“Spaced”, being remade in the USA? Please, God, no, don’t spoil one of my favourite shows of all time.

Simon Pegg says (extract from a long piece)

Simon Pegg on the American Remake of Spaced | /Film

[…] My main problem with the notion of a Spaced remake is the sheer lack of respect that Granada/ Wonderland/Warner Bros have displayed in respectively selling out and appropriating our ideas without even letting us know. A decision I can only presume was made as a way of avoiding having to give us any money, whilst at the same time using mine and Edgar’s name in their press release, in order to trade on the success of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, even professing, as Peter Johnson did, to being a big fan of the show and it’s creators. A device made all the more heinous by the fact that the press release neglected to mention the show’s co-creator and female voice, Jessica Hynes (nee Stevenson). The fact is, when we signed our contracts ten years ago, we had neither the experience or the kudos to demand any clauses securing any control over future reversioning. We signed away our rights to any input in the show’s international future, because we just wanted to get the show made and these dark days of legal piracy seemed a far away concern. As a result, we have no rights. The show does not belong to us and, those that do own it have no obligation to include us in any future plans. You would perhaps hope though, out of basic professional respect and courtesy, we might have been consulted. It is this flagrant snub and effective vote of no confidence in the very people that created the show, that has caused such affront at our end. If they don’t care about the integrity of the original, why call it Spaced? Why attempt to find some validation by including mine and Edgar’s names in the press release as if we were involved? Why not just lift the premise? Two strangers, pretend to be a couple in order to secure residence of a flat/apartment. It’s hardly Ibsen. Jess and I specifically jumped off from a very mainstream sitcom premise in order to unravel it so completely. Take it, have it, call it Perfect Strangers and hope Balkie doesn’t sue. Just don’t call it Spaced. […]

Whilst we’re here, who else remembers all those early-2000-era “All British Television Is Shite And What We Need Is More ‘Frasier’ and ‘Friends’ And To Stop Producing Stuff Ourselves Since It Costs Money” arguments amongst the chattering classes and readers of das Daily Mail?

Now let’s see: the Americans imported “Coupling” (flopped) ostensibly to replace “Friends”; then “The Office” to considerable acclaim although I aver that the US product is nothing like the UK one[1] – UK cookery shows are apparently re-running everywhere in the US, and now there’s to be “Top Gear” (without Clarkson?) and Spaced (without Humour?) … the new Dr Who’s awfully popular, oh, and not to mention all those tragic but crack-addictive talent shows judged and/or produced by Simon Cowell and/or their clones…

All in all I am rather glad that British TV production didn’t cave in.

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[1] Evidence: I cannot watch more than 60 seconds of the UK one without changing channel, it is so accurate it makes me cringe; the US one is more slapstick than farce.