Stalker, there are many examples where very seasoned TV artists **could not make it big in the movies. **
Ismail Shah, Asif Raza Mir, Usman Pirzada, Rahat Kazmi, Izhar Kazi .. and list goes on ..
there are few exceptions like the one that RJ mentioned ..
but no one mentioned the biggest, most beautiful and one of the most succesful exceptions, TV's very own Miss 4 O clock , one and only Babra Sahreef
Shafi Muhammad, Qazi Wajid, Afzaal Chitta, Shaista Qaiser, Atiqa Odho,
Talat Hussain, Shamim Hilaly, Zahoor Ahmed, S.M.Saleem, Qurban Jilani, Latif Charlie, Masuma Latif......................kahan takk suno ge...kahan takk sunao'un !! much so much that Sam Pirzada went from TV production/direction to movie production and returned back with 15 million rupees debt ! (on TV her production of a serial from PTV Lahore was amazing in which her sis also acted...I think the name was KARB)
Babra came from movies--to--TV and did a bumper serial "ZEIR ZABR PEISH" of the GREAT HASINA MOIN (ZINDABAD) and exceled. She however, stood helpless in NADAAN NADYA due to the cast like Bilal Sarhadi etc...thought the story was not weak and neither was Mohsin Ali's direction. BABRA went to the film industry from Karachi where she was popular in advertisements and of course the highly sought business on shaadi-biyah celebrations of mehendi and dances etc...with her sister Fakhra. Her major break came when she was betted for the lead opposite Ghulam Mohiuddin in MERA NAAM HAI MUHABBAT...thereafter started the deluge..followed by SHAHIDS and WAHIDS and all sorts! including Ayaz Naik and Faysal as her heros! Her best part is that she transformed herself well--from MISS 420 to LADY CHATTERLEY !