Now that television has arguably superseded film as the storytelling medium of choice, many studios are seeking to balance the scales by adapting various movies into weekly shows, reversing the traditional trend of big-screen adaptations of mediocre TV series by setting up small-screen versions of features like Source Code, Romancing The Stone, The Nanny Diaries, Anger Management, The Lincoln Lawyer, The Transporter, and now even Universal Soldier. Joining that parade of mostly solid-C entertainments being teased out into equally passable ways to spend a weeknight is this year’s Matt Damon-starring thriller The Adjustment Bureau, itself an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick short story.
According to Deadline, Syfy is developing a drama based on the premise of a man who discovers that life is under the direction of a supernatural organization who maintain a deterministic order as neatly aligned as their snappy hats. (Actually, nearly everyone in that film had a snappy hat.) Of course, the film spends most of its running time actually running, with Damon ducking in and out of various doorways and alleys in an effort to evade fate, but presumably the series will delve deeper into some of the existential questions that the movie mostly just shoved under its collective fedora. Or maybe it will just be some sort of procedural that features yet another different guy running from the Bureau week after week. “Here we go again,” the world-weary protagonist will call out, adding, “Grab your hats” in what would make an excellent catchphrase.