australian television information archive

Hornbags eye $5m film offer

FOUNTAIN Lakes hornbags Kath and Kim’s creators are yet to decide on whether to sign a $5 million-plus deal for a movie.

The offer has come from Channel 9’s cinema production arm, Nine Films and Television, which is eager to launch Jane Turner and Gina Riley’s goldmine on to the big screen.

But despite the lucrative movie offer, increasing overseas sales of the program and a multi-million dollar merchandising bonanza, Turner and Riley are undecided about their future.

And they say the Kath & Kim phenomena may be lost to TV forever.

“I don’t want to play Kath for the rest of my life,” Turner said. “Maybe we’re better letting Kath & Kim rest after three seasons. It may be the end.”

“We need to think about what we want to do,” Riley said.

Speaking exclusively to the Herald Sun, the two suburban mums confess they are drained and need a long break.

But the ABC will be desperate to entice Turner and Riley to pen a fourth series of the hit sitcom for 2005.

In today’s Saturday section, Riley and Turner discuss their plans for the future and their $20 million-plus Kath & Kim merchandising empire.

And revealed for the first time is the extraordinary story of how the ABC, convinced the show would flop, tried to dump it before it went to air in 2002.

By Robert Fidgeon
Decemebr 18, 2004
Herald Sun