Serial is one of the most popular podcasts ever, and it now looks it might get adapted into a movie or TV show.
There’s a lot to be said about Sarah Koenig’s podcast Serial, the podcast that tracked Koenig’s investigation of the 1999 case when Adnan Syed was committed of murdering his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee, but above all it’s important to recognize its originality. This originality is one of the main reasons it was the fastest podcast to ever reach 5 million downloads on iTunes.
Now it appears that something completely unoriginal is on the horizon for the show. Serial may be close to being adapted into a movie or TV show.
According to The Tracking Board, several studios are actively pursuing receiving the rights to adapting Serial. They note that Koenig and This American Life founder Ira Glass refused to listen to offers until after the season one finale. That finale has obviously passed, and now the possibility of adaptation remains open.
The Tracking Board reports that Tristar TV is one of the parties interested, as is Warner Bros. Warner Bros. previously had a first look deal with This American Life (which Serial is a spinoff show of), and they hope that they’ll have the advantage because of this.
They also hear that Ryan Murphy is close to landing the series to be adapted as a limited series on HBO, but Variety’s Pat Saperstein refutes that claim:
So apparently "Serial" rights are not going to HBO/Ryan Murphy, at least not right now. "Just a rumor."
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— Pat Saperstein (@Variety_PatS) January 17, 2015
Here’s our pitch for Serial: The Movie (or TV show). Do this thing The Grand Budapest Hotel style. First open with people discussing the show at the water cooler, cut to someone anxiously downloading the season one finale, cut to Koenig creating the show in the studio, and finally go back in time and recreate the events.
Okay, that might not work out exactly as well as it could because we still don’t know who exactly killed Hae Min Lee, and that’s the element that will make Serial a very difficult show to adapt. Sure, a lot of people already love it, but can you sell a movie or TV show with no ending to the masses? An ending could be created, but that sounds disastrous.
Source: The Tracking Board
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