Plenty of TV shows have ended only to continue on as movie series, either right after they were finished or years later. The Muppets had a successful run of big screen outings back in the day. Star Trek resurrected itself from the dead with a series of movies before returning to the small screen, and Downton Abbey capped off its six-season run with a trio of feature films. It happens all the time.
It’s rarer for a TV show to spin off into a movie series while that TV show is still running, but it does happen. For instance, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut came out all the way back in 1999 when the show was still in its early days; it’s a bit of a miracle there hasn’t been another South Park movie all these years later. Animation history may be repeating itself with news that the sci-fi comedy Rick and Morty, which just kicked off its ninth season, is officially getting a movie. And there are plenty of other TV shows that deserve the same treatment.
Dexter
The serial killing king of reinvention can do it again
Dexter is unexpectedly one of the hardiest franchises on TV. The original show, about a serial killer (Michael C. Hall) who only goes after other serial killers ran on Starz from 2006 to 2013, fizzled out at the finished line, and then went off the air for nearly a decade. When news of a revival came about, it sounded like a non-starter, but shows like Dexter: New Blood and Dexter: Resurrection have proven to be big hits.
People are clearly willing to watch Dexter Morgan chop up bad guys no matter how much the writers have to bend plausibility to explain how he keeps getting away with this, so if the franchise graduated to the big screen, writers wouldn’t have to worry too hard about coming with a good reason for why and how Dexter is still at it. Just pair him up with a charismatic villain, give us a few creepy kill scenes, let Michael C. Hall smolder for the camera, and you’ve got a guaranteed hit.
- Release Date
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July 13, 2025
- Network
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Paramount+ with Showtime
- Directors
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Marcos Siega
- Writers
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Scott Buck
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Small scale, big screen
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a new Game of Thrones prequel series that follows the adventures of a knight (Peter Claffey) and his squire (Dexter Sol Ansell) around 100 years before the events of the original series. Unlike Game of Thrones or the other prequel, House of the Dragon, each season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms will stand more or less on its own, with each one based on a different novella written by George R.R. Martin. This will not be a show where the whole thing is like one long movie chopped up into however many episodes; each individual adventure has a beginning, middle, and end, which makes a movie entry a no-brainer.
In fact, there’s an argument to be made that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms should have been a movie series to begin with. While the first season was terrific, the novellas on which the show is based are on the short side, and it wouldn’t be hard to squeeze them into a movie format. Perhaps HBO can mix and match to make the most of this new hit show.
- Release Date
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January 18, 2026
- Network
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HBO
- Showrunner
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Ira Parker
- Directors
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Owen Harris
- Writers
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George R. R. Martin, Ira Parker
Ted Lasso
If it’s gonna keep coming back anyway
Ted Lasso is a charming single-family sitcom about an American football coach (Jason Sudeikis) who starts a new career coaching regular football, aka soccer, in the U.K. The first three seasons were hugely successful, to the point where Apple is bringing the show back for a fourth season where Ted coaches a woman’s football team. Ted Lasso isn’t the kind of show I would have thought could weather a rebrand, but the fourth season looks poised to be a hit when it premieres on Apple TV+ in August 2026.
Flexibility is key to spinning off into a movie. Ted Lasso coaches baseball. Ted Lasso coaches volleyball. Down the line, when Jason Sudeikis gets into his 70s, there’s a movie about Ted Lasso coaching shuffleboard. We’ve unlocked the key to make this franchise last forever.
- Release Date
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August 14, 2020
- Network
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Apple TV
- Showrunner
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Bill Lawrence, Jason Sudeikis
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Hannah Waddingham
Rebecca Welton
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Jeremy Swift
Leslie Higgins
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The Comeback
Valerie Cherish vs blockbuster movies
The Comeback technically just ended its three-season run on HBO, but this criminally underrated HBO series still has gas left in the tank. Each season, each of which aired a decade after the last, satirized a different aspect of show business. The first, which aired in the mid-2000s, predicted the rise of reality TV. The second, which premiered in 2014, took aim at supposedly high-end “prestige” TV. And the most recent season grappled with the advent of AI in Hollywood like no other show has been bold enough to do.
It’s only natural for Valerie Cherish, the good-hearted, overly image-conscious hero of the show, to take on pictures. What I wouldn’t give for a movie about Valerie starring in an opulent period drama, or getting pulled around on wires wires for some expensive superhero movie. Lisa Kudrow has been quietly hysterical as Valarie for decades now, and she deserves to remain in the spotlight.
- Release Date
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2005 – 2026-00-00
- Network
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HBO Max
- Showrunner
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Comedy, Satire
- Directors
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Clark Mathis, Michael Patrick King
- Writers
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Lisa Kudrow, Michael Patrick King
Reacher
Not a reach at all
Reacher, about a hulking drifter (Alan Ritchson) who wanders from place to place doing good and beating up bad guys, is one of the most popular shows on Prime Video. The series is based on the Jack Reacher novels by author Lee Childs. There have been 30 Jack Reacher books released to date, only three of which have been adapted for TV.
There’s no way Reacher is going to adapt all the books by the time the series ends, so why not adapt a few as movies? You could have a movie set in the loose continuity of the TV show or just have it stand completely alone by itself. It could be set anywhere in time; before, during, or after any point in the TV show. And given how much people love the series, a movie is sure to be a smash hit.
- Release Date
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February 3, 2022
- Network
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Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Nick Santora
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Alan Ritchson
Jack Reacher
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Maria Sten
Frances Neagley
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Malcolm Goodwin
Oscar Finlay
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Willa Fitzgerald
Roscoe Conklin
The Studio
A movie about a TV show about movies
Like The Comeback, The Studio is a TV show that satirizes Hollywood. In this case, it’s about a studio executive (Seth Rogen) trying to make great movies while grappling with the economic realities of his business, which demands he make slop. Episodes tend to be cinematically ambitious, with lots of long takes and complicated cinematography.
The Studio clearly wants to be a movie, so why not make the leap? I could see a Studio movie being a great way to cap off the series as a whole, whenever it wraps up down the line (hopefully not for a while; a second season is on the way).
- Release Date
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March 25, 2025
- Network
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Apple TV+
- Showrunner
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Evan Goldberg, Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck, Seth Rogen
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-
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Ike Barinholtz
Sal Saperstein
The White Lotus
An epic series deserves an epic finale
Each season of The White Lotus is set in a different hotel, all of them part of the luxurious White Lotus chain. By and large, each season introduces us to a whole new set of characters with their own stories to tell, so if HBO made a movie out of this, it could stand on its own rather than require people to see it in lieu of getting a watch a proper series finale at home.
Another hallmark of the series is that guests die at the end of every season, and those numbers have been creeping up. Before long, every season of The White Lotus will need to be a bloodbath for it to keep pace. If the series ends with a movie, HBO can throw some blockbuster money at the film and have a tidal wave engulf the entire hotel, killing everyone and finally making the chain so difficult to insure that it can’t operate.
- Release Date
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July 11, 2021
- Network
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HBO
- Showrunner
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Mike White
- Directors
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Mike White
- Writers
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Mike White
Beware overextension
The TV show-to-movie pipeline doesn’t always work. For every successful movie series built on the bones of an old TV show, like Mission: Impossible, there are embarrassing failures like the 2005 Dukes of Harzard movie, the 2017 Baywatch movie, and 2010’s truly awful live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Sometimes, things are better left on the small screen, but if the right producers make the right choices, some shows can shine on the big one.
