Back when Tom Hanks was flexing his funny bone on a somewhat regular basis -- this would be back in the 80s -- we got The Money Pit, a probably under-appreciated comedy starring Hanks and Shelley Long as a married couple who think they've found their dream home and after purchasing it, discover that the place is on the verge of collapse, which can eventually be said about the state of their marriage once they start dealing with the financial and emotional stress of trying to get the place fixed up. The simplicity of the plot -- married couple's relationship is tested as they try to fix up a giant old house -- seems like pretty workable premise for a TV comedy. Whether or not that turns out to be true, remains to be seen, but it sounds like NBC's looking to give it a shot.
Let's pause for a moment and appreciate one of the film's many funny moments:
Deadline reports that the 1986 comedy The Money Pit is being adapted for a potential TV series by Universal Television and Amblin Television, the TV division of Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment. Spielberg was an executive producer on the original film. The Office's Justin Spitzer has been tapped to adapt and executive produce the project, along with Amblin TV's Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank.
As I said, there's definite potential for a comedy series shaped around home renovations. For one thing, it's an incredibly relatable subject for anyone who's ever dealt with the stress and cost of fixing up a house, and for another, there's probably some great potential for characters in this project. In the film, the Fieldings were at the center of the story, as they dealt with hiring people to get the place fixed up, and also scrambled to pull the money together to pay for the renovations. Their jobs and other personal entanglements factored in, increasing the strain on their marriage. The film emphasized some great physical comedy, which Long and Hanks both excelled at:
There's the potential for some great mishaps and gags related to the home renovations, not to mention the relationship drama and humor tied to the lead couple. And then, of course, there's the renovators. In the film, the people working on the house weren't completely blind to the marital struggles the Fieldings were dealing with, and at times, their reactions were some of the funnier moments of a scene. It could work to develop one or two of the renovators as full-fledged characters in this potential series, but that's just speculation. Beyond the fact that this is an adaptation of the film, no details about the plot were mentioned yet, so we don't know what they have in mind for this, but on premise alone, I think it could work.
And I'd like to nominate Alyson Hannigan and Jason Segel as the leads. It's probably a long shot, but since How I Met Your Mother is wrapping up, I'm anticipating some serious Marshall-Lily withdrawal come next season.
