Both
The Killers and
See How They Run were produced by Universal Studios, the company that pioneered the made-for-television concept and produced the vast majority of them in the first few years of television movies. From the>1964-65 television season through the 1968-69 season there were 38 television movies broadcast; 29 of them were made by Universal. The studio saw four advantages to producing made-for-television movies: many of its television movies also doubled as pilots for future series (
Ironside; Columbo; Dragnet; Marcus Welby, M.D.; The Name of the Game; The Bold Ones; Night Gallery; and
The Outsider were all introduced by Universal in this way in the 1960s; so were
Hawaii Five-O and
Medical Center, but not by Universal); made-for-television movies could also be released theatrically in other countries, which Universal frequently did with great financial success; an above-average movie designated for television could easily be diverted to American theaters instead (in the 1960s Universal released 17 motion pictures that began as made-for-television movies); and some of Universal's television movies were remakes of its older films, which meant the studio could reuse props, costumes, and sets (the second made-for-television movie, for example,
The Hanged Man, was a remake of
Ride the Pink Horse).By 1969 the television movie had become so popular that ABC scheduled
The Movie of the Week, a series of films all of which were made for television.
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