Battlestar Galactica Reboot In the Works

Battlestar Galactica fans will be familiar with the quote “All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.” Well, it’s all about the happen again, again. NBCUniversal today announced that it has tapped Sam Esmail, the Golden Globe-winning and Emmy-nominated creator of Mr. Robot and Homecoming, to reboot Battlestar Galactica for its new streaming platform Peacock, which launches in April 2020. Esmail will executive produce the new series with Chad Hamilton, a member of his Esmail Corp. company. NBCUniversal did not release any further details about the new series. The news comes on the anniversary of the debut of the original Battlestar Galactica television series.

The original Battlestar Galactica debuted in 1978, created by Glen A. Larson. The series starred Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch, and Dirk Benedict and ran for a single season before being canceled. In 1980, a fan campaign saw the show revived for the 10-episode Galactica 1980 series.

Battlestar Galactica brought the space opera genre, having been recently made popular by the release of the original Star Wars into theaters, to television sets. The series chronicled the Twelve Colonies of Mankind and their long war against the robot race known as Cylons. When the Cylons ended the war with a sneak attack that destroyed the colonies’ homeworlds, the last remaining capital warship, the Battlestar Galactica, was forced shepherd what remained of humanity on a search for the lost Thirteenth Colony, Earth.

The short-lived series was rebooted for a new generation by Star Trek alum Ronald D. Moore in 2003. Moore wrote and produced a two-part miniseries for Syfy. The miniseries was a backdoor pilot that proved successful enough for Syfy to launch a full ongoing series from it in 2004. That series ran for four seasons and remains one of Syfy’s most successful original programs in its history. The show’s cast included Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Tricia Helfer, and Grace Park. That series spawned the single-season prequel Caprica and the web series Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, which was later recut as a TV movie.

There’s no mention of how this announcement affects the Battlestar Galactica movie that has been in development from director Francis Lawrence. In December 2018, the film hired a new screenwriter. There has been no update on its status since then.

What do you think o NBCUniversal rebooting Battlestar Galactica? Let us know in the comments. Peacock is set to launch in April 2020.