For those who missed it, Duncan Jones’ sci-fi thriller Source Code concerns a man who’s repeatedly sent back in time to take over someone else’s body, and relive a small portion of their now-lost lives. As it turns out, that’s sort of an apt metaphor for all the movie-to-TV adaptations currently in the works, such as The Transporter, Anger Management, The Lincoln Lawyer, The Nanny Diaries, and Romancing The Stone: All of them are small, episodic rehashes of the past superimposed with new faces, their stories playing out repeatedly in the hopes of finding something that justifies the effort. So perhaps it’s fitting that CBS is now adding Source Code itself to that list.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, CBS is developing a small-screen version of Source Code that focuses on three different former federal agents who all use the time-jumping technology to investigate tragic events, a combination of high-concept sci-fi and standard procedural that will be handled by Lost writer Steve Maeda and Criminal Minds producer Mark Gordon. (Unfortunately, neither original screenwriter Ben Ripley nor Jones will be involved. In fact, Jones seems to be learning about all of this along with the rest of us: “For those asking, I know not a sausage about the Source Code TV show,” Jones tweeted, delightfully English as ever. “First time I heard about it was about 20 minutes ago… on twitter!” That would certainly not at all be insulting!)
Compared to some other big-screen adaptations, Source Code’s premise does seem as though it would lend itself well to television—particularly as it’s fairly similar to both UPN’s Seven Days and, of course, Quantum Leap, an obvious connection that Jones’ film wisely acknowledged through a surprise cameo that we won’t spoil for you (but which you can probably guess, in which case you have only yourself to blame). No word on whether it also plans on being really, really depressing, if you stop to think about it. Probably not, at least not all the time.