16.08.2009 ~ Battlestar Galactica:the motion picture
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Showbiz gossip mag Variety has published news of yet another Battlestar Galactica project, this time journeying for the big screen. Usual Suspects helm (and 'House M.D.' exec producer) Bryan Singer is set to fill the directors chair while Glen A.Larson, the original 1978 show creator, will fill producers shoes. But wait a sec... this all sounds so familiar...
All of this has happened before ... kinda ...
Way back in Feb 2001 Variety announced that Singer and Tom DeSanto (a gent responsible for getting the big-screen X-Men and Transformers projects off the ground) were developing a new TV series that would continue the spirit and story lines of the 1978 show, ignoring the Galactica:1980 timeline and picking up the story a generation later. Glen A.Larson would join as a 'consulting producer' to make sure this new vision would stay true to his original.
Scuttlebutt has it that the Colonials had abandoned their hunt for Earth and turned an asteroid field into their home. Adama is long dead, Apollo is considered KIA and Boxey is fleet commander (!). Hard drinking, cigar smoking, womanising Starbuck is second in command, with Dirk Benedict returning to the role. Confident their old foe no longer pursue, the decadently happy Colonials have left the Galactica to rot... Who doesn't see where this is going?
The Cylon were to get a much needed reboot, the shiny lumbering bullet magnets of old being replaced by faster, leaner models. They were also to get a little 'Borg', assimilating the remaining survivors on the fallen 12 Colonies into their ranks.
Richard Hatch, Herb Jefferson, Anne Lockhart, Laurette Spang, Terry Carter, Patrick Macnee and Noah Hathaway were to join Dirk Benedict from the original series. Production developed rapidly, sets were being built, FX houses contracted, a show bible written, stories arched and Fox primed to air the premier.
Then 'The Towers' fell
After 9/11 all production and development halted. The resulting delays forced Bryan Singer to abandon the project and move on to the second X-Men movie. With Singer gone DeSanto cast around for a big name to fill his shoes but came up empty. Frustrated by the delay Fox moved on to develop a 'space show' of their own, Joss Whedon's excellent FireFly (they'd go on to screw that up all by themselves). The Singer / DeSanto project floundered. But all was not lost...
Unknown to DeSanto, his backers, Studios USA, decided they wanted to continue the Battlestar Galactica project, but with a different creative team. The ball was to land in David Eick and Ronald D.Moores laps. Moore elected to drop any prior baggage and concentrate on the kernel, the story of a handful of genocide survivors in search of a new home. They'd shoot this new show in a pseudo documentary style that Moore dubbed 'naturalistic science fiction'.
Critically and commercially it worked, reinventing a flagging genre. It's been said that this was much to Glen A.Larsons chagrin.
All of this will happen again ... kinda ...
Singer has promised "a complete reimagination", a step away from the recently wrapped Moore vision and the '78 original. As the two were diametric opposites that only leaves that fine line down the middle. But Singer is a fine director and has sensitively and sensibly handled any material he's been given (*cough* excluding Superman *cough*).
That and I'm silently praying he brings Chris McQuarrie onboard to write the screenplay. Their work on The Usual Suspects and Valkyrie was fantastic ... sure McQuarrie is penning the next Wolverine movie, but this is the man who wrote Way of the Gun in FIVE DAYS!!
Elsewhere
A pair of Ron D.Moore pilots have landed in the shape of Caprica and Virtuality. If you like smart TV check them out!
Tags: 09, battlestar, movies.