Not every movie is worth adapting into a TV series.
TNT's Snowpiercer is more than enough proof that even the best movies don't always translate well to the smaller screen. But while most movie-to-TV spin-offs feel like blatant cash crabs, every now and then you come across a real head-scratcher. These are the shows that you know in your gut were destined to fail: the shows that you're positive anyone in their right mind must have known would lose money. These are some of the weirdest movie spin-off TV shows ever made.
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Fox Kids
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, alongside its three (yes, three!) sequels, are B-movie parodies wherein the world's greatest threat are sentient, genetically enhanced tomatoes. They are appreciated almost solely by purveyors of the schlockiest cult cinema, which apparently was enough reason for someone working at Fox Kids in the 1990s to turn it into an animated series for children. Predictably, it flopped...or rather, splattered.
▲Baby Talk
ABC
In 1989, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley starred in an Look Who's Talking, an incredibly stupid (albeit, surprisingly successful) movie about a single mother whose dating life is narrated by her Bruce Willis-voiced baby. Baby Talk is the TV spin-off of that movie, complete with generic brand actors and a whole lot more talking babies. It's exactly as bad as it sounds.
▲Bad Teacher
CBS
The Bad Teacher movie was a borderline laugh-free comedy about Cameron Diaz becoming a middle school teacher in order to afford breast implants. It was the kind of movie that people forgot about before it even hit theaters, so it's quite frankly baffling that anyone would think to give it a TV series. Apparently people wanted to forget about Bad Teacher all over again, because the series was canceled after only three episodes.
▲Crash
STARZ
If only this entry were joke. But alas, there really is a TV spin-off of everyone's least favorite Best Picture-winning movie about racism written and directed by white people. The TV show doesn't fare any better. It's just more melodramatic racial strife fan fiction, as imagined by wealthy white people who have never experienced any of it firsthand.
▲Ferris Bueller
NBC
Hey, is that Ferris Bueller? How come he doesn't look like Matthew Broderick? Well, silly, that's because this isn't your mommy's Ferris Bueller and that Ferris Bueller is some guy named Charlie Schlatter. Much more importantly though, is Ferris Bueller's sister Jennifer Aniston? Indeed, before becoming a definitive '90s icon on Friends, Jennifer Aniston starred as Jeannie Bueller in a Ferris Bueller spin-off that nobody watched.
▲The Purge
USA Network
The most disappointing thing about all of the Purge movies is how good the premise is and how milquetoast the movies are in comparison. If killing people was actually legal for one night every year, so much sh*t would go down. So why is every Purge move just another bland action-horror romp? The TV show could have been a perfect way to flesh out the world, but instead, it's just more bland action-horror. Sad.
▲The Penguins of Madagascar
Dreamworks
Sorry, I thought these were Minions. Where is the Minions TV show?
▲My Big Fat Greek Life
CBS
Every 2000s kid remember when My Big Fat Greek Wedding was a thing. Or, at least they remember when their mom talked about going to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Considering it was the highest-grossing romantic comedy of all, your mom almost definitely saw it, too. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to care much what happened after the wedding, considering the TV sequel series was canceled 7 episodes in.
▲Limitless
CBS
In the Limitless movie, Bradley Cooper takes some cool super-drug that unlocks 100% of his brain power instead of the 10% that every other loser is using (which is a myth, by the way). In the Limitless TV show, Bradley Cooper returns to give the cool super-drug to some less cool, not Bradley Cooper guy who we don't care about. That's pretty much it: That's the entire Limitless TV show. Sorry.
▲The Exorcist
Fox
Have you ever listened to an older person tell you about when The Exorcist came out? They act like it was the scariest thing ever, and it's honestly kind of adorable. They'll go, "When I saw The Exorcist people ran out of the theater!" and you're like, "Uh huh, cool" and then you watch it and it's not scary. It's good. It's very well made. But it's not scary. Anyways, some of those old people made a TV show, and it wasn't scary either, and now it's dead.
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