But just look around now. Front-rank filmmakers are embracing the small screen the way agents work the room at Morton’s: with very glad hands. Earlier this month Penny Marshall unveiled a sitcom version of her hit movie “A League of Their Own” on CBS. Next month Oliver Stone (“Platoon,” “J.F.K.”) makes his TV debut as producer of ABC’s “Wild Palms,” a futuristic mini-series that’s even darker and weirder than “Twin Peaks.” This summer CBS will introduce the first network series by “Back to the Future” director Robert Zemeckis, a kind of comedic “Route 66” called “Johnny Bago,” as well as Steven Spielberg’s first foray into prime-time animation, the long-awaited “Family Dog.” Spielberg is also producing “seaQuest DSV,” a lavishly mounted, underwater “Star Trek” for NBC. In the fall, look for the arrivals of Robert Altman and Francis Ford Coppola, both of whom are developing dramatic series for CBS. Other major filmmakers have jumped the medium barrier within the past three years, including Barry Levinson (NBC’s “Homicide”), George Lucas (ABC’s “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles”), John Landis (HBO’s " Dream On:"), David Lynch (ABC’s " Twin Peaks") and James L. Brooks (Fox’s “The Simpsons”).
It doesn’t require Jessica Fletcher to figure out why the networks are suddenly courting renowned directorial talents. Besieged by shrinking audiences and slumping ad sales, they’re desperately scraping the only part of the barrel they’ve ignored: the top. Big names generate loud buzz, the sort of “event programming” that lures viewers back inside the tent. “An Oliver Stone and a ‘Wild Palms’ turn television on its side,” says ABC Entertainment president Robert Iger. “They make it seem taller by rising above the normal network fare.”
What are the Stones and Spielbergs getting in return? It’s not major bucks, though a $5 million TV deal certainly keeps the cash flowing between film gigs. One attraction is the potentially vast audience. “Reaching into so many homes at one time is an exhilarating experience,” says Stone. Most seductively, an episodic series allows storytellers to develop characters in a way no movie can match. “Television can handle human drama and relationships better than a [theatrical] feature,” says Barry Levinson, who got his start in TV. “I mean, it can unfold.”
Forced to compete on a more crowded field, network programmers are offering top filmmakers a creative freedom unimaginable in the past, when rigid formulas (and equally unyielding censors) made the box exactly that. Few series exploit the networks’ new leniency more than “Wild Palms,” a hallucinatory soap opera that dabbles in holograms, cybernetics and virtual-reality technology. “ABC let me choose the subject matter and gave me total freedom with the script,” marvels Stone. TV’s relatively modest budgets also allow it to afford more artistic liberation. Michael Ritchie (“The Candidate”), who directed HBO’s wonderfully whacked “Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom,” says that “I couldn’t have done this on the big screen. There’d be too many committees worrying about the expense and telling me, ‘The audience needs this, the audience needs that’.”
So how’s all this playing where they keep score? Spielberg’s 1985 “Amazing Stories” barely limped through two seasons, David Lynch’s 1992 “On the Air” lasted just two episodes and Levinson’s “Homicide,” launched after the Super Bowl, languishes in the 98th Nielsen place. One problem may be TV’s crank-it-out shooting pace, which can overwhelm even those making a return trip. “For the first time since ‘Laverne and Shirley’ my ulcer started up again,” groans Penny Marshall, whose initial episode of “League” whiffed with both critics and viewers. Too many of the crossovers, however, cheat the audience by scuttling off after launching their shows. Levinson and Marshall directed only their series’ premieres; of the 15 episodes of “Indiana Jones,” Lucas directed exactly none. Then there’s Robert De Niro, whose name precedes every mention of Fox’s “TriBeCa,” but whose role (one of three executive producers) seems to be solely to drum up press. In the used-car racket that’s known as bait and switch. Vidiot beware.
In terms of TV’s air quality, though, the impact of moviedom’s elite is nothing to be sniffed at. However erratic the execution, their creations stretch the tube by imbuing it with the ambitions and pretensions of film-a special sensibility, a different look, which put the network hack pack to shame. The edgy, pungently authentic “Homicide,” for example, is to the average cop show what “Twin Peaks” was to “Falcon Crest.” Or take Zemeckis’s upcoming “Johnny Bago,” the adventures of an ex-con fleeing the mob in a Winnebago. “This is an action comedy on an anthology canvas with no laugh track,” says Zemeckis. “Does that sound like typical series television? Actually, it’s really a series of 48-minute films. I just pray viewers get it.”
One thing seems certain: they’ll be getting more of it. Thanks to TV’s two most influential forces-technology and demography-this reverse migration will almost certainly accelerate. As digital compression expands the dial to 500 channels, the demand for directors and producers with distinctive styles will quickly outstrip supply. Meanwhile, the boomer audience is staying home more-a trend that points to a potentially larger appetite for sophisticated video fare. As for the TV directors who traditionally aspired to film, just look at what the youth-pandering film industry has in development: “Dennis the Menace,” “Maverick,” “The Flintstones,” “The Fugitive” and “The Addams Family 2.” Why jump from television to the movies when they’re making movies based on television? Better to do what the big guns are doing, even if it’s something Hollywood has never done. Better to think small.
