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Saved by the Bell Might Finally Get the Big Screen Treatment
It's quite surprising that after turning older television shows like Charlie's Angels, Get Smart, The Addams Family into feature films, many of the sitcoms and series from the 90's have remained largely untouched by the property grabbing hands of Hollywood. That has the potential to change soon as Pajiba reports that a Saved by the Bell movie is in the works. And while there's certainly some interest in revisiting Bayside High School (especially from Jimmy Fallon), the film itself would more than likely have an all-new cast with the possibility of cameos from the original cast members. But does anyone want to see this show as a movie?
However, I'm not sure if an "all-new cast" means that it will simply have new actors playing Bayside High School's finest. If you're too young to remember the 90's series or just never cared enough to watch, the show aired between 1989 and 1993 and the series itself is a retooled version of another 1988 series Good Morning, Miss Bliss. Series followed the exploits of high school students like the scheming charmer Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), cheerleading hottie Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen), the gossip queen Lisa Marie Turtle (Lark Voorhies), the school nerd Samuel "Screech" Powers (Dustin Diamond), resident know-it-all Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley) and the jock "A.C' Slater (Mario Lopez) as well as a friendly yet authoritative Richard Belding (Dennis Haskins) as the school's principal.
While touching anything I hold dear to my heart from the 90's is usually immediate cause for backlash, I can see a somewhat successful and retro-style teenage film coming out of this, especially if it's loyal to the super cheesy style and tone of the series. More specifically, the cunning use of breaking the fourth wall would be a welcome callback to a high school flick, the likes of which haven't been successfully used for comedy and character development since John Hughes' 1986 classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
But on the other end of the spectrum, very few big screen bows of television series have actually been up to par. Recent cinematic incarnations of The Dukes of Hazard, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Bewitched have been agonizingly painful to watch. If Saved by the Bell is going to make it, then it needs to take cues from more successful jumps to the big screen like The Addams Family and stay away from a parody-like portrayal like The Brady Bunch Movie. This is only a rumor for now, but there is some potential, so we'll keep you updated. Do you want Saved by the Bell to head to theaters or should school be out forever?
