‘Babylon 5’ Reboot From Original Creator in Development at The CW

[moviefreak]

 

[OutOfBoose]

Curious to see how it's gonna look today... Hope they find good actors to pull it off as well.

 

[Marvolo]

THREAD

Its CW so I expect Legends of Tomorrow level quality and cringeworthy YA plotlines. I wish Amazon or Paramount would have picked this up cause this property deserve more than CW will ever give it.

 

[moviefreak]

Its CW so I expect Legends of Tomorrow level quality and cringeworthy YA plotlines. I wish Amazon or Paramount would have picked this up cause this property deserve more than CW will ever give it.

I don't think so. It's entirely JMS property and to an extent Warner Bros property rather than CW. Even though the CW's CEO is a fan of Babylon 5, it'll not likely be the same production company and setup as most of the CW shows.

What is true though is that the budget will be limited, but then JMS did it with a shoestring on Babylon 5 in the 1990s.

In any case it's been pushed back to 2023. I also read online that it could also be the case of the series being moved to streaming platforms like HBO Max during the sale of CW, it made sense seeing that streaming revenue will increase in the future while cable (CW is cable) is in a steep decline.

 

[moviefreak]

From JMS a few weeks ago on Pateron:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/b5-cw-news-62084557

B5 CW News
I will be posting a link to this shortly so that other online folks can get the news, but wanted to let Patrons here get the word first, even if only by a little bit.

Anyone who knows the history of Babylon 5 knows that the path of this show has never been easy, and rarely proceeds in a straight line. Apparently, that has not changed.

About a month or so ago it was announced that the CW Network, B5’s home for the last year while the pilot script was in active development, was up for sale. When news of this broke, the immediate question was: will this have any effect on B5? Situations like this have a way of upending development because new owners usually want to put their imprimatur on what programs go forward. Like everyone else, I’d hoped there would be no immediate impact, and that progress on the project would continue onward unabated.

A few days ago, I heard from inside Warner Bros. that there were a number of High Level Conversations taking place with the CW to determine how many pilots, and what sort, could be picked up during this transition, especially given pre-existing deals and commitments. This made sense given the preceding paragraph, but I remained optimistic.

Today, about an hour ago, Deadline Hollywood announced the slate of pilot scripts being picked up for production by The CW. Babylon 5 was not on that list.

When a pilot script is not picked up to production, 99.999% of the time, that’s the end of the road for the project, the script is dead.

However: shortly before that piece was published, I received a call from Mark Pedowitz, President of The CW. (I should mention that Mark is a great guy and a long-time fan of B5. He worked for Warners when the show was first airing, and always made sure we got him copies of the episodes before they aired because he didn’t want to wait to see what happened next.)

Calling the pilot “a damned fine script,” he said he was taking the highly unusual step of rolling the project and the pilot script into next year, keeping B5 in active development while the dust settles on the sale of the CW.

Here’s the bottom line:

Yesterday, Babylon 5 was in active development at the CW and Warner Bros. for fall 2022.

Today, Babylon 5 is in active development at the CW and Warner Bros. for fall 2023.

That is the only difference.

Would it have been wonderful if we’d gotten the green light today? Absolutely. Of course. But it seems we will have to wait a little longer. What matters is that the project is still very much alive, and when the time is appropriate, that window will give B5 fans the opportunity to express their passionate support for the series to the new owners of the CW.

As noted above: the road to Babylon 5 has never been easy. But the good news to come out of today is that the road is still very much intact.

Onward.

JMS

 

[moviefreak]

Just a fyi JMS posted a reply in the same Pateron trend on 11/02/22, not "few weeks" as I stated above (heh):

J. Michael Straczynski
Feel free to quote this anyplace the “oh, the show is dead” nonsense sprouts up.

Whenever there’s news in the TV/film business – good, bad or indifferent – there are always those who, for their own pleasure, throw dust in the faces of fans in the hope of eliciting tears. The history of B5 is rife with them. Every season they would cite sources who said the show was definitely not going to be renewed, only to be proven wrong, which never stopped them from doing the same exact thing the next season, and the next, to try and upset people.

These stories are then repeated through ignorance, arrogance, spitefulness, foolishness, clickbaitery, or the desire to appear tuned-in to an industry which they were never a part of in the first place, or to which they are no longer relevant. (Or any combination thereof.) So let me put the lie to this latest one in terms that are clear, verifiable, and unambiguous.

1) Every year, dozens and dozens of network pilots are picked up for production, or turned down. Telling those on either side of that equation where they’ve landed is not considered a big deal, it’s part of the everyday process of making TV. If the B5 pilot were dead, the network would not hesitate to say so because they’d have no reason to do so. They gain nothing by obscuring the truth. But the president of the CW network called personally (followed by a second call from his top executives) to say that they loved the script, that it was most emphatically not dead, and that they were going to roll the script into their development slate for 2023. And in the days since those calls there have been more discussions with the network and studio about how best to ensure B5’s future.

2) In the nearly 35 years that I’ve been online, and the nearly 30 years of B5 history, I have never once prevaricated or soft-pedaled the facts related to any aspect of Babylon 5. The one and only time I withheld information was in regard to Michael O’Hare’s struggle with mental illness because it wasn’t my story to tell at that time, and while he was still with us it was none of anybody else’s goddamn business. In every other instance, I have been blunt and honest and straightforward with the fans through good times and bad. Don’t take my word for it, ask those who’ve been around for those 30 years. There is nothing to be gained by saying the show’s still in development if it isn’t, and much to lose, since doing so would agitate both the network and the studio and I would hear from legal affairs within an hour of making such a statement.

3) When in doubt, always go with enlightened self-interest. In the event the pilot were not to be picked up, my contract gives me the legal right to immediately turn around and shop the pilot script elsewhere. If the CW had simply said we’re not doing it, end of conversation, I would be shouting from the metaphorical rooftops and knocking on every literal door to take it elsewhere, and the fans would know about it because their help in making that effort visible would be essential to the process. (And there are several networks who are very much aware of B5 and the fan base and how well it’s done on HBO Max who would be extremely interested in that prospect.) Saying that I and the pilot are sticking with the CW precludes the script from being taken elsewhere, so you can be damned sure I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.

It’s unfortunate that after all these years I still have to come online to do this sort of thing, but I suppose that, too, is just a part of the process.

Onward.

/QUOTE]

 

[InCali]

If Joe gets the budget and creative control he demands, I don't care who picks it up.

 

[moviefreak]

 

[moviefreak]

 

[Comicbookguy339]

I bet WB will just dismiss all the people tweeting out their support as bots and can the project.

Nexstar, on the other hand, would be complete hypocrites if they cancel it. Just recently they said that the average (linear) viewer of the CW is 58 years old and that they will start gearing their content more towards that demographic. The average fan of Babylon 5 is probably close to that age by now.

 

[:eek:]

https://www.darkhorizons.com/a-new-babylon-5-is-still-alive/