The estate of the playwright, Samuel Beckett, has granted permission for all 19 of his plays to be filmed.
It is understood that Mr Michael Colgan, director of the Gate Theatre, and Mr Alan Moloney of Parallel Film Productions are set to film the 19 plays as a millennium project.
The director-general of RTE, Mr Bob Collins, and Mr Joe Mulholland, the managing director of RTE television, are said to be very supportive of the project.
The Gate Theatre has staged all 19 plays twice before.
Following the success of their Beckett festival in Ireland in 1991, they were invited to bring the productions to the Lincoln Centre in New York in August 1996.
They will be performing all 19 plays in the Barbican Centre in London in September of this year.
Actors such as Barry McGovern, Alan Stanford, Stephen Brennan and Johnny Murphy have become associated with certain Beckett roles over the years, but it is not known whether they will be cast in the filmed versions of plays such as Waiting for Godot, Endgame and Krapp's Last Tape.
However, it is clear that the Beckett films will be new studio productions rather than films of the Gate Theatre productions.
Filming is due to start before the end of the year and, as a millennium project, will be completed before the end of 2000.
Parallel Film Productions, which is headed by Mr Moloney and Mr Tim Palmer, is the company behind such television series as the award-winning Amongst Women and Falling For A Dancer.
While the size of the project would be worthy of attention for any playwright, it is particularly notable in Beckett's case.
The Beckett estate, which is based in Paris, is notoriously protective of the rights to his work.
In 1994 the English director, Deborah Warner, was banned from directing Beckett's work for life following her London production of Footfalls, in which Fiona Shaw played a part intended for a man.
Beckett was very precise as to the manner in which his work was to be performed.
In 1988 he went to court in Haarlem to attempt to stop an allfemale version of Waiting For Godot and that same year he stopped a French production of Endgame which used the wrong colour of lighting.
It is understood that Mr Colgan approached the Beckett estate about filming the plays. Negotiations are continuing.
