A movie adaptation of Battlestar Galactica has long been in the works, but never come to fruition. It appears now that it may be percolating toward something tangible.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Simon Kinberg has signed on to write and produce Battlestar Galactica.
Kinberg’s body of work is primarily as a producer. He’s been attached to almost all of Fox’s Marvel films including the X-Men beginning with X-Men: First Class. He’s also produced New Mutants, the Deadpool movies, and even dipped his toes into television with Legion, The Gifted, and Star Wars Rebels.
His only film directing credit at this point is the much-panned X-Men: Dark Phoenix film. He also directed The 355, but that has yet to hit theaters, and it’s likely it won’t any time soon given that Hollywood is constantly delaying their films.
As for his writing credits, they include X-Men: Dark Phoenix and The 355. He also penned the horrible X-Men: The Last Stand and the 2015 Fantastic Four as well as the disappointing X-Men: Apocalypse.
He also wrote the screenplay for Robert Downey Jr.’s 2009 Sherlock Holmes film. However, he has had a lot more misses than successes.
With Battlestar Galactica, he will be paired with producer Dylan Clark, who has been the steward of the movie project for some time now.
Kinberg said in a statement, “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 and my partners at Universal have trusted me with this incredible universe.”
Universal’s senior VP of production Jay Polidoro, and director of development Lexi Barta, will oversee the project on behalf of the studio.
The movie will likely not tie-in with the series that Sam Esmail and his company are creating for NBC’s Peacock.
It’s unclear what Kinberg has planned for his Battlestar Galactica movie, The Hollywood Reporter’s Borys Kit claims he “will be starting from the ground up in telling the tale of humans on faraway planets on the run from a race of intelligent machines bent on wiping them out.”
Battlestar Galactica was originally a 1978 TV series created by Glen A. Larson, which borrowed heavily from Egyptian mythology and had a fantasy aspect.
The 1978 show included characters like Adama, Apollo, Starbuck, Athena, and Starbuck’s love interest, medical tech Cassiopeia.
There also was Apollo and Starbuck’s pal Boomer, the unforgettable antagonist Baltar, and the ever present Cylons.
It’ll be quite interesting to see two different takes of Battlestar Galactica on both the big and small screen. If in fact the show and the film are not connected. Connecting film and TV is all the rage in Hollywood now and even the Power Rangers are getting in on it.
Are you interested in seeing Kinberg work on Battlestar Galactica?