‘Psych’ Creator Wants Movies to Follow ‘Fast and Furious’ Franchise Blueprint

Fans of USA’s cult-hit TV series Psych got a huge swell of good news earlier this year: Psych will be continuing in movie form, after the series came to end in 2014. The first of the planned films will be Psych: The Movie, which will air on USA this holiday season, having wrapped principal photograhy in the middle of June.

As Psych prepares to make its presence (re-)felt at San Diego Comic-Con 2017, Psych creator Steve Franks is talking about how he envisions the feature-length installments of Shawn and Burton’s misadventures to continue – including his plan to change things up from the formula that fans may have grown accustomed to while watching the show.

Speaking to EW, Franks revealed that one movie franchise is inspiring his plans for Psych: the Fast and Furious. According to the Franks, his open-ended finale for serves the purpose of setting up multiple movies (six, to be exact), which can push the Psych storyline into bold new directions:

“[In the same] way that the Fast and the Furious movies used to be about street-racing and they’ve pivoted into heist movies and all that stuff, I kind of want the [Psych] movies to pivot into action-comedy where you can do something that feels like a feature movie and not just two episodes of Psych put together. Because as fun as it is to watch this show, it’s nothing compared to how fun it is to write this show and to make this movie.”

Next: Psych: The Movie to Create Meta Love Interest for One Character

Further along in the interview it’s revealed that Franks plans to do at least one more movie – one that can be a full-fledged reunion, as cast member Timothy Omundson (who played Carlton Lassiter) suffered a stroke as Psych: The Movie went into production. Omundson is currently in recovery, and is said to be “kicking ass and he’s taking names and he’s going to be back soon.”

As for what movie two may entail? Franks adds:

“There’s some great, great stuff that took place in Santa Barbara, and movie two is certainly going to utilize some of those bits. The entire scenes, word-for-word, will be in the second movie. The idea is that the second one would be the one that we would do to fully have everybody back together in the same room at the same time.”

SYNOPSIS: Psych: The Movie reunites Shawn and Gus with Detective Juliet O’Hara (Maggie Lawson), Chief Vick (Kirsten Nelson), Henry (Corbin Bernsen), and Woody (Kurt Fuller) as they face their deadliest foe yet: The Thin White Duke, played by Zachary Levi.

Psych: The Movie will premiere on USA Network in December. San Diego Comic-Con will run from July 20 – 23rd.