Galaxy Quest Series Reportedly In Development at Paramount+
Not content with simply being the home of all things Star Trek, it appears that Paramount+ is in early development on a television series inspired by the 1999 Star Trek parody film Galaxy Quest. According to Variety, which broke the news, Parament Television Studios is in the very early stages of putting the series together. Mark Johnson, who produced the original Galaxy Quest movie, is thus far the only person involved with the original film who is working on this adaptation, serving as an executive producer. Paramount Television Studios and Paramount+ declined to provide Variety with a comment on the report.
This is the latest effort to bring Galaxy Quest to television, which is in itself an ironic turn since the original film was a movie about television stars. Amazon had been developing a series that would have reunited the film's original cast, which included Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver (both of whom have commented on a Galaxy Quest 2 sequel recently), Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, Daryl Mitchell, Enrico Colantoni, and Robin Sachs, but those plans were paused after Rickman's death in 2016. Various have continued working on the idea of a Galaxy Quest show, but haven't gotten the idea to move forward.
Galaxy Quest is considered one of the best Star Trek movies.
Galaxy Quest is a clear parody of Star Trek, following a group of actors who starred in a cult classic sci-fi television series and have struggled to gain notoriety outside of those roles ever since. They're shocked to discover that aliens are real and that a group of them are seeking their characters' help, having mistaken broadcasts of the original television series for a documentary.
Dean Parisot directed Galaxy Quest from a screenplay written by David Howard and Robert Gordon, based on Howard's story. Despite having no official affiliation with Star Trek, fans attending Star Trek Las Vegas in 2013 voted Galaxy Quest the seventh-best Star Trek movie of all time, landing it in the middle of the list, sandwiched between Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Generations.
Galaxy Quest opened in 1999 and earned $90 million during its theatrical run, double its reported budget of $45 million. Critics also enjoyed the film, and it sports a stellar 90% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, with a critics consensus reading, "Intelligent and humorous satire with an excellent cast -- no previous Trekkie knowledge needed to enjoy this one."
While a television series has yet to materialize, Galaxy Quest did see a continuation in comic book form. IDW Publishing released Galaxy Quest: Global Warning in 2008 and, in 2015, published a new Galaxy Quest ongoing series taking place years after the film, later collected as Galaxy Quest: The Journey Continues.
Galaxy Quest is streaming now on both Paramount+ and Netflix. It is also available on home media, having been re-released in various forms on Blu-ray for its 20th anniversary in 2019 alongside a documentary, Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary, examining its making and the cult following its garnered over the decades that followed.