The plans for a new Stargate revival have been on the drawing board for years. In 2015 MGM nearly did a total reboot of the 1994 movie with Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the original movie creators in-charge once again. Thankfully those plans were as quickly cancelled.
Then in 2019 fans went crazy when it emerged MGM had bullied one of the creators of Stargate SG1 (by bullying I mean they asked and Brad Wright jumped at the opportunity) to revive the show. Brad Wright, who many fans consider to the Daddy of the show we adore, even though he says it was a team effort but he is Canadian so he would say that wouldn’t he, got to write a script for the pilot and take us back into the universe of O’Neill, Carter and Jackson.. “once more through the old orifice!”
Those plans were hampered by a bit of global disaster, just one more think Covid took from us, and eventually scrapped when Amazon then bought MGM in 2022.
More than a year on we have all been left wondering. What is Amazon planning to do with Stargate?
There were a lot of discussion and MGM during the sale process as they continued to plan for Brad Wrights reboot, they even looked at other scripts for a new show but they always preferred Brads vision. There was a problem though. Amazon did not share MGM’s excitement.
Now from the little bit of information I have been able to get from sources it seems that it was nothing personal regarding Brad Wright, they had no issues with the direction Brad wanted to take the show. That was never the issue. The problem was Amazon Studios wanted fresh blood to run the show. There are also business reasons why they did not want to go ahead with MGM’s plans. At the time Amazon did simply not own enough studio space to consider making a big sci-fi project like Stargate without a studio partner like Warner Brothers, Sony or someone else. So they were looking for partners to produce the show with them. So discussions went on and one and on.
There was another challenge too. No one could decide what to actually do with the show. There was a lot of infighting within remaining MGM executives and the new bosses over at Amazon Studios. Some thought a hard reboot was the way to go, some thought that some sort of hybrid Star Trek style reboot was the way to go and others, well they didnt want to do a series at all… They wanted to do a MOVIE!
Jennifer Salke is currently the head of Amazon Studios and according to sources, she has always wanted to do a movie first. There is a very boring, manager kind of reasoning for this. In 2022 Amazon Studios announced it intended to start investing a Billion Dollars a year to produce straight to cinema movies. The money was already budgeted and set aside. Buying MGM was a big piece of this plan as they own so many titles like James Bond, Rocky, Robocop and of course… STARGATE!
So she kept arguing that that’s what they should do. A small problem was that MGM at the time did not actually have a head of Film so they just kept talking and talking. Eventually early in 2023 Amazon finally hired a new head of film and they could stop talking and start planning. After all what is the point in setting plans in stone when one of the key bosses was not in place, what if you make lots of decisions that new boss is not totally behind?
We now understand that the decision has been made and confirmed by Deadline earlier this year a Stargate movie is in development. Of course the Strikes have meant that things are moving forwards at a snails pace so we have to continue being patient but us Gaters have got used to that.
Of course not everyone is excited about a plan to do a Movie first. What if the movie fails at the box office? Let’s be honest no one seems to be able to quite predict what will happen at the box office right now, I mean who know Barbie would be a huge hit but an Indiana Jones movie would flop that badly? So if Stargate flops at the box office will that kill any hopes of fans getting what they really want, a NEW SERIES!
The answer? Yes.
The logical reality is that if a movie flops then that probably would kill the franchise, maybe forever. So it is a massive risk. However, what if the movie is created by someone that really cares about the show? A real Stargate fan? What if fans actually get a movie we love? What if the movie even excites new fans and is a success at the box office?
Then Gaters can get excited because a series wont be far behind and the sleeping giant of sci-fil will once again awaken!