Terrifying Steven Spielberg movie set to become TV series

A TV series based on the world set up by a classic Steven Spielberg is set to materialise on our screens, and will be in the same universe as the film it is based on.

Hold your horses though, this isn’t a JAWS spin off set on Amity Island, the coastal resort that is impacted by the great white shark attacks in the 1975 Steven Spielberg classic, instead this newly announced series takes its cue from Poltergeist (1982), which Spielberg both produced and co-wrote – with directing duties in the hands of Tobe Hooper.

To many Poltergeist was Spielberg’s darkness to E.T.’s light, they both came out in the same month in the US in 1982. He served as writer on this and Producer, although it has oft been mooted he had a closer hand in direction as well, rather than Texas Chainsaw-helmer Tobe Hooper. But that is a whole other blog entry. Hooper's directorial stamp is all over this, but as writer and producer it was never not going to ooze Spielberg.

All horror films should of course be watched with the lights off but Poltergeist loves the darkness, especially when the strobing effects kick-in. Fittingly, it really drags you into the television. Check out our full review of Poltergeist here.

Variety announced the exclusive news that a TV series based on the hit film is in early development at Amazon MGM Studios.

Although there was a previous Poltergeist TV Show, entitled Poltergeist: The Legacy, but this had nothing to do with the events of the film that centred round the haunting of the Freeling family in suburbia. It was more of an anthology show – like Spielberg’s Amazing Stories – and only bore the film’s title, much in the same way Friday the 13th the series had nothing to do with Camp Crystal Lake or Jason Voorhees.

But, there is now a TV series based around Camp Crystal Lake heading our way, and with that set to surface and the likes of The Exorcist having previously ventured to TV screens could a TV series set in the world of JAWS be viable? We don’t mean it would be a shark attack of the week show, but more about the Island and its inhabitants between JAWS and JAWS 2, or perhaps set as a limited series TV prequel as the Brody family leave New York and head to Amity Island for a brand new start and a better life.

With a 50th anniversary of JAWS biting at our heels, and TV being in its continued drama renaissance, we’d certainly swallow this TV series whole.

What do you think of a JAWS-related TV series, or of the forthcoming Poltergeist one? And what other Steven Spielberg films do you think could make the jump to television?

Words by Dean Newman

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