With Mission: Impossible cleaning up at box offices around the world and the movie of Flipper, starring Paul Hogan and Elijah Wood, opening here next Friday, the Hollywood studios are mining the vaults of American television for more material to develop for the big screen. Virtually every prime time TV show from The Avengers to The Wild, Wild West has, at the very least, been optioned for a feature film remake," according to the US trade paper, Variety.

Productions set to open later this year include A Very Brady Sequel, following the success of last year's surprisingly witty Brady Bunch Movie; Philip Noyce's film of The Saint with Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue and Star Trek: First Contact, the eighth movie in that successful series.

One of the more interesting transitions to the big screen should be The Avengers, now that Ralph Fiennes and Nicole Kidman have been cast as Steed and Emma Peel. Among the other series in development at the Hollywood studios are Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Lost in Space, Sea Hunt, McHale's Navy, Leave It to Beave, Green Acres, Gilligan's Island, The Man From UNCLE (with which Quentin Tarantino is no longer involved) and Disney's proposed live action movie of Mr Magoo.

Maybe it's time RTE made the big leap and produced Glenroe: The Movie. It could make a fortune no the home.