Because watching a story on the news just isn't enough for us anymore, there will be a made-for-television movie about Lisa Nowak, the astronaut who cracked last week and made for plenty of late night television jokes. Granada America, a leading European television production and distribution company. According to the company's website, Granada makes about a dozen television movies in the United States each year and it also produces reality shows such as Celebrity Fit Club and Nanny 911. Granada has optioned a New York Times article from which to base its story. The article's author, John Schwartz, has agreed to do research for the television script. Apparently Nowak doesn't have a choice in the matter.

I don't know about you guys, but I have never been interested in a made-for-television movie based on current events. They are fictionalized renditions of what could have happened. What is there to learn from these things? Yes, the news story was entertaining but I really don't think it was entertaining enough to warrant its own production.

[Via TV Tattle]

I'm not the kind of person who gets her panties in a twist over a favorite book being brought to the screen, a movie being turned into a television series or Shakespeare getting a modern revamp. Different mediums. Different stories. Different times. In the hands of the right artist, you get an equally exciting cultural product to hug, love, squeeze and call "George." Even crappy re-tellings don't have to denigrate the original. They're not necessary - High Fidelity didn't need to be a Broadway musical; Gus Van Sant didn't need to remake Psycho shot-for-shot; and no one needs to see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. But, for the most part, these things come and go. They haven't bothered me any... until now.