Prolific writer-producer Carlton Cuse is doing his part to fuel the television industry’s count of 450-plus scripted series with three shows airing in 2017: A&E’s Psycho prequel Bates Motel, FX’s horror series The Strain and USA’s sci-fi thriller Colony. With Bates Motel launching its fifth and final season on Feb. 20 (and adding Rihanna to the cast), Cuse — who also helmed the 2004-10 hit ABC series Lost — spoke with Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead about ending the Emmy-nominated psychological thriller on his terms. In a wide-ranging interview he also opined about “peak TV,” as well as the nuances of developing content for traditional television networks and streaming services.

MCN:AsBates Motelheads into its fifth and final season, are you satisfied that you’ve done everything you wanted to do with the series back when you first envisioned the concept?
Carlton Cuse: Yes, absolutely. I mean it’s one of those rare occasions where [series co-creator] Kerry Ehrin and I were fully able to realize our dreams and ambitions for the show. When we first got together, we imagined the show being a five-year, 50-episode run, and we had an architecture for each of those seasons. We’ve been able to do it just as we had hoped and planned, which has been incredibly gratifying.

MCN:Over the course of the five seasons, did you have to veer away from your original storyline because of how audiences reacted to the series?
CC: It was always our idea that Norma [played by Vera Famiglia] would die at the end of season four and season five would be our version of Norman Bates [played by Freddie Highmore] as you would have seen him in the feature film, but of course our story is completely different. We wanted to do the final season with the character and his dead mother with him in a real dislocated state of reality. Your question is really an astute one, because most times when you make a TV show and if you’re doing your job right, you listen to the organic entity and it often takes you in directions that are unexpected. I mean, that was very much the case for me on Lost and has been the case on most shows I’ve worked on. However, with this show, while there have been surprises that we didn’t necessarily anticipate, the general architecture and course of things was as we planned.

MCN:As season five gets more closely aligned with the original movie, Janet Leigh’s iconic character of Marion Crane is introduced. How did you decide to have Rihanna play that role?
CC: I had read an interview with her in a magazine where she said that Bates Motel was one of her favorite shows, so this sort of light bulb in my brain went off and I was like, “Oh, maybe we could get Rihanna to play Marion Crane.” It would solve the fundamental problem that we had which was how do we find someone to do that part who isn’t just a pale imitation of Janet Leigh in the original Psycho film. Clearly, by capturing Rihanna, we went in a very different direction. It was super exciting to actually get her; this is her first ever appearance on a scripted television show.

MCN:ThroughBates Motel, do you think you’ve been able to effectively introducePsychoto a new generation of viewers?
CC: It’s sort of funny, because I think that when we started the show it became apparent at least anecdotally that people over 25 [years old] had seen the original movie and a lot of people under 25 never had. We really make the show so that it doesn’t require you to have seen Psycho, and if you have seen the movie, it’s hopefully a bit of a richer experience. We borrowed some things from the [Alfred] Hitchcock movie, but the actual fundamental construct of our story is brand new and original. What’s interesting is that it’s not a retread — you’re not going to watch our show and feel like you’re just seeing something you’ve already seen.

MCN:Along withBates Motelyou’re also producing several other shows. Is this a great environment for producers such as yourself to create content, given that there’s so many different opportunities to get that content distributed on both traditional and digital platforms?
CC: It’s a little bit of a two-edged sword. Certainly there are tremendous opportunities, and I think what’s really great about this environment is that there’s room for shows that are pretty niche-type shows. The criteria used to be when I started television that you had to try to make a show that was everybody’s favorite show. Now the goal is to make your show somebody’s favorite show, so you can do smaller stories that would never have made it into a broadcast-television landscape. On the other hand, with 450 shows out there, it’s really hard to be heard, and you know there are very few, a handful, of shows that people follow and that have cracked the zeitgeist. Unfortunately, there are also a bunch of really good shows that no one ever really connects with, and that’s frustrating.

MCN:Having said that, do you thinkLostwould have survived in this environment?
CC: I would like to think so. Lost was a great moment of alchemy, and you know we just had this incredible group of people working all together on that show. It was special, and I would like to think that it would it would still be special even in a 450 show universe.

MCN:FX’sThe Strain, which you also produce, is ending its run this year, too. Is it more important for you to end shows creatively on your terms, even if it’s still popular with viewers?
CC: Yes. Those shows are sort of ending by design this year, which I think is also an important part of the television world. In an era where people stream shows, I’m very concerned about making sure the shows end well. It used to be that shows would just sort of die an unnatural death — it would be like the Pony Express, where you would ride the horse until it dropped dead beneath you — and shows that were great eventually just faded away into obscurity. But I think in the environment we live in now, where people binge-watch shows, you want to feel like you’re heading down a road that’s leading you someplace, to a conclusion that’s satisfying. And I think that as a show creator you have to know when enough is enough.

MCN:You are also working on Amazon’sJack Ryan, which is due next year. Going forward, do you see yourself continuing to develop content for traditional TV or, as withJack Ryan, creating content for digital streaming services?
CC: I think that every idea has its right place and there are certain things that I’m working on that feel like they might be better for network and other things feel like they’re really great for streaming services. I think each show has its own life in its own place, and I think as it now stands there’s room in this television environment for all kinds of different shows ranging from closed-end and traditional procedurals on CBS to really avantgarde shows on streaming platforms. Right now, I’ve got four things I’m working on so my hands are full, but with Bates and The Strain ending I’m I am excited to see what’s next. I’m kind of a story junkie who loves telling stories, so I have some other some other stuff that I would love to bring to the screen. Once these two shows are finished, I’m hoping to have time to turn my attention to some new projects.

Why on earth would television audiences be drawn to a 40-year-old sci-fi Western, a 30-year-old buddy-cop movie or an 11-year-old horror flick?

Hollywood movie titles like Westworld, Lethal Weapon and Wolf Creek have found new life on smaller screens — including the TV — as original scripted series, as TV networks seek out original content that pops in a crowded entertainment marketplace.

While the trend isn’t new — networks have tapped the silver screen over the years to produce such hit series as M*A*S*H, The Odd Couple and In the Heat of the Night — film adaptations have taken on more relevance in a crowded television marketplace that features more than 400 current scripted shows offered by cable, broadcast and digital streaming services.

“There’s an audience for it, and the compelling and complicated characters have already been developed for it, which gives you a much better chance to succeed,” said Ben Mankiewicz, on-air host for Turner Classic Movies. ”If the demographic that you’re seeking is already aware and interested in either the particular franchise or characters, obviously you have an even better chance at success.”

New HBO series Westworld is only one of several debuting shows adapted from theatrical films that have made their way to the “small” screen this year. Others include Fox’s redo of the 1980s movie franchise Lethal Weapon — currently one of the highest-rated freshman series among adults 18-49 on broadcast TV this season — and Pop’s reimagining of the 2005 Australian horror film Wolf Creek, which debuted last month.

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

“Everyone is looking for any angle that makes their property stand out and that has any familiarity with the audience,” said Mina Lefevre, senior vice president of scripted programming at MTV, which has successfully adapted two horror/ thriller movies into series in Teen Wolf and Scream. “It’s another element that really helps the show.”

The key to adapting a movie franchise for television is to maintain the film’s main themes that appeal to hardcore fans, but to reimagine the story in a way that expands the franchise’s appeal to newer, and hopefully younger, viewers, programming executives said.

“I would be wary of adapting something and then banking on the original [film’s] fans making or breaking the show,” HBO president of programming Casey Bloys said. “I don’t think that’s enough in this competitive world.”

During July’s Television Critics Association press tour, Westworld executive producer Jonathan Nolan told reporters that the original 1973 Michael Crichton film explores an issue that has become even more relevant decades later: the complexities of artificial intelligence.

Westworld executive producers Nolan and Lisa Joy retained the original movie’s Wild West-themed adult amusement park backdrop, where humans interact with lifelike, artificially intelligent beings, but twisted the series’ point of view from human to robot. That allows viewers to explore the series’ moral underpinnings from a different perspective.

“That’s an example of [the producers] taking a movie and embracing its themes, but having their own spin on it,” Bloys said. “They were always very clear that they wanted to switch the protagonists from the humans in the movie to the robots in the TV show.”

So far, that twist has worked. Westworld has averaged 12 million viewers across multiple platforms, according to HBO, while generating positive social media chatter and critical acclaim.

HBO isn’t the only network to create a whole new world based on a successful Hollywood movie while sticking to the source material’s basic premise. A&E successfully reimagined the iconic 1960 Alfred Hitchock film Psycho in Bates Motel, a prequel about the teen years of Norman Bates, Psycho’s likeable-but-sadistic adult villain. It even gave life to Norman’s dead mother, Norma Bates, earning actress Vera Farmiga an Emmy nomination in 2014 for her portrayal of the role.

NEW, FAMILIAR STORIES

“The beauty with doing a show like Bates Motel is that we have adapted the story and made it our own while not alienating the core fans of Psycho,” A&E executive vice president and head of programming Elaine Frontain Bryant said. “It’s a genius idea, because you know how it ends, yet viewers fell in love with Norman. It’s like watching a slow-moving train and you want to say, ‘No, Norman, don’t,’ even though you inevitably know what’s going to happen.”

Bryant said the show’s fifth and final season, premiering next year, will move even closer to the original Psycho film by introducing Marion Crane, the movie’s tragic lead character originally played by Janet Leigh. Pop star Rihanna will take on the role in the series.

On the flip side, Starz’s Ash vs Evil Dead, based on the 1981 horror film The Evil Dead, picks up the story 30 years later, with Bruce Campbell reprising his role as unlikely demon-killing hero Ash Williams. The network was able to capitalize on Evil Dead’s passionate cult following, creating a series that was renewed for its third season just last month, according to Carmi Zlotnik, managing director of Starz.

“There’s a fan base that’s had this pent-up desire to see the continuation of the story and the character that they love,” he said.

FX took the reimagining of a Hollywood film even further in 2014 by turning the Academy Award-winning crime thriller Fargo into an anthology series, with each season set in a different era with a new storyline and cast. The sophomore series, which won an Outstanding Miniseries Emmy Award in 2014, will return for season three in 2017.

“When we developed Fargo, we wanted to make sure it wasn’t an adaptation of the tone of the movie,” Nick Grad, FX’s original programming president, said. “We can do something really different and original with a really strong point of view that happens to have their origins in a movie franchise, but the most important thing for us is quality and originality. We’re pretty reluctant to do an adaptation of something you’ve seen before.”

BUILDING ON BRANDS

For networks looking to break into the scripted series arena, launching with an already branded franchise — as Pop did last month with horror series Wolf Creek — is invaluable in trying to draw and retain viewers.

The series takes the 2005 Wolf Creek movie plot, which follows demented killer Mick Taylor as he murders three backpackers in the Australian outback, and turns it on its head. The series, which premiered last month on the former TV Guide Channel, chronicles the hunting of Taylor by a young American tourist whose family was recently butchered by the Australian killer.

“The content world is more cluttered than ever, so if you can base something on intellectual property that people already are familiar with puts you one step ahead of the competition, especially for a smaller network,” Pop president Brad Schwartz said. “Having some familiarity for a title gives you a bit of a head start, versus all the work you have to do to explain a show that no one has ever heard of before.”

Despite the built-in advantages, some movie adaptations have tanked. CBS in May cancelled its freshman series Rush Hour, based on the Chris Tucker-Jackie Chan film franchise, due to lackluster ratings. In July, ABC pulled the plug on Mike Epps-starrer Uncle Buck, based on the 1989 John Hughes film starring John Candy, after one season.

A&E cancelled its Omen sequel series Damien this past May, after one season. The series followed Damien Thorn, the movie’s devil child, as a 30-year-old photographer unaware of his satanic past.

Despite the marketing and promotional advantage that shows like Damien may have, there’s no guaranteed ticket to success, Bryant said. “It was a franchise that maybe didn’t have the same type of appeal [as Psycho],” she said.

When transitioning a movie franchise to television, TCM’s Mankiewicz said networks must walk a fine line of providing a different take on the familiar plot or characters of that movie without upsetting its core fans.

“You have to make it compelling, but if you do create a compelling story and alter the universe significantly, you’ll get some very angry fan reaction from Twitter,” he said.

Added Starz’s Zlotnik: “As producers and network executives we have to take our Hippocratic oath: ‘Thou shalt do no harm to the property that you’re working with.’ For the fans, you have to meet or exceed their expectations in order to be successful.”

MORE COMING

It’s a risk that more network executives are willing to take. Already on the docket for 2017 are scripted series based on Spike Lee’s 1986 independent film She’s Gotta Have It (Netflix) and the dance-based movie franchise Step Up (YouTube).

“There are a lot of these fantastic tit les that have not been explored on television and now they can be,” MTV’s Lefevre said. “We’re really excited to take these properties that have been more specific to the big screen.”

Added TCM’s Mankiewicz: “I’m sure there a lot of writers mining moderately successful movies from the 1970s and 1980s that are right now trying to turn them into TV shows.”

Coming Attractions

A partial list of movies that have been turned into TV series pilots orwill launch as full-fledged series in 2017:

Show                                     Distributor                                           Status

She’s Gotta Have It . . . . . . . . . . . Netflix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Series

American Gigolo . . . . . . . . . . . Showtime . . . . . . . . . . . . In Development

First Wives Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . TV Land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Pilot

Heathers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TV Land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Pilot

War of the Worlds . . . . . . . . . . . .  MTV . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   In Development

Step Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . YouTube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Series

The Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Syfy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Pilot

Get Shorty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  EPIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Series

SOURCE :Multichannel News research

In HBO’s season-two trailer for Silicon Valley, a hulking, Birkenstock-wearing computer programmer grabs an enormous bong and fires it up to the relentless strains of Danny Brown’s “Smokin’ & Drinkin.’”

The series, which returned April 12, is but one of many premium, basic-cable and broadcast shows in which weed plays into the story line in one form or another. In Comedy Central’s Broad City and Workaholics; Showtime’s Episodes; IFC’s Maron; and even A&E’s Bates Motel, where the local town is run by a weed cartel, getting high is just something people do. On a fairly regular basis. And the act is not just implied or covered by a jump-cut to the after-effects; characters are casually toking away on screen.

Download the 4/20 timeline.

With 23 states and Washington, D.C., having legalized marijuana in one form or another, TV programming has gone to pot as well. Since the earliest references to weed in scripted TV shows to today, pot-related story lines have evolved from “Protagonist smokes weed — with disastrous results” to “with nostalgic results” to “with comic results” to, essentially, just “Protagonist smokes pot.” It’s tangential to the results.

Is TV merely reflecting the nation’s changing attitudes about pot or are we a nation under TV’s influence? In an effort to answer this 4:20-inspired question — that being the legendary time of day stoners would gather after school to get high, making the date April 20 a totem on the stoner calendar — Multichannel News presents this “4/20 Timeline” looking at the concurrent evolution of pot and plot.

Pasadena -- Lifetime will add two additional episodes to its limited series The Lizzie Borden Chronicles and A&E Networks announced start dates for two of its scripted series as part of A+E Networks’ Television Critics Association Winter press tour presentation.

The Lizzie Borden Chronicles, based on the network’s hit move Lizzie Borden Took An Ax, will add two episodes to its six-episode mini-series lineup. The series, staring Christina Ricci as the notorious murder suspect, will debut April 2015, according to network officials.

A&E on March 9 will return its horror/drama series Bates Motel for its third season, as well as debut its new supernatural drama series The Returned, said network officials.

A+E Studios has signed a three-year, first-look development agreement with producer Carlton Cuse, the network announced Friday.

Cuse will work with A+E Studios to develop quality original drama programming for the A+E portfolio of networks, including A&E, Lifetime and History. The prolific producer has worked on numerous shows including A&E’s Bates Motel as well as upcoming series The Returned. He’s also produced FX’s The Strain and ABC’s Lost.

“Carlton is a consummate showman and one of the greatest creative minds working in television today,” said Barry Jossen, Executive Vice President of A+E Studios.  “Since the start of A+E Studios, it has been our intention to expand our collaboration with Carlton.  We know he is one of the few producers with the unique combination of creativity and skills to personally create, as well as nurture other writers.  Now, we can continue on our path with Carlton toward producing many successful and brand-defining series together.”