Remakes seem to do well these days for ABS-CBN 2, and it may just as well boost its prime-time block ratings over rival GMA 7.

With the success in the ratings game of its remake of Gulong ng Palad, the Lopez-owned network is now all set to air another revival. It has written a teleserye out of Bituing Walang Ningning, a 1985 Viva Films production that catapulted its star Sharon Cuneta to megastar status.

The remake, which will premiere on mid-May, stars the young singer Sarah Geronimo essaying the role of Cuneta as Dorina, the avid fan who rises to fame like the singer she idolizes. Dorina eventually becomes an even bigger star than her idol.

The idol character, Lavinia, became unforgettable not only for her brazenness but for Cherie Gil’s superb portrayal. Formerly a lead actress who specialized in young rebellious femme fatale characters, Gil instantly turned to be the movie industry’s favorite young villainess. Hers were the footsteps followed by the likes of Princess Punzalan and Carmi Martin. They’re the same footsteps that Angelika de la Cruz following in as the teleserye version’s Lavinia, the singing idol dethroned by her favorite fan. Like Cherie, Angelika sings as superbly as she acts.

And you guessed it right, the famous line, "You’re nothing but a second-rate, trying-hard copycat!" is Lavinia’s and is part of the climax of the movie. The soap’s trailer has the famous scene"and it showed de la Cruz as less fierce and fiery than Gil was.

However, the network may not end up showing that very same scene in the soap’s actual bubbly run, since trailers have to be canned way ahead of the series and the director assigned to do it (who may not be the same person directing the soap) may not have had enough time to view all the takes of a scene that are available.

The storyline in the teleserye will not be exactly the same as that of the original written for Illustrated Filipino Komiks by Nerissa Cabral in the early eighties.

Cabral was at the grandiose launch of Bituing Walang Ningning on Tuesday at the Music Museum, where musical numbers were performed by the soap’s main cast. The now retired author, 63, joined the audience, and said that she knew all along"as she was told beforehand"that the network’s version will not be her original. A pool of writers has been tasked to redo the script.

"Since majority of TV viewers today are young, and the network’s version is set at the present time, I do understand that the network will have to do a lot of changes in the story and in the characters to make it up to date," said Cabral.

"I am very pleased that the network has decided to remake the movie. It has never occurred to me that the decision makers for this generation of viewers would find the story potentially interesting," she added.

Cabral revealed that when the network first approached her to buy her work, it was just for one episode of the current Saturday drama anthology Komiks, which features shortened versions of illustrated pulp novels in Pilipino.

Later on, she was told it was going to be turned into a nightly soap opera. Cabral said that she was paid a six-figure sum for the TV rights of Bituing Walang Ningning, and so much more by Viva Films for the film rights, but would not reveal the exact figure even now.

She added though that the late Mina Aragon, then the constant companion of Viva Films’ big boss Vic del Rosario, and who was herself a top Viva executive, had bought the rights to her other works, which the company never managed to produce. Since the rights were for the movies and had expiration dates, Cabral implied that the TV rights for those works may yet be acquired from her.

The Lopez-network’s version of Bituing Walang Ningning gives young directors Erick Salud and Jerome Chavez Pobocan a chance to make their mark on the viewers of the Kapamilya channel. It also gives Zsa Zsa Padilla, Ai Ai de las Alas, John Prats, Dominic Ochoa and Search for Star in a Million finalist Jay Perillo the opportunity to act in a soap opera.

According to Internet sources, Viva offered Padilla the Lavinia role"but she had to turn it down as it called for a scene in which she had to be in a bikini, and she felt at that time that she was not ready for that kind of scene.

In the teleserye, Padilla portrays Rosamia, the mother of Dorina who was a singer herself. She lost Dorina when, at infancy, the child was entrusted to a sidewalk vendor by her husband, portrayed by Tonton Gutierrez.

De las Alas portrays the sidewalk vendor, Adora, to whom Tonton entrusted the baby before he was thrown in jail as an unwitting drug courier. A top-earning comedienne, de las Alas tries her best in this teleserye to be a serious character for the first time.

As for Gutierrez, it is his first time in years to appear on an ABS-CBN 2 show. His wife, the actress Glydel Mercado, appears in the noontime soap Duyan on GMA 7. Also in the forthcoming soap’s lead cast are Ryan Agoncillo and Amy Austria.

How major a project is Bituing Walang Ningning for the network? Well, besides the grand launch, ABS-CBN also released a soundtrack album of the forthcoming drama series through its sister company, Star Records. In the album, Geronimo is acknowledged as a star of the Viva Entertainment Group of Companies"though she has been mostly identified with ABS-CBN 2.

Bituing Walang Ningning is Sarah’s first nightly soap opera as a lead actress. About two years ago, she top-billed for the same network the weekly drama-comedy Little Teen Princess.

Since then, though, she has had a jam-packed solo concert at the Araneta Coliseum. Thus, perhaps, prompting ABS-CBN to launch her in Bituing Walang Ningning as their next glittering star.