Battestar Galactica's James Callis Shares His Thoughts on Upcoming Reboot

James Callis made his Star Trek debut in this week's episode of Star Trek: Picard, "Monsters," but might be best known to sci-fi fans as Dr. Gaius Baltar from Syfy's Battlestar Galactica. As they say in the show, "all of this has happened before and will happen again." NBCUniversal is currently working on a two-fold reboot of the franchise, with a film in development alongside a new streaming series for Peacock. ComicBook.com had the opportunity to speak with Callis about his role in Picard. Our full interview will be published soon, but we also asked him for his thoughts on the next Battlestar Galactica. He seemed to think it made sense, and he expects the reboot will offer something distinct from the previous iteration.

"I mean, you would do, right? It's an incredible canvas to play with right now," Callus says. "And in fact, every other day that goes on, because we've been talking about this -- this cast as you know, are friendly, we chat with each other all the time, not necessarily that the reboot was going on, because that's been going on -- but then during the pandemic, I remember us discussing, 'My goodness, we didn't really do this.' And then somebody's like, 'No, we did. We did an episode.' I'm like, 'Yeah, but not an episode.' I mean, I'm just saying the whole idea of society going through this pandemic and how that might affect it, and I suppose whatever, as well, politically, oh my God, technologically, again, it would be a very different Battlestar. And I'd say, in much the same way, although set in the galaxy far away, et cetera, it would be talking about, as it should be, right now, and the situation we find ourselves in."

Callis expects the next Battlestar Galactica to reflect reality as much as his version. Details about the reboot are scarce. Simon Kinberg, who is writing and producing the Battlestar Galactica film, has said his project will coexist in the same universe as Sam Esmail's Peacock series.

"In terms of the situation with Sam and the show, I can't say too much about it other than there is synergy between the two enterprises and constant communication between us," Kinberg told Collider earlier this year. "We've become close and been having a really good time together and there will be, for lack of a better phrase and it's an overused phrase, a shared universe."

"We are in the process of going out to directors and the hope is to attach a director and start prepping the movie this year," Kinberg continued. "It's a megillah, humongous film and the prep will be a very long prep period so I would imagine even if we attached a director today it would take six, nine months to prep this movie properly. So at the earliest, we'd be shooting at the end of this year. We'd probably be shooting at the beginning of next year. Time will tell who the director is and then you or someone else will tell who the director is."

The 2004 edition of Battlestar Galactica is streaming now on Peacock. Star Trek: Picard is streaming now on Paramount+.