Babylon 5 is back
It seems like Babylon 5 is coming back. New episodes will be released on DVD. I know I’ll be preordering them as soon as possible. Joseph Michael Straczynski (JMS) was the first, as far as I know, to produce real science fiction for adults on television. Here’s what he had to say recently:
Every 6 months, I get together with WB to discuss what to do something with B5. The DVD sales have raised over 500 million in revenue. Now, I produced B5s 110 episodes at about 90 million dollars. Somehow, B5 is still 50 million in the red. Every time I mention that to WB they say We made a good deal, huh? Anyway, they asked if I wanted to do a feature film but I declined mainly because I can’t yet picture structuring a B5 movie as long as [Andreas Katsulas] and [Richard Biggs] insist on staying dead. Maybe in a year or two I’ll be able to but right now I can’t do something big and those two roles will NOT be recast.
So I thought about it, and I suggested a bunch of short films. Little mini-movies or an anthology show set in the Babylon 5 universe. I pick a character and develop an hour-long story around that character. Stories that I wanted to tell during the B5 series but never had the chance to develop. They said, Okay. I said I wanted complete creative control. Do not change my words that I write, and I want that in writing. They said, Okay. And I want to direct. They said, Okay.
This project was green lit less than two weeks ago. Its going to happen. Production starts in September in Vancouver, Canada. Post-production will occur from October to February with a release of the first three anthologies in the second quarter of 2007.
It looks like the title will be Babylon 5: The Lost Tales.
Source: slashdot.
