There are so many animated films out there that they can’t all go on forever. We’ve recently seen Toy Story come to an end, and you probably shouldn’t hold your breath in hope of a new Shrek film.
The idea of a TV show becoming a film is well established and common, and there have certainly been a fair few films converted into spinoff TV series’, but we’ve collected ten more from the animated world that could work well on the small screen.
Shrek
Although Shrek is over and put the final nail in its coffin with the poorly received Shrek Forever After, its revival as a TV show would work perfectly. Leaving the titular character and his wife Fiona out of it (mostly for budget reasons, to be honest, it would be a nightmare getting a hold of Cameron Diaz) and let the supporting cast take the reins.
Whether this is a prequel to show Donkey’s past life as a talking donkey, something following the brilliant Fairy Godmother in her day to day life, or perhaps even a mini-series about gingerbread men, there are so many options.
The Lego Movie
It’s basically destiny for The Lego Movie to one day spawn a TV series. They got everyone’s attention with a big-name cast and a gimmicky 90-minute advert for Lego, but now they’ve got everyone in the palm of their hand thanks to an incredible ability to write a fantastic film.
We don’t need The Lego Movie in cinemas anymore; Lego isn’t grand. It’s a small scale, homely thing which would work so much better on TV, letting us explore amazing Lego worlds alongside a cast that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the films.
Inside Out
Inside Out is one of the best concepts Disney ever came up with. Well, they might not have invented it themselves necessarily (The Beano comic introduced The Numskulls in 1993), but it still worked brilliantly. A TV series wouldn’t necessarily need the scale of the film, but building the world inside couldn’t really go wrong. We could be introduced to the various departments that exist, perhaps even visiting other bodily locations so see how they run. If you were to spin it right, it could even turn into some sort of educational show for kids.
Over The Hedge
The ensemble cast might have to be abandoned slightly (Steve Carell, Bruce Willis... the list goes on) but Over The Hedge was one of the greatest and funniest animated films to have been completely underrated on every single level possible. RJ wasn’t the best character in the world, so he can go, but Hammy deserves so much more screen time, while the likes of Gary Shandling’s Vincent could act as a parental figure as Hammy dashes around looking for even more human food to devour.
Wreck-It Ralph
While its sequel took on a very meta life of its own in a very Ready Player One-esque fashion, a TV adaptation of Wreck-It Ralph could de-scale the franchise (hugely) and simply show what our favorite characters get up to in their daily lives.
Maybe having it set in-between the two films would be good, allowing us to explore Vanelope’s life in her game and Ralph’s newfound happiness amongst his friends in his. We wouldn’t need any fancy gimmicks and grand-scale adventures, just a vehicle for the great characters to keep making us laugh.
Fantasia
This is a bit of left-field suggestion, but for those more into their high art, an adaptation of Fantasia could really rebirth the Disney classic. Building an entire film on the (very satisfying) animation of classical music isn’t really something that holds up these days. That could be fixed, however, by providing individual pieces of music (perhaps not necessarily even classical) with their own TV short would allow kids to explore some music unfamiliar to them, without oversaturating them with an entire film.
Finding Nemo
The Taken of animation films, Finding Nemo is really quite an intense story that, if it weren’t for the animated talking fish that fill the screen throughout, would probably be pretty harrowing. Rather than creating a spin-off that follows individual characters, this is one of the few animated tales with a strong enough, gripping storyline to warrant a direct recreation.
The actual storyline of the film split into various 30-minute episodes, with much more character development, side-stories and loads more time to build the tension. Sounds perfect, right?
Minions
The Minions, when found in their original content of Despicable Me, are pretty funny. They only appear on-screen briefly each time, so their strange pseudo-Spanish language isn’t too annoying, and their weird actions are funny in short doses. The big-screen spin-off that developed their backstory was totally unnecessary, and basically acted as a massive marketing campaign to sell more toys. Give them a TV show with 10-minute slots to act as strangely as they want, and they’ll probably sell even more toys. Just don’t make us watch them for an hour and a half.
WALL-E
The reason WALL-E is so loved is probably down to its almost high-art opening sequence. Barely a word spoken, the film twists the formula of animated films by presenting a genuine issue and its repercussions in a solemn, haunting way. In TV format, this could take a similar approach. Rather than ending up on a spaceship full of fat humans chatting away, we could follow WALL-E himself on a completely silent journey around the abandoned earth as he does what he needs to do to clean it up.
Madagascar
This is an interesting one, because there are actually already two TV adaptations of Madagascar. The first follows the scheming, mobster-esque Penguins, while the second lets us follow the incredible King Julian (though Sascha Baron Cohen’s non-appearance makes it basically pointless).
What we haven’t seen, though, is what life was like back at Central Park Zoo for Gloria, Melman, Marty and Alex. They all seemed to get up to some interesting things, such as Alex dancing and Melman being a hypochondriac, so it could be cool to explore what things were like for them before freedom.