Soap Opera Dallas to Be Made Into a Film

It turns out that, after all, the past 13 years were a bad dream.

Dallas fans awoke yesterday morning to discover that the glamorous Texas TV soap opera which expired in 1991 is to be resurrected.

The machinations of the oil-rich Ewings are set for the big screen. The director of Legally Blonde, Robert Luketic, is reportedly in talks to make the film.

In a 13-year run starting in 1978, Dallas became the biggest show on TV.

It created one of the most enduring villains viewers have ever loved to hate in the philandering, scheming and unscrupulous JR Ewing, played by Larry Hagman. The episode that solved the Who Shot JR? mystery on November 21 1980 was seen by 80% of Americans watching TV, the highest ever rating (it was his pregnant lover, Kristin Shepherd).

So mean was JR that his long-suffering wife, Sue Ellen, his arch-rival, Cliff Barnes, and even his mother, Miss Ellie, were suspected of pulling the trigger.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Robert Harling, whose credits include Steel Magnolias, has written a screenplay for Fox's Regency Enterprises. Bruce Willis, John Travolta, Jessica Lange and Colin Farrell are among possible star names mentioned.

In 1985, a hit and run driver killed Bobby Ewing. But with struggling ratings falling even further in his absence, he was tempted back. In one of the most outrageous pieces of scriptwriting ever, his wife, Pam Ewing, woke up to be greeted by Bobby emerging from the shower; the entire previous season of 1985-86 had been just a nightmare.

The storyline was only outdone by the alien abduction of Fallon in rival 1980s soap The Colbys.

With Hollywood mining nostalgic TV for ideas, reviving Dallas is hardly a surprise. Charlie's Angels, Lost in Space, Starsky & Hutch and Scooby Doo have been redone, and Bewitched, Dukes of Hazzard, Miami Vice and The A-Team are in the pipeline.