Only recently, at a theater near you, was one of those motion picture oddities, which I suppose are best described as "after-the-fact" spin-offs of defunct television series. The movie in question is the multimillion dollar, 146-minute extension of Sex and the City, coming four years after the show had bid farewell following a six season run on HBO. From that time on there had been talk of reuniting the four stars (Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon) in a big screen continuation of the adventures of Carrie Bradshaw and her friends and it indeed came to be, scoring a major box office success.

The existence of this film brings some questions to mind. Why do certain cancelled or self-terminated series receive this treatment, while others do not? How is it determined that there is still enough interest in a show that no longer pops up on the weekly television schedule for it to warrant not merely a small screen reunion but a theatrical extension? Frankly, I haven't the faintest idea why there is no 146-minute movie based on Veronica's Closet, but I'm guessing rabid fandom must play a large part and Sex and the City certainly developed that during its run and beyond, principally among women. And surprise, surprise; for someone like me who only knew the series marginally and never got into it on a weekly basis, the Sex movie proved to be a smart, entertaining offering, and, best of all, something you can watch on its own, without years of familiarity or boning up on six seasons worth of episodes beforehand. 

So, Sex brings to mind other examples of "after-the-fact" movies. Perhaps the most notable was Star Trek: The Motion Picture, because it proved that, ten years after the series finished its prime time run, there was indeed a huge audience waiting for more of Gene Roddenberry's sci-fi adventure-drama. Its box office success was all the more stunning because nobody appeared to like the finished film very much, but Star Trek had built up such a fervent fan base, as it circulated endlessly in reruns in syndication, that the movie arrived as one of 1979's few "sure things," money-wise. Personally, I was never drawn to the original show (too serious for my taste) but saw the movie because it happened to be playing at the fabled Chinese Theater in Hollywood when I was there. For an outsider it proved little more than a major bore that did nothing to make me a convert to the cult of the Starfleet. Nevertheless, it led to five more theatrical movies featuring the original television cast, by which time Paramount was ready to produce some entries using the stars of the follow-up show, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Devotees tell me that some of these movies are great, but all I could concede was that Patrick Stewart was hands down the best actor ever connected with this franchise and it was always nice to see him on screen.

There was a revision of Get Smart, ten years after its cancellation, entitled The Nude Bomb (1980), which featured only Don Adams from the original cast (Barbara Feldon was otherwise occupied and Edward Platt had passed away), but the film missed becoming a hit by more than that much. Figuring they may have obscured its origins with that title (which I still think is a hoot), the film became The Return of Maxwell Smart for its subsequent television airings.

There was an effort to see if the intense internet fan-base for the one-season (2002-03) sci-fi offering Firefly was vast enough to cause a rush at the movie turnstiles, but when Serenity opened in the fall of 2005, the must-see factor was small.

Hannah Barbera had the screwy idea of doing a full-length version of The Jetsons (Jetsons: The Movie, 1990), twenty-seven years after the original went off the air, and five years after all new episodes were produced for syndication. It accomplished little except maybe prove that this show always came across as an inferior flipside to The Flintstones.

Certainly the best example of a series experiencing a "reversal of fortune" because of the movies was Police Squad! Because Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker, the team responsible for the classic send-up to end them all, Airplane!, were behind it, ABC had great hopes for this dead-pan spoof of cop shows. 

Alas, when it premiered in March of 1982, Police Squad! struggled in the ratings and was gone after a six-week run. So certain was the Zucker-Abrahams team that the audience had failed them, that they managed to talk Paramount into backing a full-length theatrical feature based on the show. Proving yet again that nobody knows anything, The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! tapped into the funny bones of moviegoers at Christmas of 1988 and became the hit its source material hadn't. This prompted not only two sequels, but a decision by CBS to pick up the original series and air the reruns, on the prime-time schedule, during the summer of 1991. This did not lead to further such programs however, as it was decided this sort of joke-a-minute, laugh-track-free satire seemed to work better in the movies.