‘Scanners’ TV Series in Development

In the realm of telekinetic revenge movies featuring famous shots of heads exploding, things don’t get much better than David Cronenberg‘s Scanners. Following an intense bidding war, Media Res and Bron Studios have acquired the rights to develop the movie into a TV series, per Deadline.

In the film, “an underground network of people born with telekinetic powers living on the fringes of society that are hunted down by the forces that created them.”

Considering the mature tone and intense subject matter, Medis Res and Bron Studios aim to bring in a notable filmmaker to helm the series to shop around to premium networks. Free of censorship, the series would be able to fully embrace the violent subject matter that earned the film a massive cult following.

This latest news comes after Dimension Films had the rights to develop the property, which they first wanted to approach as a film and then as a TV series. Neither of these projects panned out, leading to the eventual bidding war.

Scanners was far from a hit when it was first released in 1981, pulling in a mere $14 million in its initial release. The strength of the concept resulted in multiple different sequels and spinoffs, none of which matched the quality of the original.

In 1991, fans saw the straight-to-video release of Scanners II: The New Order, followed by 1992’s Scanners III: The Takeover. The spinoff Scanner Cop was released in 1994 and its sequel, Scanners: The Showdown followed in 1995.

While Scanners didn’t become a huge success, it helped kick off writer/director Cronenberg’s career, going on to make Videodrome, the Stephen King adaptation The Dead Zone and the remake of The Fly. The filmmaker’s legacy is earned from his high concept and boundary-pushing sci-fi stories, which often showcase the heights of practical effects.

The film’s most famous sequence involves a man’s head exploding, which might be the most memorable of such sequences in movie history. To pull off the gruesome shot, a prosthetic head was filled will fake blood and gore, which a crew member then shot from close range with a shotgun, creating a grisly sequence.