20 movies you didn’t realize were based on TV shows

The Addams Family movies from the early ‘90s have become fall classics, but they weren’t an original IP. The films were adapted from a 1960s TV series, which in turn was based on a comic strip that originated in the late 1940s.

21 Jump Street is a great movie, but it wasn’t an original idea. It started as a TV series in the late 1980s, and it’s actually what was responsible for kicking off Johnny Depp’s career. 

Good Burger is a classic children’s comedy that was inspired by a sketch performed on All That. And thanks to a Good Burger sequel in 2023 and Kenan Thompson’s work on SNL, we’re still seeing the lasting cultural impact that All That had. 

Borat is still a wild concept of a film to wrap your brain around, and if you have yet to wrap your brain around it, we have bad news: the film was based on a character from the TV show Da Ali G Show. Just another thing to wrap your brain around. 

If you’re familiar with Da Ali G Show, you know that it didn’t just inspire Borat. It also inspired Bruno, another Sacha Baron Cohen offering. Who knows what he’s going to do next? 

Those darling little chipmunks didn’t just appear. They’ve been singing since the 1950s. They started as a band and got their first TV show in 1960 called The Alvin Show. They’ve been in the mainstream ever since. 

Avatar: The Last Airbender ran on Nickelodeon for a few years in the mid-2000s, and it was a huge success. The series was then adapted into a film called The Last Airbender, which was a live-action adaptation as opposed to the animated series. 

The 2008 comedy spy film starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway was a screen adaptation of the TV series of the same name that was popular in the 1960s. It had other film adaptations before 2008, too.  

We’re losing the ancient texts. Charlie’s Angels didn’t start as a movie starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu. It started as a 1980s TV series starring Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith. 

The Fall Guy might’ve seemed like a fun new idea for a big-budget Hollywood film, but the idea wasn’t original. The Ryan Gosling film was inspired by the 1980s action series of the same name starring Lee Majors. 

The Naked Gun film series is far more popular than the TV series that inspired it ever was. The idea originated from the television show Police Squad!, a crime parody from the early 1980s. It only lasted six episodes, but its legacy lives on through The Naked Gun. 

When hearing the words "The Fugitive," most minds go to the 1993 Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones film. But before that film won an Oscar and changed lives, those words were associated with the 1960s TV series of the same name, on which the film is based. 

Resurrecting old IP is something Hollywood has been doing for decades. The Mission: Impossible movies are based on the 1960s TV series of the same name. Fun fact: The original series was produced by Desilu Productions, which was co-owned by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. 

The 2010 film The A-Team had one heck of a cast and proved fun to audiences, but it wasn’t nearly as iconic as the 1980s TV series it was based on. The original series of the same name is one of Mr. T’s defining roles. 

For a film adaptation of an old television show to work, the film has to have a great cast. The team behind The Equalizer knew exactly what it was doing in casting Denzel Washington. The film, based on the 1980s TV series of the same name, went on to have two sequels. 

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was a 2015 action film written and directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Henry Cavill , Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, and Hugh Grant. Before that, it was just a TV series that aired for four seasons in the 1960s. 

Remember the short-lived TV series Firefly? If so, you should see the film Serenity, a feature film that serves as a continuation of the Firefly series. Isn’t it fun when TV stories continue in movies? 

Nope, we’re not talking about Top Gun: Maverick here. We’re talking about the 1994 film Maverick starring Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, and James Garner. And this particular movie was based on the 1950s TV series of the same name.  

There are so many movies with truly unbelievable casts, and State of Play is one such movie. The film stars Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright, Jason Bateman, Jeff Daniels, and Helen Mirren. It’s based on a British TV series of the same name. 

You’ve probably heard of Wayne’s World, but it’s possible that you don’t know the lore. It’s based on a Saturday Night Live sketch of the same name, which first aired in the 1988-1989 season.