Simon Kinberg has signed up to produce and write the long-awaited Battlestar Galactica movie. Dylan Clark will produce alongside the Dark Phoenix director. Kinberg is probably best-known for his work with the X-Men franchise over the last decade. He was also attached to co-write the Boba Fett movie with James Mangold before Disney and Lucasfilm decided to pull the plug after a less than ecstatic response to Solo: A Star Wars Story. He also worked as a creative consultant on 2015’s The Force Awakens.
Talks of a Battlestar Galactica movie first started back in 2009 when series creator Glen A. Larson entered negotiations with Universal Pictures. At the time, X-Men director Brian Singer was attached to direct. Since then, an army of writers has come and go, while Singer exited the project after a few years. Simon Kinberg had this to say about signing on for the long-awaited project.
“Battlestar Galactica is one of the holy grails in science fiction, and I couldn’t be more excited about bringing something new to the franchise, while honoring what’s made it so iconic and enduring. I’m so grateful that [Dylan Clark] and my partners at Universal have trusted me with this incredible universe.”
Universal has not yet announced a director for the Battlestar Galactica movie. Francis Lawrence was last attached to helm the movie, but it is believed that the studio will be going with a new director at this point in time. The science fiction franchise was created by Glen A. Larson, which began with the original television series in 1978, following the Star Wars madness. It was later followed by a short-run sequel series, a line of book adaptations, original novels, comic books, a board game, and {/tag/video-games/|video games+.
A re-imagined version of Battlestar Galactica premiered as a two-part, three-hour miniseries in 2003, which was developed by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick. The miniseries led to a weekly television series, until it ended in 2009. A prequel series, Caprica, aired in 2010. However, fans of the sci-fi franchise have been waiting for a big screen reboot for decades. After years of waiting, it appears that Universal is taking a big step forward after a series of false starts over the past few years.
Characters included in the Battlestar Galactica franchise include Commander Adama, his son Apollo, Starbuck, Baltar, Boomer, Athena, and Cassiopeia. The original series only lasted for one season, but it influenced a lot of sci-fi fans, which continued in 1980 with Galactica 80. It will be interesting to see where Simon Kinberg takes the source material, though one has to imagine he’ll be taking more from Glen A. Larson’s original vision for the TV series back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Hollywood Reporter was the first to announce that Simon Kinberg has signed on to write and produce Universal’s upcoming Battlestar Galactica movie.
