Paul Haggis’ Crash was one of the more controversial Oscar winners in recent years, with a lot of people vehemently denouncing its portrayal of racism as heavy-handed and downright insulting. However, the movie did have a lot of supporters as well, most notably Roger Ebert. Now it looks like all the controversy could potentially start anew as Crash is about to be turned into a television series for the Starz network.

Haggis and his co-writer/producer Bobby Moresco are both going to have a hand in developing the show, and Don Cheadle is also on board as a producer. There has even been talk of many of the movie’s cast members returning for the series, although I have a hard time believing they could afford more than a few short cameos. Although Haggis himself comes from a television background, and he claims that the material was originally conceived for the small screen, I have to wonder whether or not this is actually something people would watch.

I suppose there is a certain draw to the idea of a TV show based on an Oscar-winning movie (the only other previous Best Picture winner to become a series was In The Heat of the Night) but I don’t see any of the characters actually having enough depth to revisit on a weekly basis. I actually liked the movie, but even I am struggling to find something interesting here. Cheadle did say, however, that the series would tackle more than just race relations in L.A. “”I don’t think you can do 13 episodes on that subject and keep people interested.” Yeah, me neither.