No Private-Eye Show Is Sacred

Pierce Brosnan wants to make a "Remington Steele" movie:

"The show is out on DVD now and so we have started negotiations on making a movie out of it," he says. "I think there's an audience there. There's a sentimental memory and fondness for it."

According to an interview with "Remington Steele" creator Michael Gleason, Brosnan doesn't want to do a reunion movie; he wants to produce a feature film based on the show, with new actors in the lead roles and Brosnan himself playing a different role.

Interestingly, the creator of "Moonlighting," Glenn Caron, was recently quoted as saying that he's thinking of doing a feature film based on the series, also with new actors. Throw in Michael Mann's troubled feature remake of his show "Miami Vice," and something is definitely in the Kool-Aid of creators and stars of successful and beloved '80s television shows.

As material for a feature film goes, these '80s hourlong shows are probably better prospects than the sitcoms that usually get made into features. A show like "Remington Steele" was so heavily influenced by feature films itself -- what with all the movie references in every episode -- that a feature version might make for a solid comedy/mystery/romance on the order of Charade. But then you get into the problem of any movie based on a TV show, which is that people love the shows because of the actors who inhabited the characters; when the show is a romance, and therefore its popularity is based in part on people wanting to see those particular actors/characters together, that really makes it hard to re-cast the parts.