All this has happened before and all this will happen again thanks to a deal Universal has made to develop the long-gestating Battlestar Galactica film.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, producer Michael De Luca is teaming up with producers Scott Stuber and Dylan Clark of Bluegrass Films to bring Battlestar Galactica to the big screen. Ever since the rebooted television series ended in 2009, Universal has been looking to bring the Battlestar franchise to the big screen, attaching Bryan Singer to direct at one point. He eventually left the project when it couldn’t get off the ground, but in 2014 it was said series creator Glen A. Larson was working on the project with Transcendence writer Jack Palgen. That project again fell through.
Currently, there is no writer on this adaptation of Battlestar; only the three producers have been named. De Luca has produced American History X, The Social Network and recently Fifty Shades of Grey and its upcoming sequel Fifty Shades Darker. Stuber helped produce Ted and Battleship while Clark’s most recent work has been the Planet of the Apes reboots. Clark is also set to produce Patriot’s Day, a film about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.
Battlestar Galactica is about humanity being nearly wiped out by a race of machines called Cylons. The remnants of humanity search for Earth, a mythological planet where some of their ancestors might have colonized. It first aired on television in 1978 and only lasted one season before getting a sequel series called Galactica 1980, again only lasting one season. Multiple attempts were made to bring the series back, but this wouldn’t come to fruition until 2003.
SyFy’s reimagined Battlestar Galactica started as a miniseries in 2003 before getting a full series from 2004 – 2009. Inspired by post-9/11 culture, the series delivered serious, thought provoking storytelling on politics, survival and religion. It proved to be a hit and even spawned the short-lived prequel series Caprica. With a movie now in development, we’ll see if De Luca and his partners take inspiration from the 2004 series and if this latest attempt will be successful.
https://youtu.be/2bSRrPDqhqo?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published February 11, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
