It was 50 years ago that the “The Six Million Dollar Man,” a TV series about a former astronaut rebuilt with bionic limbs that give him superhuman strength, debuted on ABC.
The series starring Lee Majors became a cultural phenomenon, running for nearly 100 episodes from 1974 to 1978 and inspiring six follow-up television movies, “The Bionic Woman” spinoff and a cottage industry for licensed merchandise that included everything from action figures with an exploding briefcase to board games and comic books.
And yet since the late 1990s, when a movie version of “The Six Million Dollar” man was first plotted, no producer or studio has successfully remade the show — partly because of competing interests over movie rights.