Universal is moving ahead with plans to bring Battlestar Galactica to the big screen, according to Variety. The proposed film would be a reimagining of the property, and not directly related to the recent SyFy channel version or the original series that first aired in 1978.
No word on a possible production schedule yet, but Jack Paglen has been hired to write the screenplay. Paglen is coming off of writing Transcendence, and is currently committed to write the screenplay to the sequel for Ridely Scott’s Prometheus. Glen A. Larson, creator of the original Battlestar Galactica series, will produce.
Battlestar Galactica first appeared on TV in 1978 and ran for 17 episodes, totaling 24 hours (including multiple two-parters). Despite a loyal following the series was deemed too expensive given its poor ratings and was soon cancelled. A second series was commissioned under the name Galactica 1980, but it lasted just 10 episodes. The series was then recut and re-released as a handful of different movies.
Several attempts to bring the property back to either the big screen or reboot it as a TV show were discussed, but it wasn’t until 2003, when Universal Television brought the show back as a mini-series on the SyFy channel, that it returned. The new take/reboot proved a success for the channel, and the series ran for four seasons and spawned several spin-offs.
In both the 1978 and 2003 versions of the show, the story focused on the last human survivors of a war against a robotic race known as the Cylons. The humans flee their doomed home in search of the lost, thirteenth colony known as Earth. There’s no word yet on whether or not the new film will keep this aspect of the property or not.
