[Update: It's confirmed that Bryan Singer WILL helm the Battlestar Galactica movie. See Bottom of the post.]
Drew McWeeny at HitFix has the exclusive on some very interesting developments on the Universal Pictures feature film adaptation of Battlestar Galactica.
The amazing television series brought to us by Ron Moore and David Eick gave fans new and old, a more realistic take on the classic series from the late seventies. Their show stood strong to complete its story on their own schedule, and after four full seasons, they’re now in the midst of launching the spinoff series, Caprica, that has already had its pilot released on DVD.
According to Drew, his sources have informed him that Bryan Singer (X-Men, Superman Returns, The Usual Suspects) is being brought in by Universal to produce the project. It’s possible he’ll be directing the film but there’s no word on that yet.
For those who don’t know, Bryan Singer and Tom De Santo actually had a plan for a new Battlestar Galactica television series years ago that would have been set up as a sequel of sorts, based 20 years after the classic series. That project was canned as the terrible events of 9/11 unfolded due to the introduction of the storyline being based on an all-our surprise attack, not a good idea around that time period.
Sadly, a lot of work was put into that and a bunch of CG animation had been worked on as they were only months away from shooting when they had to stop. The story of Singer’s series would follow the human survivors as they live on a colony after voting to abandon their search for Earth.
To read more details on that and see some concept work, head over to io9.
Back in February, we first learned that Universal’s new movie would be taking us back to the original Battlestar Galatica series and would still have the key characters of Adama, Starbuck and Baltar in it. They’d just have nothing to do with the Moore’s recent incarnation which is still pushing forward with a movie titled The Plan on its way as well as the Caprica series mentioned above.
We also learned at that time that creator and writer, Glen A. Larson, was in negotiations with Universal to work on a new BSG feature film.
So, are Larson and Singer working together on this and will it follow the original series, new series or be an entirely new take?
Since most mainstream audiences aren’t aware of the history of the Cylons, and since we know it’ll be separate from Ronald D. Moore’s vision, it would have to be an origin films of sorts and yet another different take on the franchise as we know it.
A concern for me is the story and how it could be told in two hours. There’s so much more to it than that and it’d be have to structured as a franchise set of films, likely as a trilogy.
If someone’s got to be chosen for this, Singer is the right choice. He has the sci-fi/fantasy roots with his Superhero film background, he’s a big name in the industry, and he already has worked on Battlestar Galactica before.
UPDATE: Entertainment Weekly has confirmed that Singer is onboard to helm the BSG movie, and that the film will be a complete re-imagining of the original 70s lore created by Glen Larson. Go here for details.
What do you think of Singer being involved and what would you like to see of a big budget BSG feature film?
Source: HitFix.com, io9
Update Source: Entertainment Weekly
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