Chuck creator Josh Schwartz teases that he might be willing to bring the show back to life under the right circumstances…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
In the history of quietly beloved shows that always had a loyal audience but struggled to find mainstream acceptance on a major network, ‘Chuck‘ sits near the top of the list.
The show that centered around a geeky tech support worker whose brain downloads the entire intelligence database from the government and can ‘flash’ on that information at any given moment was a cult hit for five seasons on NBC, but wrapped up in 2012.
For years, Chuck was kind of seen as the ‘little show that could’ because through trials and tribulations, time shifts, night moves and every other obstacle in its way, the series maintained a loyal audience and helped launch the careers of Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski, not to mention giving us all the Adam Baldwin our Firefly loving hearts could handle.
I make no bones about it — Chuck was consistently one of my favorite shows for the five seasons it was on the air. From the soundtrack (which remains the best in TV history in my opinion) to the hilarious storylines involving Jeffster to the nerd-gets-the-hot-girl storyline all the way to the tragedy and triumph for each character, Chuck had a little bit of everything for everybody. Not to mention the concept of Chuck was apparently lifted and then implanted into Sawyer’s head for a show on CBS.
Chuck struggled to find a big enough audience for the likes of an NBC the same way Firefly couldn’t find consistency on FOX, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t a boat load of people supporting the show and buying Subway sandwiches at every turn to make sure the Nerd Herd survived for a few more seasons.
Sadly, the show did come to an end but at least NBC gave the creators and writers behind the series the chance to close it out on their terms and not cancel it on a cliffhanger. Still, the ending left a wide open place in our hearts for Chuck, Sarah and Casey to come back one day and maybe, just maybe there’s a crack in the door to that possibility.
Chuck creator Josh Schwartz in an interview with EW.com on Wednesday talked about the possibility of bringing the show back to life under the right circumstances. Schwartz says the idea was tossed around, especially after the success of the Kickstarter campaign to fund the Veronica Mars movie happened recently.
“It certainly came up after the Veronica Mars news surfaced and all of a sudden that being a viable thing. What it really comes down to is what is the story you want to tell. I know in the case of Veronica Mars, they had a whole plan for that fourth season that they didn’t get. So the story was not complete. Whatever it is, you want the chance to tell that story,” Schwartz said.
“We were very fortunate with Chuck. As much as we always felt the end was coming, we did get five seasons of the show and an opportunity to tell a lot of story. So I think for myself and Chris Fedak, I think we’d really wanna make sure we had the right story to tell and felt like we were doing it because “Oh my God this Chuck movie is going to be amazing!” That’s the test. Does it feel like you must do this because the audience is going to love this new take?”
Schwartz seemed to believe that a movie version of Chuck would be the most likely scenario for the show to come back to life for one more run, but he also appeared interested in the possibility of a series like those coming up from Marvel on Netflix. A network like that may have been the perfect home for Chuck all along.
“Never say never,” Schwartz said. “I’m very proud of the show. Obviously our fans were an incredible part of the show. We wouldn’t have been able to tell as much story as we did if it wasn’t for those fans eating all those sandwiches!”
Here’s the thing — if Veronica Mars can become the biggest Kickstarter in history after being off the air for a few years, why couldn’t Chuck pull off the same thing?
Zach Levi has kept plenty busy since the show ended running his business The Nerd Machine, where he holds a popular series of Q&A’s for charity every year at San Diego Comic Con. There’s no way he couldn’t use that as a platform to churn up support for a ‘Chuck‘ movie and given Comic Con’s growing popularity every year, what better way to do it than by starting this July?
So here it is — from one Chuck fan to the many — let’s see our favorite Nerd Herders come back to life on the big screen. If Veronica Mars can do it, why not Chuck? The Intersect deserves to live again!
