NBC and Peacock drop BATTLESTAR GALACTICA reboot reboot plans

After several years in development hell, NBC and Peacock have abandoned their plans to reboot the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

Back in September 2019, NBC tapped Sam Esmail, the creative force behind Mr. Robot, to develop a fresh take on the Battlestar Galactica franchise for their Peacock streaming service. The franchise had been created by Glen A. Larson and aired a single, huge-budgeted season on ABC in 1978, opening to enormous ratings but shedding them by season's end to be cancelled. A spin-off show, Galactica 1980, aired a single, critically-derided half-season in 1980 before being likewise cancelled.

Ronald D. Moore and David Eick resurrected the show with a grittier reboot in 2003, informed by the War on Terror and the Iraq War. The show ran for four seasons and two spin-off TV movies, concluding in 2010. A further straight-to-DVD movie followed in 2013, and a spin-off show, Caprica, aired a single season in 2010-11. This reboot, produced by NBC for the Sci-Fi Channel (later SyFy), was vastly more acclaimed, winning a Peabody and a Hugo Award.

Despite Esmail's high profile, the project struggled to get off the ground, possibly because Esmail only wanted to write and produce, leaving day-to-day showrunning duties to another producer. Michael Lesslie initially took on the project, only to later depart. Derek Simonds came on board in January 2024 in what appears now to have been a last-ditch effort to save the project.

Confusingly, Lesslie and Esmail made competing statements, the former stating the new show would be a fresh reboot of the premise and Esmail saying the new show would exist within the 2003 show's continuity. In January 2022, Universal announced that the new show would exist alongside a fresh feature film take on the franchise, to be written by X-Men screenwriter Simon Kinberg.

Now NBC have confirmed they are terminating their involvement in the project. No reason was given, but it was likely the long gestation time and expense (albeit minor so far) spent on going nowhere, Esmail not having the same profile and clout that he did back in 2019 when the project was getting off the ground, and the considerably more hostile streaming climate, with Peacock not performing as well as it could have done.

Universal are now shopping the project to other potentially interested parties

New BATTLESTAR GALACTICA movie and TV projects will be set in a "shared universe"

Two new Battlestar Galactica reboots are currently in the works at NBC/Peacock and Universal. The first is a new television series, to be co-written and produced by Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot) and showrun by Michael Lesslie (the Assassin's Creed movie). The second is a feature film, to be written by Simon Kinberg (X-Men: Dark Phoenix).

It was already a confused situation, with Esmail stating that the new TV show will share continuity with the Ronald D. Moore iteration of the series, with Moore reading the pilot script and giving his blessing to the project. However, Lesslie disagreed, describing the show as a total reboot of the premise. Lesslie subsequently departed the project and no replacement has been named.

At first the movie was also described a total reboot of the premise, but in a fresh interview with Collider, Kinberg has now claimed that the film will occupy a "shared universe" with Esmail's iteration, and is "working closely" with him on the project. Whether that means both movie and TV show will be set in the RDM version of the story and will be heavily related (sharing actors and characters), or one will be a prequel to the other, or the two are in a shared universe but aren't related to the RDM spin of the idea, is completely unclear.

It is also entirely possible that "shared universe" and "continuity" have simply now become Hollywood buzzwords which people say even though they're not technically correct.

Battlestar Galactica's premise is compelling but limited: a race of robots known as the Cylons destroy the Twelve Colonies, twelve planets inhabited by humans in an unclear time period. The surviving humans band together under the last surviving major warship, the battlestar (combined carrier/battleship) Galactica, in a ragtag, fugitive fleet and run across the galaxy in search of the fabled and legendary "Thirteenth Colony," Earth. In 1978 Glen A. Larson wrote and produced a first version of the franchise which was very popular, but cripplingly expensive and cancelled after one season (as was a terrible, low-budget spinoff, Galactica 1980, which saw the fleet arriving at contemporary Earth). In 2003, Ronald D. Moore created a total reboot of the premise which ran for four seasons on SyFy, winning multiple Hugo and Peabody Awards and becoming one of the most critically feted shows on television. The show was well-received for most of its run, but ended on a highly controversial, divisive note. This iteration of the franchise spun off a prequel series, Caprica, which was cancelled after one season, and a further pilot for another series, Blood & Chrome, which did not proceed to series. There have also been successful video and board games based on this version of the series.

The decision to reboot BSG again, whether in a new continuity or not, has also received a mixed reaction. The Ronald D. Moore version of the story, despite its flaws, is widely regarded as definitive. Given the tonal disparity between the two early versions of the premise (a cheesy space opera and a more psychologically convincing, post-9/11 mediation on the ethics of war and terrorism), it's unclear what a third version of the story can do that has already not been done.

The creative talent involved has also been criticised; Esmail is a superb writer and director, but he has made it clear he will be relatively hands-off on the series and is more setting it up before heading off to other projects (dismaying those who only though the project promising because of his involvement). Lesslie's only credit of note was a failed video game adaptation, and Kinberg has arguably only worked on two decent projects (X-Men: Days of Future Past, although that was a collaboration with the much better Jane Goldman, and as a writer on Star Wars: Rebels), with almost all of his other work being disastrously awful, most recently the terrible Apple+ series Invasion and a series of dud comic book movies for Fox, including X-Men: Apocalypse, Fantastic Four and Dark Phoenix (a second missed bite of that cherry, since he also made a hash of the same idea in X-Men: The Last Stand).

According to Kinberg, they still haven't found a director for the Battlestar Galactica movie, so don't hold your breath on that one. The TV show has several scripts completed and is apparently ready to move forward, but pre-production has not formally begun yet and a series order has not been given, suggesting further development is required. They also need to find a new showrunner to replace Lesslie, assuming Esmail is still not keen on taking up that role himself.

George R.R. Martin's WILD CARDS TV series moves from Hulu to Peacock; SANDKINGS in development at Netflix

Thanks to detective work by the team at Westeros.org, it appears that the long-percolating TV version of the Wild Cards shared universe has moved home. Previously in the works as an NBC-Hulu collaboration, it now appears to have found a new home at NBC's Peacock streaming service.

Peacock launched last April in the United States and is heavily reliant on legacy programming such as The Office and Parks & Recreation. It is unsurprising that they would be looking to bolster their lineup with original fare, and the Wild Cards universe gives them a large roster of superhero characters to develop shows around.

The Wild Cards universe was created by George R.R. Martin in the early 1980s as a roleplaying game setting. Starting in 1987, Martin began editing and publishing linked anthologies of stories from numerous writers in the shared world. Melinda Snodgrass has been heavily involved in the creative side of the universe, and writers including Paul Cornell, David Anthony Durham, Pat Cadigan, Emma Newman, Mark Lawrence, Roger Zelazny, Howard Waldrop, Daniel Abraham, Ty Franck and Walter Jon Williams have contributed stories to the setting. The twenty-ninth book in the series is scheduled for release this year.

Martin's other commitments preclude working on the show, so the heavy-lifting on Wild Cards is being done by Melinda Snodgrass (who previously worked on Star Trek: The Next Generation as a writer and script editor, penning one of the show's most beloved episodes, The Measure of a Man) and Michael Cassutt (Z Nation, The Outer Limits).

Meanwhile, the same source reveals that Martin's novella Sandkings is in development as a feature film at Netflix. Sandkings was previously filmed - heavily reworked by Melinda Snodgrass into a contemporary setting - as the opening episode of the second version of The Outer Limits in 1995.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA 3.0 gets its showrunner, confirmed to be another remake

The third TV version of Battlestar Galactica (fourth if you count Galactica 1980 as a separate thing, which you probably shouldn't) is heading to the screen with a new showrunner appointed.

Michael Lesslie (AMC's The Little Drummer Girl, MacBeth, Assassin's Creed) has been tapped to take the lead as writer, co-creator and showrunner on the project. Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot) is serving as co-creator, writer and executive producer, and may direct the first episode. However, it sounds like Esmail's role may be more in launching the project and then stepping back, which will probably dismay those who were only interested in the project because of Esmail's involvement.

The new Battlestar Galactica was originally touted as not a reboot or reimagining, but instead as a new chapter in the universe created by Ronald D. Moore for the 2003-09 SyFy series. Indeed, Esmail called Moore to get his blessing to develop the idea before taking it to NBC. However, in today's statement, Lesslie says the new series will pay tribute to both Moore and the original 1978-80 series created and run by Glen A. Larson. The press release also says it will be set in a "reimagined world," suggesting it will offer a new, fresh take on the franchise.

The news will likely not go down well among fans of either Battlestar iteration, perhaps feeling that between the bright and optimistic original take on the idea and Moore's much darker, grittier iteration, there really isn't anywhere else to take the premise. We will see as it the idea develops further.

The third Battlestar Galactica will launch on NBC's streaming service, Peacock, with a production schedule to be decided once the pandemic has ended.