NBC’s “The Sing-Off” finds its roots in film
The Futon Critic has made a post where Nick Lachey fielded questions about NBC’s new effort to make some money of this American Idol and Glee-loving era. “The Sing-Off” premieres tonight at 8/7c, and while it’s great that Nick Lachey has found a way to keep making money, a more interesting tidbit about the show is where the idea came from:
Most reality shows don’t find their origins in the motion picture business but “The Sing-Off” is the exception, as Gallen explained. “There is a movie script [at Sony Pictures] that was being developed around the whole a cappella world, especially around colleges and universities. And the way I understand it Amy Pascal, the Chairman of Sony Pictures, was reading the script and of course not only was responding to how good the idea was for a movie she immediately, I think, contacted the television division of Sony and said ‘you guys should try to turn this into a sort of reality competition show.’ And that’s sort of when it started. And then the Sony television people contacted me and I came in and we sort of all developed it together. And, you know, several months later here we are with ‘The Sing-Off.’”
The studio is now in a position where, if this movie does come to fruition, it may seem instead like a lame way to overdo what the television show’s already started. Then again, audiences rarely resist triumphant movies about aspiring school kids fulfilling their dreams, so maybe this is a way of starting the marketing early.
