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Coming soon: Who wants to be a billionaire?

By Louise Jury

11 February 2003

In the beginning there was the $64,000 question. Now the world's first billion-dollar game show prize is being planned by the American producers of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

The two-hour special to run on the Warner Bros channel in September will select contestants according to whether they are the lucky purchasers of specially-marked Pepsi cans. The idea is modelled on Roald Dahl's book and subsequent film, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where children got to visit the Willy Wonka factory if they found a golden ticket in a sweet wrapper.

The show is the idea of Michael Davies, the producer who brought the "Millionaire" format to the US and turned it into a hit for ABC, in conjunction with Pepsi.

With a selection process based on soft drinks acquisitions over the summer, it is distinctly possible the show could finish with no one winning the $1bn (£600m) jackpot.

But Pepsi is taking no chances and is in talks with a number of companies including Lloyds of London to insure the show, according to the entertainment magazine Variety.

Millionaire dramatically upped the stakes in television prizes when it hit the screens in Britain and America. But viewers clearly get accustomed to big cash wins and the show is no longer winning the enormous audiences it did when it was first screened on ITV.