Babylon 5 Reboot in the Works

From J. Michael Straczynski himself.

More at the link.

JMS is on record as saying that no one other than Katsulas would ever play G'Kar. But they can't redo B5 without that character, surely?

I don't see how. Who could do G'Kar but Katsulas?

Instead of rebooting B5, maybe exploring some other place(s) &/or time(s) in the B5verse would be a better move? JMS could go for an anthology format, &/or airing B5 telefilm episodes the way "Columbo", "McMillan & Wife", Entc Ent al were aired when they originally ran for the first time.

Its amazing what having large sums of money waved under your nose will cause you to do.

Nothing about this plan spells "large amounts of money".

Average take of a movie like that is somewhere north of $100 million. Plus there's going to be an uptick in sales of items related to the TV show, as well as royalties from things like DVD sales and streaming rights sales. If that doesn't equal "large amounts of money" to you, then I'd like to live in your world where a few hundred million is "pocket change."

I hope this never comes to pass. I cannot see how a 100+ hour series can be "rebooted" as 2 or 2 1/2 hour movies. It's just too big a story.

Average for such a movie is a deficit. Yes, everyone involved will be employed for a while, and they'll get paid, and probably not all that badly; but I don't see how this suddenly offers JMS more money than he could have expected previoulsy, when he decided to rarify his B5 projects, rather than accept such money.

Much like George Lucas, JMS was a one-hit wonder.

He's trying to catch lightning in a bottle yet again.

He will fail.

Profit and loss statements in Hollywood are bullshit. Most movies in Hollywood never officially turn a profit, but they still keep making them. Depending upon how many hats JMS is going to be wearing, he could be raking in the bucks. Remember, the show ceased production nearly 20 years ago, so there's not as much interest in it as there once was. No matter how this film performs at the box office, it'll remind me people of the original series. Warner's seen how well Paramount has done with Trek, so they're going to want a piece of the action if they can get it.

I think Paramount got very lucky with the 2009 Trek reboot. JJTrek is the exception that proves the rule. (The rule being that most remakes suck arse.)

B5 was an amazing series but I just don't see how a reboot will work. Outside of the original B5, most of JMS' work has been mediocre at best.

JMS' run on ASM was great.

I submit that Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future was high art stuck on saturday morning.

So he did some great work on a mediocre superhero.

If that were true, it would make his achievement even greater. But I think you're confusing one of the greatest superheroes ever with something ... I don't know, from DC, perhaps?

Crusade could have been great if TNT didn't torpedo it. They ran the episodes out of order, ordered arbitrary changes that didn't make any sense. It's no wonder that JMS just threw up his hands and said "fuck it".

Yes, and Legends of the Rangers had amazing potential. "I carry heavy things." I still want to find out what that means, but slowly!

I'm a huge fanboy of B5 and I pretty strongly dislike JMS.

He made a good TV show, but he's been trying to fleece the fans of that show for years, for reference see all those overpriced script books and coffee table books he sold.

Also, I'm not really worried about this happening. JMS is behind much of this sudden surge of fan campaigns, kinda like Roddenbury in the 60s.

Also, if this were to come to pass the fans are going to hate it, unless they reboot the entire series, a movie made for the general audience could never do the series justice, it's just a fact.

EDIT: On the plus side, maybe someone will get interested enough to do a remastering of the TV series onto Blu-ray...waybe even redo the FX...I can dream can't I?

EDIT 2: But don't redo the FX too well, the show would lose some charm if the space scenes didn't look like a video game

^^^ Agreed. B5 is easily one of my top sci-fi series of all time, but I think JMS started believing his own press too much.

Would prefer to see the money go toward a hi-def remaster of the original series, rather than a reboot.

B5 is easily my favorite genre show ever, even ahead of Trek or Doctor Who. That said, I don't see a way to make a movie-length reboot work.

I'm not worried. Even bad Babylon-5 is better than most science fiction series.

Could a movie be done of, say, the battle that Boxleitners character won?

Could work as a movie. I guess we'll see...

That was already shown in In the Beginning.

Wasn't much of a battle. The task force that Boxleitner's (Sheridan's) ship was part of was attacked by the Blackstar, the best Minbari warship in their fleet.

Sheridan's ship was left for dead (all others were destroyed). Sheridan's commanding officer was killed, Sheridan ordered nuclear weapons deployed in the asteroid field where his ship had drifted, then he sent a distress call. Blackstar showed up to finish Sheridan's ship off and Sheridan vaporized it.

Pissed off the Minbari no end........

TEH SPACE BATTLES!!!1!

On the bright side, everyone who's still alive still hangs out together!

Could see a film/tv mix, like they had planned for The Dark Tower, working, or even a trilogy:

First one: open up with EarthForce One going boom and cover the station seceding due to evidence that now-President Clark was behind, unveil the Shadows
Second one: Have the Vorlons on the move, and races pick sides, including Earth and Centauri allying with the Shadows, Narn and Mars fall.
Third one: Make Earth the new home of the Shadows, the Vorlons having destroyed the previous one in the last war, and the Vorlon WorldKiller is on its way. Sheridan and co have so long to remove the Shadow influence to stop the Vorlons destroying Earth. Effectively combined Z'Ha'Dum, Into the Fire and Endgame.

You're not going to be able to get the nuances and story threads of the series, but you can take elements from it and make a decent sci-fi trilogy. I'd even drop the '5' as there'd be no need to bring in B4.

From that you could take any number of angle to kick start a post-war series without being quite as crappy as S5 could get.

^ Like the Trekverse(s), the B5verse has AL∞T of stories to tell, & places to explore, beyond the TV series, & those TNT telemovies!