Back in 2022, I was gifted with the news that Mike Schur wanted to make his own version of Field of Dreams. Very quickly in 2023, that dream was dashed. But now Schur says he has two different versions of the show ready to go for whoever wants it.
In a new interview with Variety, Schur said that he has versions of the series ready to go and he’s just waiting for someone to bite. Originally, Peacock was set to make the series before they decided against it. Now he has two different versions (one shorter than the original) ready to make and frankly, I want to see what Schur did with the story!
“I actually have two whole different versions of it. There was the original one that I did with the writers who worked on it. That was a seven-episode series,” Schur told the publication. “Once Peacock decided not to make it, I did a second version that was shorter. It was five episodes, to see if someone else would jump in. So the scripts exist in both of those forms. Maybe someday the world will turn in a way that allows it to come to fruition. I’m not sure.”
Mike Schur has created some of my favorite shows and I grew up with a father who loved Kevin Costner’s baseball films. So to me, there was no better collaboration than that of Mike Schur and Field of Dreams. And I really hope that we get to see what he’s done with the story at some point.
Mike Schur compared his Field of Dreams to another of his hit shows
While Parks and Recreation is my favorite show of all time and therefore my favorite Schur show, another of his series brought joy into our lives: The Good Place. The NBC series took us to the afterlife and made us examine our lives on earth, how we can be better people, and what makes life worth living. And for Schur, he said the complexities of The Good Place helped him when writing his takes on Field of Dreams.
“The Good Place was easily the hardest idea that I’ve had for shows. It required the most thought and research and work. It’s a really fun job, but you shouldn’t confuse easy and fun,” Schur said. “The fun of it is the creative challenge and the struggle and pulling out your hair, trying to figure out how to make something work. The same was true with Field of Dreams. I understood that there were people out in the world who were going to think it was a really bad idea. That made it more intriguing to me.”
Personally, I hope we get to see one of these versions of this story. I want to cry over a man building a baseball field just to see his father again and I think that Mike Schur could do something really special with this. So if I was a television producer, I’d call up Mike Schur right this second.
(featured image: Universal Pictures)
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