With the classic 80's soap "Dallas" and its tale of the Ewing family and their Texas oil empire coming to the big screen, a big question has become who will play J.R., the devious oil magnate.
Screenwriter Robert Harling ("The First Wives Club") recently turned in his script to "Legally Blonde" director Robert Luketic who will direct the film, and tells Reuters that he has been working for 18 months on the "Dallas" script which takes the original characters from the pilot of the 1978-1991 series - "It's reinventing the Ewing family as if they existed now in 2006 when the movie comes out. In this story Bobby and Pam meet, fall in love and get married, J.R. and Sue Ellen are Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and we have the patriarch Jock and the matriarch Miss Ellie. These characters are outrageous -- one of things I told the studio is I'd like to do 'Dallas on acid'" Harling said.
The film will not follow the plots developed over more than a decade in the series, though fans will recognize some things. "They really want the big, all-star, flashy, go-for-it version of the TV series...You have to give them meaty roles, and in a two-hour or less film it's a challenge to give eight people meaty roles. You have to tell the story in a way that reintroduces everything and also catches up all the fans who know it backwards and forwards. You can't disappoint those people but you must also thrill and excite the new people. says Harling.
Thanks to 'Greg'.
