Original series creator J. Michael Straczynski is teaming with Warner Bros. Television and The CW for a “from-the-ground-up reboot” of his classic 1990s sci-fi series Babylon 5.
As reported by Deadline, the reboot will follow John Sheridan, ” an Earthforce officer with a mysterious background, who is assigned to Babylon 5, a five-mile-long space station in neutral space, a port of call for travelers, smugglers, corporate explorers and alien diplomats at a time of uneasy peace and the constant threat of war. His arrival triggers a destiny beyond anything he could have imagined, as an exploratory Earth company accidentally triggers a conflict with a civilization a million years ahead of us, putting Sheridan and the rest of the B5 crew in the line of fire as the last, best hope for the survival of the human race.”
Following the announcement, Straczynski took to Twitter to discuss the project, as well as explaining to fans why he opted to go down the reboot route rather than a revival or sequel to the original series, stating that he felt it is “better to go the way of Westworld or Battlestar Galactica where you take the original elements that are evergreens and put them in a blender with a ton of new, challenging ideas, to create something fresh yet familiar.”
Check out his full thread by clicking the Twitter link below…
To answer all the questions, yes, it’s true, Babylon 5 is in active development as a series for the CW. We have some serious fans over at the network, and they’re eager to see this show happen. I’m hip deep into writing the pilot now, and will be running the series upon pickup.
— J. Michael Straczynski (@straczynski) September 27, 2021
Babylon 5 premiered in 1993 with the TV movie Babylon 5: The Gathering, with the subsequent series launching in January 1994 and running for 110 episodes. The show was highly influential, being one of the first shows to feature widespread use of CGI, as well as veering from traditional episodic storytelling in favour of a serialised approach with a pre-planned full five-season arc and each episode envisioned as a ‘chapter’ in the overall story.
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