Bradley Cooper’s Limitless Is Becoming A New TV Series
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Adapting movies to television isn’t a new thing. TV shows such as RoboCop, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles were all popular shows based on popular movies. The latest movie to get the small-screen treatment is 2011’s Limitless, which starred Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, and Robert De Niro. While the TV version will not star Bradley Cooper, the 38-year-old actor will serve as the new series’ executive producer.
According to Deadline, Relativity Television has joined forces with Georgeville Television and Cooper to adapt Limitless into a new TV series. Limitless followed a struggling author in New York City, who takes a top-secret “smart drug” that allows him to use 100% of his brain, rather than the oft-cited myth that we normally only use 10%. While his newly acquired abilities grant him a meteoric rise to fame and fortune, they also attract the wrong kind of attention from people who threaten his life.
The Limitless TV series will be an hour-long drama that is both action packed and a social commentary on society as a whole. Cooper will executive produce alongside Limitless film producers Leslie Dixon, Scott Kroopf, and Leslie Dixon, who also wrote the movie version. At the moment, Limitless has no network, but it is believed it will be ready for primetime for the fall 2014 TV season. During the keynote speech, Georgeville TV CEO Marc Rosen said of the partnership and new series:
‘Limitless is the perfect example of Relativity’s multiplatform approach to creating quality content,’ he said. ‘The film has an organic natural extension into a compelling and sophisticated one-hour drama that is both a thrill-ride and a social commentary.’
Limitless was a big hit in 2011, taking in $161.8 million worldwide against a $27 million production budget. The film opened to $18.9 million in its opening weekend and performed steadily to its impressive box office totals. While Limitless didn’t launch Bradley Cooper’s career, it did cement him in Hollywood as a viable leading man after the success of The Hangover in 2009 and The A-Team in 2010.
At the moment, no actors have been cast in the new Limitless TV series. Limitless is based on Alan Glynn’s novel The Dark Fields, which was released in 2001. Glynn also wrote the novels Winterland in 2009, Bloodland in 2011, and, most recently, this year’s Graveland. Neil Burger directed the film, which received mixed to positive reviews from film critics, despite its impressive box office gross. Burger also directed the upcoming Divergent, which will be released in March 2014.
Limitless was also nominated for Best Science Fiction Film at the 2012 Saturn Awards, but didn’t win the grand prize. Rise of the Planet of the Apes took the top honor against stiff competition including The Adjustment Bureau, X-Men: First Class, Marvel’s Captain America: The First Avenger, and J.J. Abrams’ Super 8. The film did receive the award for Best Thriller at the 2011 Scream Awards, winning against The Adjustment Bureau, R.E.D., Salt, and Joe Wright’s Hanna.
Georgeville Television is rapidly becoming one of the most exciting production companies when it comes to genre shows. In addition to Limitless, they’re also involved with the Blake’s 7 reboot; the Wachowskis and J. Michael Straczynski’s Netflix series Sense8; an untitled pandemic thriller also from Straczynski and Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment; Chris Carter’s Amazon pilot The After; and Brett Ratner’s FBI time travel series Tomorrow for ABC.
