Reboot...

Oh for God's sake.

Jerry O'Connell has been desperate to return to SLIDERS since 2002 and referring to phone calls with Robert K. Weiss and then Tracy Torme. After 16 years, it's time to stop seeing his comments as anything other than wishful thinking and longing.

I try to live with respect and love for all fans of SLIDERS, but there is one jackass I cannot stand, and I'll refer to him as "Stephen Jensen" to avoid identifying him. He once bragged to SLIDERS fans in the forums that he was going to do something about bringing SLIDERS back by phoning Tracy Torme to demand Torme revive the show. During this call, he pitched to Torme an alternate Season 4 that would feature Sabrina Lloyd as Wade having joined the Kromaggs and would explain why the Kromaggs looked different in the original Season 4 and reveal that the Earth in "Genesis" wasn't the one in the Pilot.

Torme had no idea what the hell he was talking about, having never seen Season 4. As someone who has seen Season 4, I wondered why Jensen wanted an alternate Season 4 to explain plotholes in the material he was dismissing. Or why he felt he needed to subject Torme to this idiocy. Or why Jensen tried to convince fans that this absurd phone call with Torme meant SLIDERS was building momentum for a revival.

Torme mercifully cut him off during this deranged phone call by telling Jensen that Jensen would need an agent for Torme to hear anymore of his pitches -- at which point Jensen asked SLIDERS fans if they could refer him to an agent, presumably so he could continue to harass Torme with his continuity porn.

The basic truth that Torme attempted to convey that Jensen dutifully reported but willfully ignored: NBCUniversal owns controlling interest in SLIDERS. As the creators, Torme and Weiss likely own 10 per cent of the property; they cannot make a SLIDERS revival happen unless NBCUniversal wants one. NBCUniversal has no intention of using the SLIDERS brand, but they also won't sell it. SLIDERS is (conceptually) worth some figure that, collectively with other intellectual properties, adds to NBCUniversal's total worth just by existing in their portfolio.

Until NBCUniversal seeks to revive SLIDERS, phone calls with the co-creator won't move SLIDERS any closer to a revival than it's been for the last 18 years. That's the case whether the phone calls involve Jerry O'Connell or a delusionally self-important fan with no grasp of how intellectual property rights are held and managed.

Jerry O'Connell, when he left SLIDERS in 1998, was metaphorically drunk on his own (middling) success as a lead actor of a FOX show and some small roles in SCREAM and JERRY MAGUIRE and literally drunk because nightclubs and bars would cover his tab in exchange for Jerry's minor-league celebrity drawing other celebrities and notoriety to their establishments. Jerry bragged about how his handsome face would make him a Tom Cruise level success and mistook SLIDERS fans for Jerry O'Connell fans. He declared that his returning to SLIDERS in any capacity was "not a possibility."

But Jerry didn't commit to the acting craft with anything resembling Cruise's intensity and he certainly didn't commit to a proper workout regimen and he chose projects based on whether or not his character was presented as an attractive man -- which was how Jerry preferred to see himself after he'd spent his childhood overweight and ignored by (shallow) women. And he proceeded to destroy his film career with a half-assed performance in MISSION TO MARS, a lifelessly hungover performance in the disastrous comedy TOMCATS, and then he nearly got fired off the movie DOWN UNDER for being overweight again (due to his drinking and diet).

He buckled down, got sober, got into shape, gave a passably mediocre performance for DOWN UNDER -- only for the film to bomb with test audiences and be reshot to focus on a computer generated kangaroo that had originally appeared in a single scene. The movie failed at box office. Jerry O'Connell's leading man film career was over and his last feature role of note had featured him playing second banana to a digital marsupial.

During this catastrophic time in his career, he was also passed over for the role of Spider-Man in Sam Raimi's 2002 film as Sony decided they would prefer to hire a real actor. That and DOWN UNDER seemed a humbling experience: after that, Jerry went from being dismissive of SLIDERS to declaring he would gladly return to play Quinn Mallory, that he'd love for the show to come back, preferably as a feature film, that he'd been talking to the creators -- and since then, we've been on the same cycle.

I'd speculate that Jerry saw his film prospects end and finally realized: Quinn Mallory was his one shot at cultural immortality the way Shatner and Nimoy will always be Kirk and Spock -- and he threw it all away. Jerry is actually a *very* talented writer: his NARCOTICA comic book was brilliant, but when he got creative control on SLIDERS in Season 4, he didn't try to affect the stories outside of getting his brother and favourite drinking buddy to be on the show.

I do think that Jerry now appreciates what he could do for SLIDERS and what SLIDERS could do for him, and he clearly longs for the Vancouver days as expressed in a brief video interview. He keeps a photo of himself with Sabrina, Cleavant and John in his kitchen. He watches Season 1 - 2 episodes with his wife and children. Jerry's first car was a used auto he bought from John. Jerry continues to draw on John's tutelage in preparing for his present-day roles and since 2008, Jerry's acting has had all the nuance, detail and care that he had from 1994 - 1996.

Jerry has turned his life and career around as a successful TV actor, (amateur) athlete, husband and father. He really does want SLIDERS back. From 2002 to 2006, I think he was desperate for Quinn to save his film career. Since then, he's accepted he's a TV actor, gotten his skillset together -- and now he misses his old castmates AND thinks Quinn could give him the stardom of which he always fell short. His affection for SLIDERS is genuine, but phone calls with Torme are simply that -- affection. And we need to stop getting excited for SLIDERS to be revived every time someone who misses SLIDERS swaps Christmas cards with Torme whether that someone is Jerry O'Connell or Stephen Jensen.

This sort of stuff gets complicated but often times the budget listed is the production budget.  The marketing component is usually a substantial part of the equation toward the overall budget - wouldn't be surprising if it was at least $15-25m for that production budget.

Then you have to deal with the fact that the studios only get about 50-55% of the box office.  Home video revenue (rentals/dvds) and tv licensing maybe was ~$15m in this case.  They may have made a small profit, lost some money or just broke even.  It wasn't a good outcome while it didn't competely bomb either.

lol

Thank you for the correction. I was conflating KANGAROO JACK's critical reception with its financial results. KANGAROO JACK killed Jerry O'Connell's career as a leading man in films and made it quite clear that nobody would watch a film just for Jerry O'Connell nor should anyone hire him for the limp, unconsidered, charmless, characterization-free performances he was giving during this period where he was coasting on his good looks.

It's interesting to wonder at what point Jerry's attitude shifted. It's entirely possible that having to get healthier and his return to working class TV acting on CROSSING JORDAN forced him to gain the humility he'd lost upon moving from Vancouver to LA. But, being fond of psychodrama, I like to think that the moment Jerry realized he had to clean up his act was when he was absolutely certain he would be cast as Peter Parker in Sam Raimi's SPIDER-MAN, that he was too handsome not to have that role, that his fan following would propel him into superhero stardom -- only to see a casting announcement reveal that the below-average looking Tobey Maguire had been hired instead on the grounds that he had the acting skills to play a high school nerd.

Jerry in 2018 is very different from Jerry in 1998 and I do think that he sells himself short to say he couldn't lead a new SLIDERS series. He's a great actor (now), a wonderful writer (NARCOTICA was a terrific script), he considers Tracy Torme "the boss," and I think that it would be amazing publicity if SLIDERS were revived with Jerry as the series lead and showrunner and presented with Jerry being both the face of the show and the talent behind it (and naturally, Jerry would share co-executive producer status with Torme and Weiss). Jerry could play a 44-year-old Quinn, an alternate discovering sliding for the first time. That said, Torme's not the guy to call; it's the studio that needs to want to see SLIDERS come back.

Anyway. I was talking about this thread during dinner.

REGAN: "Did something you'll like on the weekend."

IB: "You committed to a skin care regimen? I'm telling you, alpha hydroxy acid is the way to go."

REGAN: "No, I watched the first three episodes of SLIDERS."

IB: "Are you out of your god-damn mind? Why would you subject yourself to that? Do you have any idea what kind of trauma, heartbreak and horror you're bringing upon yourself!?"

REGAN: "I just wanted to understand your religion. I get it. Quinn is so sexy, but he's a geek, and the Professor is the father figure you wish you had."

IB: "Ugh. I don't want to hear this. Please don't watch SLIDERS. Watch FRINGE, for God's sake, the ideas are just as good except the show actually measures up to the ideas."

REGAN: "You know, the Pilot and the epidemic episode were actually pretty serious. I read some of the pages of your SLIDERS REBORN script and your version of SLIDERS is a lot goofier and sillier than the actual show."

IB: "Oh yes, I totally agree. I think the show was more focused on bleak social commentary and black comedy whereas I'm more about character interaction and the performances of the actors... "

**

IB: "You know, I have an idea for how to revive SLIDERS today but with the original actors and for a new audience."

REGAN: "No. No, you don't. I read like 10 pages of SLIDERS REBORN and I couldn't understand what the hell was going on because I hadn't seen the whole show."

IB: "No, no -- that was for the fans. I call my revival idea the SLIDERS REDUX."

REGAN: "Okay."

IB: "Well, the 2018 revival -- it could start just like the Pilot -- with the 1994 video footage of Quinn saying he opened something, something incredible, but then he knocked out the power -- but then we smash cut to TODAY -- and Quinn's now a fortysomething tax accountant who lost his passion for science after failing to create anti-gravity. And he's doing income tax returns for his clients, two of whom are Wade and Arturo. Wade can't stand him because he made out with her and then acted like it never happened back in the 90s and she's still sore. Arturo is mad at him for abandoning science and going into finance and also for how Quinn humiliated him in the last class Quinn ever attended."

REGAN: "Wade is still mad about how a dude kissed her once in the 90s? Really?"

IB: "Shut up! Anyway, the Professor starts ranting at Quinn, saying, 'You turned your back on your talent. You could have changed the world; now you fill out forms and you're nothing but a calculator on legs. You are a disgrace!'"

REGAN: "Are you trying to do an English accent? Because you can't."

IB: "And Quinn quietly takes the abuse, then gets a phone call. He hangs up and he looks lost and haunted and the Professor says, 'What the devil is wrong with you now?' And Quinn says, 'My mom had a heart attack. She's dead.'"

REGAN: "No! I love Quinn's mom!"

IB: "And there's a really awkward silence and the Professor says, 'But upon reflection, Mr. Mallory, perhaps I'm being too hard on you.'"

REGAN: "Hahaahahahahahaahahah!"

IB: "We go to a blur of events. Quinn is arranging his mother's funeral. We see some of Wade: she writes gadget reviews for cell phones and smartwatches and she finds it really boring and she works on a laptop at this coffee bar. And the guy who owns and runs this coffee bar is Rembrandt -- who is also pretty bored and the only time he really comes alive is on his open mic nights when he sings and plays saxophone."

REGAN: "I dunno if Rembrandt should be playing sax."

IB: "The Professor attends the funeral, Quinn later goes to his mother's house to clean it out and sell it. He goes to his old basement lab which he hasn't seen in years. He sees the anti-gravity equipment. He sees his old VHS cassettes, his video diaries. He puts one on and then he sees a video diary he doesn't remember making, talking about adjustments to the anti-gravity. He tries to make those adjustments. They don't work, but he has another idea, he reassembles and activates the machine -- and it opens an interdimensional gateway. It sucks him in, he has an adventure in a parallel Earth, he ends up back home. And, excited, he suddenly realizes: back in 1994, it must've been an alternate Quinn who kissed Wade and insulted the Professor in class. He calls them over to his house to explain. While they're on their way, he builds a new timer. He opens the gateway, they all decide to step in -- and Quinn accidentally makes the vortex too powerful and the vortex accidentally ensnares a passing Rembrandt as he drives by the house."

REGAN: "Why was Rembrandt driving by the house?"

IB: "For reasons too strange and terrible to elaborate here."

REGAN: "You don't know why, do you?"

IB: "He's driving by because -- because -- because Wade left her laptop at his coffee shop and he was bringing it to her."

REGAN: "How does he know that Wade's at Quinn's house? Or where Quinn's house even is?"

IB: "Regan, could you please just -- ? Could you please just -- ? Could you please -- ? Could you please? Could you please? Could you please? Could you? Could you? Could you? Could you?"

REGAN: "I guess he called her and she told him where he was and he happens to drive by on his way home."

IB: "Thank you. Moving forward -- all four end up in a parallel universe, but the timer gets damaged, they all get lost in the interdimension, and the adventure begins again."

REGAN: "I don't understand why this pitch has all the 1994 stuff there if this is a reboot."

IB: "Well, then we go to the website. The website has some extra video diaries from Quinn. And one video diary -- it's made in 2001 with Quinn played by Jerry in de-aging makeup and obscured by TV scanlines. This Quinn -- he says that he's in a bad situation. The Kromaggs are destroying reality. The multiverse is collapsing. The war between worlds has killed all his friends. And a slider sacrificed himself to bring Quinn back from quantum limbo. Quinn can only see one way to end the war: he's going to alter universal constants so that sliding isn't opened by altering the Earth's gravitational field, but instead by altering the Earth's vibrational frequency. This will retroactively change reality so that sliding is never created by any civilization or individual: not by Quinn, not by the Kromaggs, and the multiverse will exist as though sliding never did."

REGAN: "What?"

IB: "The gist of it is that sliding's erased from reality. That's how all the dead characters are alive again and living like they never went sliding. But Quinn says in this video -- he knows: even if he doesn't create sliding in 1994, he'll create it eventually, he's too smart not to. So, he creates these video diaries to warn himself of how sliding went wrong last time, and how he now has a second chance to take his first steps. But this material -- it's only on the website. So, for the diehard fans, this is a sequel. But for a new audience, it's a new beginning that doesn't require any familiarity with the old show."

REGAN: "Oh. I get it."

IB: "And I think the Quinn in the video, his monologue to the older Quinn should be something like, 'This is the that day sliding died. This is how I closed the door. But for you -- this is the day that sliding starts. You have a second chance to take your first steps. And this time, you can get it right.'"

REGAN: "Are you sure the show wouldn't be better off just recasting the original four and starting over?"

IB: "Regan, could you please just -- ? Could you please just -- ? Could you please just -- ? Could you please? Could you please? Could you? Could you? Could you!? Could you?!?!?!"

REGAN: "Oh my God, don't lose your shit over this. Calm the fuck down."

IB: "Sorry."

REGAN: "So, you know how every time we hang out, I give you three SLIDERS cards and take one away every time you bring up the show? I'm not giving you any cards for the next month."

IB: "Oh thank God. I can't stop myself without you."

**

TRANSMODIAR: "This reboot idea with the original actors playing their older selves who never went sliding -- isn't this Temporal Flux's idea?"

IB: "Yeah! Except he gave it to me in 2000, so his idea was that Quinn was done with college and working on his doctorate, Wade was running Doppler Computers now, Remmy would now be a music teacher and the Professor would still be the Professor. Basically, it'd be the sliders five years later if they never went sliding, and every few years, I update their jobs and their ages for his idea."

TRANSMODIAR: "That sounds like a totally normal and healthy relationship with a cult FOX show from the 90s."

IB: "And then I recently combined it with your idea for SLIDERS REBORN that I didn't end up using where you thought that Quinn's mission in a sequel should be to try to kill sliding before it does any more damage."

TRANSMODIAR: "Are you saying you've created the bastard child of Temporal Flux and SpaceTime?"

IB: "Yes. It is the very best of both of you, you see. All your wisdom and knowledge will endure in this SLIDERS REDUX. All your ego and regret will be left behind."

TRANSMODIAR: "Yay you. Time to do some original work!"

**assuming** 'recent' is within the last five years, this is basically why jerry did what he did ^.  to excite/spark fans and media and maybe something happens.  because what other option do you have when nothing else has pushed it into existence?

I respect the strategy if that's what he was going for but the flip side as you mentioned is I think there's a lot of people who are getting their hopes up, particularly because even what was said in the article was misinterpreted and presented in other venues as something much more definite.  And so there's people who will be in for a let down and then get jaded at the possibility of anything ever happening.

Fans who've been following this stuff a bit more closely can probably put this in better context.

We all wants to see the team together again so to think it will happen, when it doesn't is particularly hard for folks who grew up on the show and have an emotional attachment to it.  Jerry does have an emotional attachment to it but more in a work way than a personal way.  It's different when you are a consumer than a creator.

Anyway, I have not had the heart to communicate this sort of warning elsewhere but there's some information gone awry (that isn't even the true to the content of the article).   But who knows, maybe the plan works.  Or maybe he's really telling the truth and this is legitimate.  I just know the word 'recent' has been used loosely before, so I'm interpreting this through that prism.