If you were moved, excited, challenged and thrilled by the TV reboot of “Battlestar Galactica,” one of the most acclaimed sci-fi television series ever filmed, then we’ve got bad news: according to a new report from Variety, Universal is rebooting the franchise from scratch with a new movie penned by Transcendence screenwriter Jack Paglen.
Well, it’s not really “news.” Universal has been developing Battlestar Galactica for years, previously under the direction of X-Men: Days of Future Past helmer Bryan Singer, and the plan was always to ignore not just the hit post-9/11 allegory version of “Battlestar” but also the original TV series on which it was based. It appears that that plan is simply unchanged, although it’s been so long since we’ve heard about the movie version that many fans of the series were likely hoping that studio had forgotten about the project entirely.
Jack Paglen is something of an “It” screenwriter at the moment. His first produced feature, Transcendence, opens on April 18 and stars Johnny Depp as a scientist whose brain is downloaded into a computer. Paglen is also on board the recently confirmed Prometheus sequel, so clearly sci-fi is his jam. And don’t forget that many fans of the original “Battlestar Galactica” TV series assumed that the modern reboot would suck outright, but now seem to be willing to admit that the newer version was at least arguably better than the first. Maybe the movie will surprise as well. So let’s at least try to stay positive about this.
So say we all?
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
