If Fargo and Hannibal have proven anything, it's that a good film can be turned into a good TV series.

With the right cast, writing and directing staff and a willingness to move out from the source material, there's no real limit to where a TV series can go. Fargo, for example, moved its entire second season to 1979 whilst Hannibal spun-off into an arthouse horror series.

As of now, there are no less than 40 films currently being looked at for potential TV adaptations, including Training Day, The Notebook and even the John Hughes' comedy, Uncle Buck. HBO, meanwhile, will debut Westworld in the new year - based on Michael Crichton's bizarre '70s sci-fi thriller.

So, what other films could be turned into prime-time TV material? Here's our suggestions.

 

6. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

The quirky Charlie Kaufman-scripted, Michel Gondry-directed crossover hit saw a team of technicians wiping the memory of clients in an attempt for them to move on with their lives. Over the course of the film, we see one couple's traumatic relationship unfold as the reason they fell in love slowly begins to evaporate. It's a touching story, but the process itself could be easily turned into a serial format. A new person, each episode, erasing something from themselves that's too difficult to deal with it? Keep the same kind of trippy visuals and it's good to go.

 

5. ALIENS

Yes, James Cameron's sci-fi horror classic is unmistakably brilliant in every single way. Yes, Ridley Scott is working on a new film that will bridge the gap between Prometheus and the Alien franchise. However, what about the Colonial Marines? What did they get up to before they woke up Ellen Ripley and went to LV-426? What's that 'bug hunt' that they mentioned in the film? It doesn't even have to take on the war-film aspects of Aliens, it could easily be turned into a slowly progressing horror novella like the first Alien. The Alien universe itself has been expanded so much that there's literally hours upon hours of stories, characters and worlds to draw upon.

 

4. LOGAN'S RUN

Nicholas Winding Refn was reported some years ago as trying to get a remake of Logan's Run off the ground with Ryan Gosling taking the role made famous by Michael York. The 1976 film saw the remains of humanity living in an idyllic city beneath a dome. There, every human pleasure was easily accessible, but it all came with a terrible price - upon reaching the age of 30, people voluntarily committed ritual suicide. There was a short-lived TV series made after the film's release, but was way too tame. The film dealt with topics that are just as relevant today - the slowly-decaying ecology, society's views on beauty and ageism, the emptiness of capitalism. Sure, the original might be a bit hammy - but look what Jonathan Nolan and HBO have done with Westworld and you'll see there's something here as well.

 

3. HEAT

Technically speaking, Heat was a TV series before it became a film. Michael Mann made a dry-run for Heat with a TV movie called L.A. Takedown that featured unknown actors and a significantly reduced budget. What made Heat so special was how various intertwining stories coalesced over its runtime. They're all fleshed out over the course of the film, sure, but there's so much depth to it all that it could easily be made into a miniseries event over, say, five or six episodes.

 

2. SIDEWAYS

The Alexander Payne-written / directed dramedy saw Michael Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church take a week-long trip through Californian wine country whilst working out their individual problems. You could argue that the Duplass Brothers have cornered this type of well-written, dialogue-driven dramedies in television, but if Alexander Payne could be persuaded, he could really turn Sideways into a fantastic television series. There was talk for some time that a sequel was on the horizon, however Payne shot it down and effectively killed any chance of it ever happening. Shame, really.

 

1. DRIVE

Out of all of these suggestions, Drive has the most potential for a television series. Sure, nobody would have finished Fargo and thought that it could be turned into a hugely successful TV series - yet here we are. The same goes for Drive. What makes Fargo so interesting is that it takes the outline of the film and then fills it in with its own colouring. With Drive, you have a skilled driver in a neon-drenched city whose only friend is the mechanic / father-figure who's quite possibly ripping him off. Get the right person to take on the lead role, put together the right script and a syth-driven soundtrack and you've got the sequel to Drive we've all hoped for.