Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has to be one of my favorite movies. It’s in the top 5 for sure. Much of that is due to Charlie Kaufman’s Oscar-winning, love-affirming screenplay. Michel Gondry can be hit or miss, but his aesthetic worked well for a movie so thoroughly mental. It’s easily one of Jim Carrey’s best movies. Kate Winslet gives an amazing Oscar-nominated performance. Throw in Elijah Wood, Kirsten Dunst, and you have one of the best movies of all time.
And now it’s being targeted for a television reboot. Will it work? Who knows? For a movie that is so clearly not a reboot of anything, which is a rarity these days, the idea that it will spawn another version of itself is a little dispiriting. Not to mention the project won’t involve Kaufman, Gondry, Carrey, or Winslet. These are singular talents. Without them Eternal Sunshine just wouldn’t be the same movie. Hmmm.
To be fair, not all television is the same. There’s ABC and then there’s HBO. There’s Lifetime and then there’s AMC. And does Netflix count as television? Hopefully Steve Golin, Eternal Sunshine’s original producer who will be onboard, can guide the reboot to safe yet courageous home that won’t wreck the legacy.
After all, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead enhanced the legacy of their origins. We’re certainly hoping for the same for David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks. If Eternal Sunshine the tv series fails? Well, there’s always the Lacuna option.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
Anonymous Content is packaging the reboot from Universal Cable Productions.
As television’s reboot frenzy continues, Hollywood is now eyeing Oscar-winning films.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the latest movie headed for the small screen, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Anonymous Content’s Steve Golin, who produced the original film, is remaking the romantic drama into a TV series with studio Universal Cable Productions attached. The project is in its early stages and has not yet been taken out. Zev Borow (Forever, Chuck) is near a deal to pen the script. UCP declined comment.
The 2004 movie — produced by Focus Features, which like UCP is under the Universal umbrella — centered on an estranged couple (played by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet) who decided to erase each other from their memories. Written by Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth, the film premiered to rave reviews and scored the trio an Academy Award for best original screenplay.
Golin and Kaufman are not involved in the potential series. Anonymous Content will produce the project alongside True Detective executive producer Richard Brown.
For Anonymous Content, this becomes the latest foray into TV for the production and management company behind such hits as True Detective and Mr. Robot. Anonymous Content also has Netflix’s Brit Marling series The OA and Selena Gomez’s 13 Reasons Why upcoming, as well as TNT’s The Alienist.
Reboots continue to remain in high demand as broadcast, cable and streaming outlets look for proven IP in a bid to cut through a cluttered scripted landscape that is quickly approaching 500 original series. Key to the remakes is having the original producers involved in some capacity — which Eternal Sunshine has with Anonymous Content — as more studios look to monetize their existing film libraries.
Already in the works this season are reboots of Dynasty (The CW), Magnum P.I. (ABC), The Lost Boys (CW), Varsity Blues (CMT), The Departed (Amazon), Let the Right One In (TNT) and L.A. Law, though the latter does not yet have a network attached.
Borow is repped by UTA and Morris Yorn.