Babylon 5 reboot likely to become big-budget film

[rhoenix]

According to a report from TV Wise, Babylon 5 showrunner J. Michael Straczynski will shortly begin work on a rebooted big-screen version of his 1990s sci-fi TV series. Straczynski made the announcement at San Diego Comic-Con last week.

Babylon 5’s pilot episode originally aired in 1993, with the series beginning its regular run almost a year later as a foundational component of the now-defunct Prime Time Entertainment Network. The show lacked the production budget of its contemporary rival Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (which allegedly lifted some or all of its core concepts directly from Straczynski’s original—and rejected—Babylon 5 pitch meeting with Paramount). Still, it attracted enough of an audience to accomplish a noteworthy feat: Babylon 5 became the only non-Star Trek science fiction show on American television to reach its series completion without being cancelled. Not until 2004’s Battlestar Galactica reboot would another non-Star Trek show earn the same distinction.

After Babylon 5 ended in 1998, Straczynski (usually referred to simply by his initials, "JMS") tried multiple times to bring a B5 movie to theaters. The most recent attempt in 2004 came the closest, with a completed script and some preproduction work underway, but without financial backing from Warner Bros. the project had to be abandoned.

In the intervening years, JMS has worked on other projects in a variety of media, including comics, television, and film; he shares a writing credit on the film adaptation of World War Z, though not much from his draft made it to the final Brad Pitt-produced film. The last time Babylon 5 appeared on a screen of any sort was as 2007’s The Lost Tales, a direct-to-DVD project made up of two episode-length vignettes set in the Babylon 5 universe after the end of the main series.

According to JMS’s latest announcement, the new script will be targeted at a 2016 theatrical release and will be a reboot of the series rather than a continuation. This is necessary for both dramatic and practical purposes—the series was in regular production from 1994-1998, and the cast has simply aged too far to credibly play themselves again during the series’ main timeline. Additionally, several of the foundational cast members—Michael O’Hare, Andreas Katsulas, Richard Biggs, and Jeff Conaway—have passed away.

However, JMS reportedly said he would attempt to use the original cast members in whatever ways he could, including potentially having series anchor Bruce Boxleitner play the president of the Earth Alliance (though as B5 fans know, exactly which president JMS is talking about would have a tremendous impact on Boxleitner’s role).

The movie rights to the Babylon 5 property remain in JMS’s hands, but the creator is hopeful that this time around, Warner Bros. will choose to finance the film instead of passing on it. Nonetheless (at least according to TV Wise), JMS is prepared to fund the movie through his own production company if necessary—something that wasn’t a possibility ten years ago—suggesting that B5 will in fact come to the big screen at last.

It's a real trip to consider that Babylon 5 is now this old, but to me, this is great news.

[Batman]

One more thing that might complicate continuing the original narrative is they kinda blew up the station.

[Josh]

B5 is one that I'd actually prefer they didn't reboot. I mean, I'll give it a go and all, I loved the original. But there was plenty of room to play in that universe without a reboot.

[frigidmagi]

If they do a movie they have to reboot honestly. To much of the original cast has fallen and honestly when the audenice asks "What's going on, who are these people and why do we care?" Saying go watch a television show from the 90s, frankly sounds like a bridge to far.

[Josh]

The problem I have with a reboot is that you can either follow the original arc (thus we all know what's coming) or you change it up radically and sort of invalidate the original.

(Or you do time travel fuckery a la Lensflare Trek.)

Now it's one thing if you go with the likes of BSG, which was a single-season unfinished storyline in original form. (BSG 1980 never happened.)

On the other hand, you've got a totally well-developed universe for B5 with a ton of threads to follow. Hell, reboot Crusade and actually tell us what came off of that for fuck's sake.

I'll watch it because JMS and B5, but I am a bit leery.