Summit’s TV Production ‘Push’ – But Why?

COMMENTS (45)

• Fairly standard, when a piece of IP fails and also when it succeeds, a television series is a standard proposition if it has a fairly good concept, even a questionable concept has legs:

  – BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
  – MASH
  – HIGHLANDER
  – MUTANT X – Arad (X-MEN) produced this, not a direct
  spin-off but you can do the creative math.

  Long and short, SUMMIT can market this television show as from the studio that brought you TWILIGHT and 4 out of 5 fans might watch it. If it fails there’s VOD and other ancillaries, they can repackage it into movies overseas, etc, etc.

  Better economic sense than making a straight to video sequel and you get the International market to pay for it.

  Whether it goes into syndication, cable or broadcast (the worse of the outlet ideas as there is more inherent risk there) its smart, plus you can also market is as from the writer of X-MEN.

  Very smart people there, and lucky too.;)

  Comment by Christian — Wednesday January 20, 2010 @ 8:47am PST  Reply to this post

• Um, has anyone heard of HEROES? Push sucked.

  Comment by Anonymous — Wednesday January 20, 2010 @ 9:27am PST  Reply to this post

• Summit. Continuing to reinforce the thesis that they got damn lucky to pick up Twilight.

  DOA.

  Comment by Undercut — Wednesday January 20, 2010 @ 9:32am PST  Reply to this post

• Yeah too much like Heroes … people with powers escaping agencies and what not

  Comment by Matt — Wednesday January 20, 2010 @ 9:34am PST  Reply to this post

• Sci-fi generally travels internationally very well. And Summit is fundamentally a foreign sales company.

  Comment by santamonicabeachboy — Wednesday January 20, 2010 @ 9:43am PST  Reply to this post

• Announcing does not mean it’s a reality. Watch: “I hereby announce that I’m going to adapt Homer’s Odyssey for HBO.” See?

  Comment by Farber — Wednesday January 20, 2010 @ 9:58am PST  Reply to this post

• hmm, lets see, sci-fi premise and likely sale to scifi in the us, shoot in canada, tax rebate = nothing but upside..

  Comment by intl film sales — Wednesday January 20, 2010 @ 10:00am PST  Reply to this post

• I remember watching this and thinking, “this would make a better series than feature” and here it is…

  Comment by F. — Wednesday January 20, 2010 @ 10:40am PST  Reply to this post

• Not so surprising to me. Even though the movie bombed, people know the title from the marketing campaign and have likely seen it on cable or as a DVD rental. The concept and subject matter of PUSH is on par with shows like Heroes or any original programming the Sci-Fi — ahem — sorry, SY-FY channel airs. With more room to develop characters, what was weak as a movie will probably be stronger as a series (i.e. Stargate) — and I’m sure that’s how it was pitched.

  Comment by JWR — Wednesday January 20, 2010 @ 10:46am PST  Reply to this post

• Well, I’m sure the studios’ response would be that “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was a flop and that turned out OK. In this case, however, I think they’re going to have to switch things up a bit because the concept is too similar to “Heroes”. Then again, it’s not like the myriad cop and hospital shows out there are all that different.

  Comment by SoulHonky — Wednesday January 20, 2010 @ 11:57am PST  Reply to this post

• I don’t remember Buffy the Vampire Slayer being a big hit at the box office, and it did pretty well as a series.

  Comment by Rich — Wednesday January 20, 2010 @ 11:58am PST  Reply to this post

• Isn’t this already on the air – it’s called HEROES. And it’s ratings are slipping…

  Comment by MS — Wednesday January 20, 2010 @ 1:20pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Everyone needs to stop comparing this to Heroes. I’m a huge Heroes fan, I’ve seen every episode, and I saw Push. The two hardly have anything in common, despite superpowers of course. This would be incredibly different as a tv show. You people are clearly all ignorant of Heroes. Yes, it is also true that Heroes is slipping, I’m a huge fan but I’ll admit I think it’s almost dead. Honestly, this is just what Heroes fans need. I’m really excited to see a new show abot superpowers, there aren’t too many out there. (I don’t count shows like Supernatural or Charmed, those are more about weird mystical stuff.)

    Comment by Cody — Thursday January 21, 2010 @ 2:53pm PST  Reply to this post

• Stargate did 75m at the box office and cost a fortune. TV was the right choice for the franchise instead of either a sequel, thankfully, Russell and Spader wanted 15m a piece for another movie, or Direct -to-Video, making TV the route to take. Close to a billion in revenues later from three series, the best being SG1, the franchise still goes strong. You can always go back and make a direct-to-video if the tv project melts down. good move by Summit, which seems to be making a lot of good moves at the moment.

  Comment by kasaja — Wednesday January 20, 2010 @ 3:21pm PST  Reply to this post

• You ask a question and I will answer… Because Chris Evans needs stuff to do and is out of money.

  Comment by Monke — Thursday January 21, 2010 @ 12:51am PST  Reply to this post