After many years of attempting a Battlestar Galactica feature film, The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Universal has hired X-Men: Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg to write and produce the big screen reboot.
Battlestar Galactica follows the last survivors of humanity after the Cylons, a race of robots humanity created, launched a surprise attack and annihilated their homeworlds, leaving them in space searching for a mythical long lost colony to stay safe: Earth.
Kinberg produced and wrote several of the X-Men entries in the Fox franchise with the last X-Men film, Dark Phoenix, marking his directorial debut. Kingberg will write the script and produce alongside Dylan Clark, who has been attached to the Battlestar Galactica film for years and has seen directors such as Bryan Singer and Frances Lawrence get hired only to depart the project after lengthy stalls in development.
“Battlestar Galactica is one of the holy grails in science fiction, and I couldn’t be more excited about bringing something new to the franchise, while honoring what’s made it so iconic and enduring,” said Kinberg. “I’m so grateful that Dylan and my partners at Universal have trusted me with this incredible universe.”
Battlestar Galactica was created by Glen A. Larson and first premiered in 1978. Though it only lasted one season, it made quite an impression and spawned a short-lived sequel series, Galactica 1980, and cultivated a loyal fan following. The series was re-imagined in 2003 from Ronald D. Moore in a gritty and thought-provoking reboot that starred Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Tricia Helfer, Katee Sackhoff and more. First introduced as a miniseries, the series proper ran from 2004 – 2009 with four seasons, a couple web-series and two televised movies. The franchise later grew with the short-lived prequel series Caprica and prequel web-series Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome.
Universal’s feature film is unconnected to the Battlestar TV reboot which Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail is currently developing for NBC’s Peacock with Michael Lesslie (Assassin’s Creed) as showrunner.
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Originally published October 26, 2020. Updated January 28, 2021.
