ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 7, 1997 TAG: 9702070010
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: JENNIFER BOWLES ASSOCIATED PRESS
When television shows jump to the big screen, it can pay off handsomely. Witness ``Mission: Impossible,'' ``The Fugitive,'' ``Star Trek'' and even ``The Flintstones.''
Downsizing a feature film to the TV screen, however, is not always as successful. Remember ``Ferris Bueller,'' ``Baby Boom'' ``Seven Brides for Seven Brothers'' and ``Uncle Buck''? Don't feel bad. Those series each lasted barely a season.
Now comes the USA Network's ``La Femme Nikita,'' a highly stylized series based on the 1991 French movie about a hedonistic young woman coerced into becoming an assassin of sorts. It premiered last month and airs in its regular spot at 10 tonight, with a TV-14 rating.
Its producers hope ``La Femme Nikita'' will follow the path carved out by ``M-A-S-H'' ``The Odd Couple'' and ``Highlander,'' which all took their cues from the big screen and beat the odds to become hits.
Award-winning writer Larry Gelbart, who adapted the film ``M-A-S-H'' into one of the most highly regarded TV series of all time, says producers of such projects find themselves burdened with high expectations.
``It is difficult because usually you're doing it because it was popular so you know you're going to be compared to the model,'' Gelbart says. ``It's invariably made for far less money, with far less expensive actors. Everything really mitigates against its success. `M-A-S-H' is a rarity.''
``Nikita'' executive producer Joel Surnow found he had to make several adjustments from the movie, which starred Anne Parillaud.
Softening up Nikita for a TV audience was the first priority, he says.
``I felt like the character from the movie couldn't sustain as a TV series character because she killed a cop in cold blood while high on drugs. I felt I couldn't bring her into my house week after week and just really root for her,'' Surnow says.
Instead, the TV version of Nikita, played by Australian newcomer Peta Wilson, is mistaken as the cop killer.
``By making her innocent and someone who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, suddenly she's any one of us who's caught up in a nightmare like that,'' Surnow says.
And now, in a further toning down of the movie's violence, Nikita doesn't turn into a cold-hearted assassin per se, but rather is forced into becoming a less-reviled ``operative'' in a covert anti-terrorist group. And if she has to kill, it's only because the victim deserved it.
``Ultimately, their means are just - it is always to get some villain who deserves to be brought down,'' Surnow says. ``It's always because there are innocent lives at stake.''
Wilson, who won the role over several well-known actresses, shuns any comparisons to Parillaud's critically acclaimed portrayal of Nikita - or, for that matter, to the version by Bridget Fonda, who starred in the American movie version ``Point of No Return.''
``If I was going to do a film version of this, then the pressure would be on me,'' Wilson says, ``but it's TV and it had to be toned down so it doesn't really intimidate me or put pressure on me. I think that whoever plays this role is going to bring something different to it anyway.''
And Wilson does.
The lean, 26-year-old blonde with ice-blue eyes fits the part perfectly. And after eight weeks of intensive training with a martial arts expert, her physical prowess is right up there with ``Xena: Princess Warrior.''
Wilson derived some of her own rawness from growing up in the jungles of New Guinea, where her father was stationed in the military and there were no television sets.
She and her brother learned to speak pidgin English, like the natives.
``Most native people in communities like that, they're fearless because the environment is tough and strong and you have to adjust,'' Wilson says. ``So it instilled a lot of fearlessness in me.
``It was a bit like `Jungle Book' I suppose,'' she says, laughing.
When Wilson isn't living in Hollywood, she's in Toronto filming the series and sharing a house with her grandmother.
The first time she saw the movie version, she says, ``I loved it. It was great. I was just so attracted to the idea of a woman being the one. It's always the men getting these types of roles, and we're just as interesting. We're actually more interesting action heroes, because it's expected with boys.''
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Pita Wilson is the lead in "La Femme Nikita," theby CNBUSA channel's effort to dowsize a feature film to the TV screen.
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