The Time Traveler's Wife Becoming A TV Series

After The Time Traveler's Wife scored a fairly respectable little pile of poker chips at this weekend's box office, the news is breaking that the story is next headed to the small screen. Marta Kaufman, co-creator of Friends and Veronica's Closet, is set to write and executive produce an ongoing series that can take time spinning out the decade long romance of the novel at the same time as giving us stand alone narratives tied-up on an episode by epidsode basis. Quantum Leap, anyone? Or maybe Journeyman is more on the nose.

According to The Wrap, ABC and Kaufman have been talking about the project "for years." Of course, it's no surprise that the light came on just now, when the film has proven itself in the marketplace.

I was definitely not impressed with Robert Schwnetke's direction of the film adaptation. At best it was quite perfunctory stuff, while some of his choices seemed just plain crazy. Those curious zip-pans were particularly baffling to me, especially the first one, and Broken Social Scene's appearance just left me shaking my head and stifling a laugh. None the less, I think Bruce Joel Rubin's screenplay was rather good and definitely played out better in cinematic terms than the novel read – for one thing, I didn't give up on the film a few chapters in.

There were enough clever ideas, nifty plot maneuvers and resonant little beats in the movie, though no doubt mostly derived from Audrey Niffenegger's book, for me to have a fairly good time overall and to suspect I'll probably return to the film a couple more times at least. Sure, it's no Twelve Monkeys or Back to the Future but it's always good to see a time travel film that's actually about something. We can never enough of those, so bring on Rian Johnson's Looper, I say.

If somebody told me Joss Whedon was in charge of a Time Traveler's Wife TV show I'd be filled with serious anticipation. It's a striking set-up and he knows just how to take a premise like this and bend it every which way to get every surprise, every dramatic turn and every ounce of relevance out of it. Marta Kaufman... well, I'll guess we'll just have to wait and see. On the upside, I'm sure her male lead won't be doing the annoying vocal affectation that Eric Bana tries to pass off for an American accent.