Dallas has been struggling through development hell for years now, and seems to have ended up stuck back on the goggle box. The producers behind rival soap Dynasty will be hoping that they have more luck, as they’re aiming to bring the big shoulder pads and the ‘80s glam to cinemas.
Creators Richard and Esther Shapiro have announced that they’re already working on the script for the film, based on the series that ran for nine series from 1981. Chronicling the wealthy Carrington family and their associated friends, lovers, enemies and hangers-on, the show was wish-fulfilment cheese with a blinged-out, often OTT attitude.
So why bring it back in the middle of a recession? “The time is right,” says Esther Shapiro in a statement picked up by The Wrap. “Nostalgia has always been big, but we want to take it a step further. We want to go back to the beginning with these characters and use the film to trace their roots. We’re taking Blake Carrington back to his young manhood and when he met Alexis, and setting the movie in the Mad Men era of the 1960s. It will give us the opportunity to start fresh, without the constraints that television placed on our characters in the series.”
Constraints? On that show? Apparently so…
“In a way, these characters were prisoners in television,” adds Richard Shapiro. “We were always constrained by the smaller budget of a TV series, and all the standards and practices that governed the content of the show. In the movie, if we want to have some James Bond style action, we can afford to do that. If we want to have a steamy love scene, we can do that. If we want to go a few steps beyond what they would allow on 1980s TV, we can move ahead those few steps, and then some.” Riiight.
So you can bet they’ll be getting Joan Collins on the phone. Wonder if she’ll agree to a cameo…