NBCUniversal has tapped Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail to reboot Battlestar Galactica for its Peacock streaming platform. Esmail has now tweeted about the project, saying that it will not be a remake of the 2004 Syfy series created by Ronald D. Moore. Esmail says that the new show will instead be a new story set within the same “mythology” as that series. “BSG fans, this will NOT be a remake of the amazing series @RonDMoore launched because… why mess with perfection?” Esmail tweeted. “Instead, we’ll explore a new story within the mythology while staying true to the spirit of Battlestar. So say we all!”
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Moore wrote and produced a two-part Battlestar Galactica miniseries for Syfy that aired in 2003. The miniseries was a backdoor pilot for a full ongoing series that Syfy debuted 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.
That series was itself a reboot of the original Battlestar Galactica, which debuted in 1978. The series was created by Glen A. Larson and starred Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch, and Dirk Benedict. The series 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. Moore’s reboot followed the same general plot but took a more grounded approach to the material.
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.
