Get your whipped cream bikinis ready, and prepare yourself for some computationally determined fun, because the Great Hollywood Movie-To-TV Machine has just coughed out a ping-pong ball labeled Varsity Blues. Deadline is reporting that the 1999 small-town sports dramedy is being turned into a TV series, the better to harvest a statistically useful amount of laughter and attention from fans of the cinematic original.
For those outside that privileged demographic, the film centers on a young second-string quarterback (James Van Der Beek) who rebels against his Texas hometown’s obsession with high school football, as conveyed in the form of a screaming Jon Voight. Now, the story is being developed for TV by CMT, with screenwriter W. Peter Iliff reprising his work on the film. It’ll join CMT’s recently expanding slate of original programming, including the Billy Ray Cyrus-starring Still The King, and Nashville, which the network recently acquired from ABC.
Meanwhile, the Great Hollywood Movie-To-TV Machine slumbers on dreamlessly, waiting for the day it’ll be called upon to transform, oh…The Net, maybe—or possibly Boiler Room? We’re not omniscient adaptation A.I.’s, so we can’t really be sure—into the next sure-fire TV hit.