LONDON - Gurinder Chadha will direct John Travolta and Jennifer Lopez in a big-screen version of the prime-time soap opera "Dallas."Travolta as the next JR Ewing? (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
The British filmmaker, who directed 2002's "Bend it Like Beckham," said Friday she had signed a deal with 20th Century Fox. Travolta will star as the conniving Texas oil baron J.R. Ewing and Lopez will play his wife, Sue Ellen.
Filming is set to begin in October, with the movie slated for a late 2007 release.
"Dallas" aired from 1978 to 1991. In 1980, an estimated 83 million TV viewers tuned in to find out who shot J.R., played by Larry Hagman, who had been blasted within an inch of his life in the previous season's cliffhanger finale. (The shooter turned out to be Ewing's sister-in-law Kristin.)
Chadha, who gave Jane Austen a Bollywood twist in "Bride & Prejudice," is also involved in adapting another TV hit, the '60s sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie." She said that film "is still in the pipeline, but there is still some way to go on the script."And JLo as JR Ewing's wife Sue Ellen? (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)
John Travolta is going to play JR Ewing? And JLo is going to play his wife Sue Ellen? We're talking a Texas ten-gallon big budget remake here. So who is going to shoot JR in this big screen remake? And will the Bobby come back from the dead by taking his shower? I just have to laugh at this.
I really didn't watch Dallas when it was showing in the 1980s. However, I do remember the effect it had on American popular culture. If there were two plot lines that were most talked about regarding the Dallas culture, it was certainly "Who Shot JR," and Bobby Ewing's resurrection from the dead. I really didn't care about who shot JR, but I was curious to see how the Dallas writers were going to bring Bobby Ewing back from the dead--at that time, just about everyone was speculating on how actor Patrick Duffy would come back to Dallas, when his character was originally killed off in the previous season. So, I decided to watch the May 16, 1985 series finale, which would show how Bobby came back. According to Wikipedia's entry on Dallas:
When Duffy agreed to return to the show in 1986, producers ended the 1985-1986 season (on May 16, 1986) with an episode in which a series of spectacular, improbable events take place (including an explosion in J.R.'s office which kills Sue Ellen), culminating in a scene where Pam wakes up in bed, to be greeted by Duffy emerging from a shower. Fans had to wait until September 26 to learn how the writers would explain Duffy's return. Most were disappointed with the solution, a pure deus ex machina: Pam had dreamt the entire previous season, including Bobby's death (an example of retroactive continuity, or a retcon).The famous shower scene. From Wikipedia.
That's right. I sat through the entire May 16th series finale of Dallas, only to watch Patrick Duffy scrubbing himself in a shower at the ending! What a frickin' joke! When the series premiered for the next season, on September 26, I had to watch the first five minutes, only to discover that this was all a dream sequence.
I never watched another episode of Dallas again.
Now I have to ask the Dallas series writers a simple question, what the heck were you mixing in with your Kool-Aid at that time--Texas tea? The dream shower sequence was such a lame, and uninspiring excuse to bring back a major cast member to the series. Big, buxommed blond space alien babes abducting Patrick Duffy, and taking him back to their secret underwater base in Atlantis so he can repopulate their species would have been a more creative approach to explaining Duffy's reappearance--can you say The Man from Atlantis?
Patrick Duffy starred in the short-lived 1977-78 science fiction series, The Man from Atlantis. A 1970s book cover, from WikipediaBut now we've got this new Dallas movie. John Travolta is going to play the role of JR Ewing. And Travolta's going to have the ultra-sizzling JLo to play his wife. In one sense, this slick, big budget remake of Dallas is reflective of the state of this country. We've got a former oilman from Texas currently residing in the White House. Big corporate interests and ubber-rich elites have gotten even richer and more powerful--what is a better way to flaunt it, than to show a slick movie remake of an old prime-time 1980s soap opera showing the trials and travails of the Reaganesque ubber-rich elites? Dallas really started the entire prime-time soap opera craze of the 1980s--Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, Dynasty--that has continued on into the 90s, and even today with such series as Melrose Place, and The OC. Money, power, glamorous fashions, beautiful people having wild kinky sex--what more could you ask?
I think I need to take a shower now.
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