The Need for Speed video game series was nearly adapted as a reality TV show by its publisher Electronic Arts.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Craig Lieberman says while he was working as a technical consultant for Need for Speed: Underground, the idea of bringing EA's video game franchise to TV began floating around. Lieberman had previously and unsuccessfully pitched reality car shows, including one to Universal Pictures titled Ultimate Streetcar Challenge. "Before YouTube took over the world, if you wanted to watch videos about racing, drifting or even building cars, we had no choice but to watch broadcast television," Lieberman recalls in the video. However, due to the already high number of car shows in production, the show was never greenlit.
Lieberman, who was a technical advisor on The Fast and the Furious and 2 Fast 2 Furious, had another opportunity to pitch his show while working with EA Games. While providing consultations on the in-game car physics and creating a replica Nissan R34 GTR for the game's cover, Lieberman's producing partner secured him a meeting at Lionsgate to pitch his idea again. EA Games apparently loved the idea, and a Need for Speed reality show began development.
The show was to share its name with the Need for Speed series to coincide with the release of Need for Speed: Underground. The concept would build upon Lieberman's previous ideas where teams would work on cars and compete in various tasks, but this time additional challenges would take inspiration from the games themselves. These challenges included installing nitrous or turbo systems, setting lap times, and a drag race. The grand finale would feature a surprise twist that would see the finalists set lap times in Need for Speed: Underground. Potentially budgeted at $6.5 million, the eight-episode series never saw the light of day.
The Need for Speed franchise would eventually get a film adaptation roughly a decade after Underground was released. With a star-studded cast including Aaron Paul, Dominic Cooper and Michael Keaton, the action-packed street racer film was released in 2014. The film was produced by Dreamworks in conjunction with EA and was released by Disney's Touchstone Pictures. Despite being blasted by critics, the film made over $200 million at the box office -- close to three times its original budget.
The Need for Speed first launched in 1994 for the 3DO gaming console before earning releases for PC, PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Since then, a whole catalog of Need for Speed mainline games have been released, with the most recent title, Need for Speed Heat, being the 24th installment in the series.
Source: YouTube