director Jack Webb’s movie of the same name, which made history as the first feature-length adaptation of an episodic property.
Webb also reprised his leading role of Joe Friday alongside familiar co-star Ben Alexander as Frank Smith, although the latter was the second to play the character, having initially replaced Herb Ellis on the small screen. There wasn’t much to write home about, with Dragnet pretty much an extended episode that didn’t seek to reinvent the wheel in any way, shape, or form, but it was nonetheless the very first of its kind.
A made-for-television sequel would release in 1966, while Dragnet would be revived again the following year for an additional four-season run. It was dusted off once more as a loving parody of the original format starring Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks, before it was brought back on TV in 1989 and again in 2003, although both of those reboots were canned after two seasons.
While the notion of nameworthy TV hits being transplanted to the silver screen feels like a decidedly modern phenomenon because it gained the highest level of prominence in the 21st century, it’s actually a staple practice that can trace its roots right back to one of the biggest cop shows of the 1950s.
