Okay, who the hell at SyFy thinks this is a good idea?
Hold onto your hats, people. Looks like the 1995 sci-fi time travel feature 12 Monkeys is being remade into a 90 minute backdoor pilot, courtesy of the folks that brought you Sharknado.
Okay, maybe not exactly the same people behind Sharknado. Turns out the original film’s producers Chuck Roven and Richard Suckle are onboard, with writers Terry Matalas (Nikita, Terra Nova, Star Trek: Enterprise) and Travis Fickett (Nikita, Terra Nova) also attached. This comes as SyFy continues efforts to expand into original scripted series.
Listen…maybe this won’t turn out all bad; God knows we’ve been wrong before. Some purists will argue the merits of the original BSG over the recent reinterpretation until the cows come home, but regardless of how you feel about the ending of the rebooted series, we can all agree that from an overall standpoint it turned out pretty well. But the 1995 version of 12 Monkeys worked because it was contained to one smart feature, one tidy script, and some great performances (who could forget the Renfieldian Brad Pitt? Nominated for an Oscar for his kookiness, btw), all of which could burn out quickly over the course of an eight to ten to twelve episode season (and beyond). Will it work? SyFy president of original programming Mark Stern thinks so, saying, “We have a great pilot. We’re now flushing out what the rest of series might be.”
“Flushing out.” There’s gotta be a joke in there somewhere. Hopefully not a prophetic one. But fear not; regardless of how this turns out, there’s a Sharknado sequel (or prequel) coming in 2014.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
