‘The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai’ being adapted by Kevin Smith for TV
I first saw The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai last month, and I fucking *loved it* through and through. What a coked out masterpiece of 1980s history. But a TV series? Being adapted by Kevin Smith? I’m cautious, at best.
Writer-director Kevin Smith and MGM are currently in the process of adapting “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension” as a television series. During an appearance on the Hollywood Babble-On podcast, Smith revealed that MGM is currently trying to find “a home” for the series.
According to Smith, MGM liked his pitch enough to “take it out and try to find a home for it.”
As to how he would adapt the series, Smith said, “Basically you just do the entire movie for season one, then season two you finally do the sequel we’ve all dreamed about, ‘Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League.’”
The original 1984 film follows Buckaroo Banzai, a man of many talents; his careers include physicist, neurosurgeon, test pilot, and rock musician, among others. Alongside his trusty Hong Kong Cavaliers, he defends Earth by battling a race of interdimensional aliens called Red Lectroids after one of them arrives on the planet thanks to his Jet Car experiment.
The Peter Weller-starring film spans several genres — including action/adventure, sci-fi, comedy, satire and romance — and featured appearances by stars like John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin and Christopher Lloyd. “The World Crime League” was mentioned as a sequel in the credits of the movie, though nothing came of it.