“Babylon 5” creator J. Michael Straczynski has revealed that the previously announced potential reboot of the famed 1990s sci-fi series is not being picked up by the network for this development season. However, it’s not dead either.
The original series followed the officers and key ambassadors onboard a five-mile-long space station during a time of uneasy peace between the five major races. Over the course of the series, both an intergalactic war with the ancient ‘Shadows’, and the rise of a fascist world government on Earth played out.
Unlike most series (especially at the time), the original was conceived from the get-go with the entire timeline mapped out before and after the events of the show – allowing for teases of story and character threads that paid off years later.
The new take reportedly follows John Sheridan, an Earthforce officer with a mysterious background, being assigned to Babylon 5 while an exploratory Earth company accidentally triggers a conflict with a civilization a million years ahead of us. Sheridan and the rest of the B5 crew are soon in the line of fire.
While the reboot did not get a pilot order this winter, The CW’s CEO Mark Pedowitz reportedly believes in the project enough to ‘roll’ it to next year which will keep it in active development says Straczynski on his Patreon. All this is happening as a [prospective] sale of the CW is underway.
Straczynski plans to write and executive-produce the new series for Warner Bros. Television.
Source: The Mary Sue, TV Line
