DON CHEADLE - CHEADLE TO PRODUCE CRASH TV SERIES

Hollywood actor DON CHEADLE is to turn Oscar-winning movie CRASH into a TV series. The 2004 film picked up three Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay and now Cheadle, who starred in the original film, is hoping to replicate its success on the small screen. Cheadle has been named as a producer, along with original writer and director Paul Haggis, on the series which will be split into 13 one-hour episodes for broadcast on U.S. cable channel Starz. The original all-star cast included Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon, Ryan Phillippe, Brendan Fraser and Thandie Newton, as well as Cheadle himself. And Starz executive Stephan Shelanski reveals some of the original actors could return for the TV version. He says, "We're just going to rely on the strength of the material and the relationship that Don Cheadle and Paul Haggis had to get the original cast involved. "We're talking to everybody. We would love to have as many of the cast members from this film as possible reprise their roles." It is only the second time a winner of the Best Picture Oscar has been turned into a TV show - 1967's In The Heat Of The Night became a drama series for U.S. channel CBS two decades after its original release.