'Dynasty' movie in the works

CLEARWATER, Fla., Jan. 18 (UPI) -- A big-screen version of the iconic nighttime soap "Dynasty" is in the works, the U.S. show's creators have announced.

"The time is right," Esther Shapiro, co-creator of the series with her husband Richard, said in a statement last week. "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."

"In a way, these characters were prisoners in television," Richard Shapiro said. "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."

The Shapiros said they are writing the script for the movie and hope it will be shot during the next year. No release date has been set yet, however.

The TV series was about the triumphs and trials of a wealthy oil tycoon and his family. Starring John Forsythe, Joan Collins and Linda Evans, it ran from 1981 to 1989.