With studios keen to make movies based on anything with a name that people vaguely remembers, it was only a matter of time before someone got serious about trying to make a film based on the 80s primetime US soap, Dynasty, which focussed on the rivalry between two weathy, business owning families, the Carringtons and the Colbys.
Show creators Richard Shapiro and Esther Shapiro are behind the plan and are currently writing the screenplay, with the hope of getting it shot within the next year.
However before you get too excited and stock up on giant shoulder pads, and begin imagining a bitch-fight rematch between Joan Collins and Linda Evans in a fountain, it should be noted that currently it doesn’t look like a studio is attached, and considering the difficult a big screen version of Dallas faced (years in pre-production, numerous stars and directors attached, before being dropped), there’s no guarantee this will ever happen.
However The Wrap spoke to the Shapiros, with Esther saying The time is right. 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. Were 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.
David adds, Were taking the Dynasty family to places theyve never been before. Its fun, because the fans of the show will know from the series where each of the characters end up, eventually, but what they wont know is how they get there. There will be some very unlikely twists and situations, and people will not be expecting a lot of what were planning. Were going to do a lot of coloring outside the lines.
To be honest, are there really that many people who remember enough about Dynasty to care where the Carringtons and Colbys come from? However if the script is good and with the prospect of reigniting interest in the 80s serious, don’t be surprised if Hollywood takes a serious look at this. And we can already imagine Joan Collins agent is sniffing around to find out if there’s a role for her.