Jack Bauer is having a bad day.

Two of his friends were just killed in a car explosion and he has to come back from the dead before someone tries to kill him – again. Thus begins Bauer’s fifth worst day ever and the fifth season of FOX’s hit show 24. It’s possible, though, that his next bad day may be in the form of a major motion picture.

In a recent Entertainment Weekly cover story, Kiefer Sutherland, who plays Bauer, talks about turning the series into a movie. Producers of the show are still working on how to translate the show’s signature trait – the fact that it takes place in real time during the course of 24 hours – to movie format. So far, the movie might have a normal first hour and a real-time second hour.

Working out the problems with real time is only one hurdle the producers must overcome to transform the popular television show into a successful movie. Communication Prof. Jason Betke says there are several common mistakes studios make with television adaptations.

“If you are too loyal to the original, you risk making a film that becomes subservient to expectations,” he says. “If you make too many changes, you risk losing the original audience you are expecting to attend the film.”

FOX’s 24 is only one example of a television show being turned into a motion picture. Movies based on television shows go as far back as Star Trek, with varying degrees of success. Some, such as South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, have been box office hits. Others, like Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, haven’t fared as well.

“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan might be the best film that originated as a television program,” Betke says. “It maintained the characters and ideas of the TV show but expanded on them and made them epic.”

Weinberg freshman Sarah Wald says her least favorite adaptation is The Brady Bunch Movie, although she thinks it is a good remake.

“It was a good adaptation (in terms of) keeping characters and plots,” Wald says. “But at the same time (writers) make those scripts to be a TV show. It’s not meant to be two hours long.”

The most recent television adaptation is The Dukes of Hazzard. The film grossed more than $80 million at the box office, but Betke says he wonders if producers are merely capitalizing on the success of a popular show without any desire to create interesting work.

David Hoffman, a Weinberg freshman, disagrees. He says Dukes of Hazzard was one of his favorite television adaptations.

“The original was awesome, and although the movie wasn’t as awesome, it was very entertaining,” Hoffman says.

Jeremy Vesta, a Weinberg sophomore, says the movie was nowhere near ‘awesome.’

“Dukes of Hazzard was lacking in plot due to the exchange,” Vesta says about the show’s transition to film.

As if half-hour shows don’t have a hard enough time translating to movies, there are also five-minute skits that have turned into blockbusters.

Saturday Night Live has contributed to the mix with Coneheads, It’s Pat and A Night at the Roxbury.

“The Blues Brothers was an SNL bit and is a great film mainly because of John Landis, the director,” Betke says.

By far, the most popular SNL skit-turned-movie is Wayne’s World, which grossed $171 million at the box office.

“Wayne’s World translated efficiently to the big screen because the plot of the sketch could be easily elaborated on past what the TV show allowed,” Vesta says.

The best television adaptations, Betke says, are the ones in which the director rethinks the original work, as opposed to studios trying to profit off successful television shows.

“The best TV-to-film adaptations only draw their ideas from the original show, and there is usually a strong new narrative voice behind them,” Betke says. “Most remakes fail because they are simply tongue-in-cheek (with) no honest or original narrative voice.”

The nature of the show matters as well, Vesta says.

“You have to have a TV show that has a plot complex and grasping enough to translate to movie,” Vesta says. “Because of time, normally TV shows don’t have to have as complex a plot.”

Vesta says the worst remake was 2005’s Bewitched, starring Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman.

“It was nothing like the TV show,” Vesta says. “Bewitched does not have enough plot in a show to make a movie.”

Ryan Crist, a Communication sophomore, watches 24 and worries not about the lack of a plot, but the idea of condensing a whole day into two hours for a film. But if the current writers work on the movie, he says it will be a success.

“I am sure it will be worth the eight bucks,” Crist says.

Medill sophomore Emmet Sullivan is a PLAY writer. He can be reached at [email protected].