A reboot of Babylon 5 with original creator J. Michael Straczynski attached is in the works for CW. Babylon 5 was created by Straczynski in 1993 and launched a franchise phenomenon that spanned a five-season series with a spinoff show, Crusade, picking up where it left off. Babylon 5 has been the subject of numerous novels, short stories, comics, and merchandise, making it a well-known and lucrative brand for WB. Crusade alone launched seven TV films, as well as the aforementioned ancillary venues.
Babylon 5 follows the adventures of John Sheridan, a mysterious Earth Force officer assigned to Babylon 5, a five-mile-long space station that serves as a kind of neutral spaceport for all manner of travelers and beings. The humans on the space station find themselves embroiled in an inter-space conflict with ancient and futuristic alien races. The original show starred Bruce Boxleitner, Michael O'Hare, Claudia Christian, Jerry Doyle, the late Mira Furlan, Richard Biggs, Andrea Thompson, and numerous guest stars and recurring roles.
THR now reports that J. Michael Straczynski has been tapped to pen a Babylon 5 reboot, described as a "from-the-ground-up reboot" of the original show. The series is being looked at for a launch on CW, with Straczynski's JMS studio executive producing. While it's unclear if this will be straight-to-series or pilot format, the idea is to tap into the franchise IP that's been built up over the years for Babylon 5 and harvest it for new and returning audiences.
Straczynski most recently completed the Netflix series Sense8 with The Wachowski's and penned the script for the Valiant Comics adaptation of Shadowman. He most recently released two new books, a fictional drama called "Together We Will Go" and the writing book "Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer: The Artistry, Joy, and Career of Storytelling," which outlines how to have a career as a successful writer in Hollywood. The writer is also at work on the pilot for an adaptation of Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars trilogy.
Retapping a franchise or IP for network television isn't anything new, and it seems like it was only a matter of time before Babylon 5 had its turn. Everything from Hawaii Five-O to The Wonder Years to the upcoming Fresh Prince reboot, Bel-Air, proves the trend is here to stay. With studios struggling to advance their content on streaming, it's all hands on deck to milk what they can from their respective libraries and lures prospective viewers to their platform. Now, it appears that Babylon 5 will be the next in line to attempt to get a second life on film. Whether or not audiences will bite is another thing altogether.
Source: THR