It appears that Fox is looking to adapt one of cinema’s most intriguingly lethal illicit affairs with the upcoming small screen rendition of Fatal Attraction. The 1987 film, which starred an embattled Michael Douglas suffering the killer consequences of the most ill-advised instance of adultery ever with a maniacal Glenn Close, could soon be fodder for an event series which will certainly live up to its billing.
According to a report from Deadline, Fox and Paramount are working together in developing Fatal Attraction as a one-hour event series. The network has commissioned scripts from the veteran writing team of Maria and Andre Jacquemetton, whose work has been seen on an eclectic range of shows like Mad Men, Star Trek: Enterprise and Baywatch. Coincidentally (or appropriately) enough, Fox president of entertainment David Madden actually developed the original movie over at Paramount.
No further details have been revealed about the project, which certainly begs the question of how the traditional storyline for Fatal Attraction could possibly translate to a television project. However, it does seem that Fox is attempting to fulfill a quota of crazy drama, one left by their recent cancellation of The Following after the series about a cult of killers had run well past the point of feasibility after three seasons. Should the project actually manifest, it would not be the only movie adaptation series on the network’s lineup, with this fall’s Minority Report looking to expand the futuristic universe established in the 2002 Tom Cruise vehicle.
The original 1987 Fatal Attraction focused on Dan Gallagher, a successful lawyer, husband and father played by Michael Douglas, who lives an affluent, ideal life before giving into libidinous temptation with the sultry Alex Forrest, a publishing editor played by Glenn Close. While Dan would dismiss the encounter as a one-time hookup, an obsessed Alex clearly perceived the impromptu impropriety as codifying a deeper bond that she violently fights to maintain. Of course, this “fight” would involve constant threats, the kidnapping of Dan’s daughter and a scene (embedded below) that memorably cemented sloppy pet rabbit stew as standard fare for psycho-sexual relationships. While Clint Eastwood may have originated the “stalker girlfriend” genre with 1971’s Play Misty for Me, Fatal Attraction made the practice seductively scintillating in a nevertheless disturbing manner.
It will be interesting to see how a story that depends on its passion-infused immediacy could possibly be paced out enough to accommodate the run of a series, even a limited one. The notorious Fatal Attraction could be described as many things, but a slow burn drama is certainly not something that immediately springs to mind. Thus, we could be seeing a long stretch of episodes showing a scorned Alex (or whoever) chasing down Dan at his various functions before we get to the meat of the story. (Presumably boiling on a stovetop.) However, using Fox’s current event series Wayward Pines as a hypothetical template, we might presume that this project would merely be a ten-episode run. Expect more details to come soon.
