Aug
14
Bryan Singer, the director of the recent Superman reboot as well as a number of other genre films including the X-Men series, has signed on to direct an upcoming big-screen outing for Battlestar Galactica, the science fiction franchise created by Glen Larson in 1978.
Before fans of the current re-imagined series helmed by Ronald D Moore get excited, however, the new film will have no bearing on the show, but Variety reports the studio insisting that it will be a brand new re-imagining in itself. Singer has, of course, been working on the project for a long time – calling the brand a “sleeping giant” before the Moore take on the property.
There is no news yet on who will star in the film or when it is scheduled for release, although the wisdom of releasing yet another remake of Galactica is dubious to say the least. Moore’s version did a superb job of exposing science fiction to a mass audience and gained acceptance in the popular mainstream, winning Peabody awards and gaining acclaim from Time magazine. Whether Singer’s version will do the same, or simply confuse audiences and turn them off the show, remains to be seen.
Our 
provides all the latest Sci-Fi news, reviews, previews, interviews and spoilers, while our 
fan page is the best place to communicate with other fans of the SciFiNow magazine.
provides all the latest Sci-Fi news, reviews, previews, interviews and spoilers, while our fan page is the best place to communicate with other fans of the SciFiNow magazine.
Another re-imagining?
Interesting. With Singer’s track record for reverenential treatment of source, I thought this would be “grown up” vision of the original series’ Mormonesque journey. It’s hard to (re-)imagine what they could do next that would be substantially different from the the original series and the modern version.
Having said that – Singer has safe hands and has not failed to deliver on any of the genre pieces thus far – including Superman Returns (for me at any rate: I know that some people were disappointed).
Cheers
Russ
“Mass audience?” I really think you need to look at the ratings for the show over the course of it’s several year run. Critical acclaim is great and all but it doesn’t translate into money. A real “mass audience” does though and I think that’s what Universal is trying to do here.
Ratings aside, the term mass audience is perfectly applicable when you consider the extensive coverage from publications outside of the science fiction niche, such as Time and the Los Angeles Times, as well as recognition from the mainstream including their Peabody award and the various Emmys.
With Battlestar it’s also important to take downloading numbers into account, due to the wide disparity between air dates at the beginning.
Critical claim is great but you can’t spend it and despite that acclaim it didn’t bring in the viewers. After the initial mini series the audience declined until only a third of the the original audience were watching.
I think if they go back to popcorn formula of the original( and also an Emmy award-winning show) they’ll make a fortune as long as the script is good.
Hopefully this time we will get a Re-make that is more true to the original (e.g. Starbuck and Boomer being the correct sex).
And speaking of sex I don’t think Galactica needs a sex scene (what seems like) every five minutes.
Not saying I didn’t like the series re-imagining but it did go a bit ott on the sex and violence.
Now if they could make a film that is more based on the original or even carries on from the original, then that would be great.
Perhaps they could even get Richard Hatch involved somehow.