Is Quantum Leap the next beloved old science-fiction property to make transition to the big screen?
According to Scott Bakula, who starred in the 1980s series as the time-traveling scientist Sam Beckett, Quantum Leap creator Donald P. Bellisario has been at work on a cinematic version of the show. Unfortunately, since a couple of decades have now passed since Bakula and co-star Dean Stockwell played their characters, it is looking like they won’t be back to reprise their roles. However, as Bakula told fans at a Quantum Leap retrospective panel last month at the San Diego Comic-Con, that doesn’t mean that they’ll be absent from the project entirely-
The good news is that Don [P. Bellisario] is working on the film script and has a big time Hollywood producer who wants to do it… It’s about time. But what I always thought would happen, happened … But Dean [Stockwell] and I will have a part in it somehow… Don did say that as he was writing, he told me he was having trouble, ‘getting you and Dean out of my head.’
Well, it won’t be the first time that characters strongly associated with specific actors have been recast. Last summer’s Star Trek showed that it could be done effectively well. Of course, this winter’s Tron: Legacy promises to work as a stand alone film as well as a sequel the 1982 Walt Disney classic by mixing old and new casts. And since Quantum Leap is a time travel story, whose to say that Bakula and Stockwell couldn’t appear as older versions of themselves? Again, look to Star Trek.
I would suggest that probably most fans of the series would want a Quantum Leap movie to wrap up the seeming cliffhanger the series final episode ended on. Myself, I thought it was a fitting, if bittersweet, conclusions that was true to the nature of Bakula’s character. I won’t spoil it here, but if you haven’t seen it, I would recommend tracking it down on DVD and judging for yourself.
Via TheTwoCents.com
