Jon Turteltaub on the ‘Jericho' Movie
Filmmaker Jon Turteltaub's two CBS TV series – Jericho and Harper's Island – weren't massive hits, but Jericho at least spawned a massive cult following. When I caught up with Turteltaub, while he was promoting his upcoming The Sorcerer's Apprentice in LA, I asked him if the long-discussed Jericho movie could still happen. Find out what he told me after the jump.
"We've released a graphic novel of it," says Turteltaub of Jericho, his drama about the survivors of a nuclear apocalypse. "We've been working with CBS Films on a film version of it, and a script is being written. It's such a weird thing. ‘Cult following' to me is synonymous with ‘small following.' Nobody says Avatar has a cult following. So it's a question of how passionate that cult is versus ‘Does it really have a chance to catch on with everybody?' I never understood why we didn't do better. I thought the show was really interesting and went really cool places for TV. I felt similarly about Harper's Island. I thought this was a really interesting idea, and new for TV, and something exciting. But TV has its own sort of rules. And you don't know how or when to break them until they're broken. Every good, every obvious idea, has been tried ten times. Then all of the sudden it's the great obvious idea. American Idol is an unoriginal show, but all of the sudden it's the greatest thing ever. Who knows? How do you know?"
Turteltaub adds that if a Jericho film is made, audiences would see the TV show's stars return to their roles. "It would be that cast," he says. "Skeet [Ulrich] and Lennie [James] and Ashley [Scott]. Hopefully."
"Assuming," he laughs, "they're not sixty years old by the time we end up making this movie. And those who are still alive are still alive. And haven't gained any weight!"
