Movies that could become TV shows

Spinoffs are the flavour of the season as material from different mediums try to find a place in others, which is why we see comic books turned into movies, movies turned into video games, and, most recently, Sachin Tendulkar turned into a toothpaste called Sach.

With our television clearly starved of creativity, here's a look at some existing films which could immediately and successfully make the transition to the small screen:

Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham

Come on, replace Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan with Ronit Roy, Rajeev Khandelwal and Amit Kapoor, and this has Ekta Kapoor written all over it.

Add a Prachi Desai item number every few weeks and we're looking at a soap opera that has the primetime slot and top viewership for at least a couple of years.

The main problem with Nikhil Advani's magnum flopus wasn't that it was unevenly paced, weakly written, overacted and just plain unoriginal (none of these things standing in the way of a television show's success), but that it was just too darned long (bingo).

With so many characters that you could replace two heroes in one week without anyone noticing, this would be one of those tiresome things that never end.

Ashutosh Gowariker's Swades is an important, relevant achievement with great music, a strong ensemble and arguably Shah Rukh Khan's most grounded performance. Yet its length is too self-indulgently long for it to be a good film.

As a miniseries, on the other hand, it works great, a show where Mohan Bhargav can solve a new rural issue every week. Imagine something on the lines of SRK and Ashu's own Circus, but issue-based and set in a village.

Now an easy way to do these lists would be to just pick out Ashutosh Gowariker films because they never seem to be edited.

If Ashu was an IPL captain he'd owe a fortune in slow over-rate fines, but that's not the point here: mythological spectaculars do well on television, traditionally, and Gowariker's take on history focussing far more on romance than on palace intrigue, would surely find its takers.

The biopic format is a strong one for television, and the way Mani Ratnam explores the rise and rise of the morally dubious (and entirely fictional, we're told) protagonist would work sensationally well on the idiot box.

Entire episodes could revolve around small moments, there'd be much room for slow motion emotion, and occasionally news and stories from real life could find allegorical room amongst the narrative. Now, if only a channel cared.

You do realise this hidden-camera madness is only starting out, right?

With news channels encouraging phonecam-paparazzi and deplorable reality shows making loads of moolah, there's bound to be a show exploting this film's cult status.

Dibakar Banerjee might have nothing to do with it, but I do expect an Emosanal Attyachaar style take on scandal and sex to bear a bastardised version of the LSD title soon.

Television has always been an important medium to spread a message to the masses, and no film the last decade could spread a message quite as overwhelmingly as Raju Hirani's Gandhigiri.

The television spinoff could include Munna and Circuit in different cities each week, discussing true-life problems and offering solutions which would then be enacted for the conveniently-placed cameras.

Call it The Priyadarshan Show, made on quite the lines of Office Office.

Every week the same actors meet and interchange roles -- rogue, lecherous uncle, nymphet, conman, impostor, hired killer, fraud, noisy aunt -- and perform the same skit, about a theft or a scam with foreseeable and unnecessarily elaborately plotted twists, involving much misunderstandings and a final climactic chase where everyone runs and is very loud.

Judging by the prolific director's work, he has enough fodder to keep our sitcom world running for decades.