Here's a short little blurb from AICN. Not much to go, but I'd be happy with a new Babylon 5 series or movie if the effects are up to par. More BABYLON 5 On The Way??
I know he's said the only way we'll ever see it again is if it's a real movie, but maybe somebody can foot the bill for something decent. Let's face it - Lost Tales was disappointing. They should have stayed lost. There's no way that a big screen movie is going to draw the audience that it needs, so I don't know what is up his sleeve.
I doubt that anything would happen, since JMS refused to do any more Babylon 5, unless he has complete creative control and a sufficiently high budget.... which practically translates into a motion picture without any studio inteference. Problem is, he's not George Lucas.
He should just let it die. A movie would most likely fail, a TV show would work but there isn't a network for one.
This shouldn't even have been reported as news. Seriously...they commented on a reply on his facebook page?
As the article states there's been odd rumblings about a possible new B5 project on and off for a few years, most likely a film given his new-found recognition in that strata of Hollywood and from what I gather making Jeremiah put him off doing another TV show for a while (as if Crusade wasn't enough of a deterrent.) As for the feasibility of a B5 movie it's certainly a tricky proposition as, in order to be financially successful it must be accessible to people who've never even heard of the show The problem with that is (assuming it's not a square one reboot) it may end up having little to do with the show at all. So it's certainly a tricky balancing act. Personally, what I'd like to see is a limited mini-series like the ones HBO is so good at or The Walking Dead. Maybe just 6 episodes or thereabouts. Enough to tell a substantial tale but still punchy. I know I've said this before but I really think the first of the three Psi Corps novels (Dark Genesis) would be ideally suited for this format. Just from a practical stand point it takes place almost entirely on Earth, about 100-180 years from now so the production design can be much more grounded. On top of that the entire cast would be new as none of the established characters appear, and since it's a prequel with it's own story it should be accessible to new audiences.
I read the actual response that is "reported" on AICN (yes I have that page on my facebook) and he is actually responding to someone's wall post on his page about further projects. He essentially says that the only thing that he would do is a feature film so that he would have creative control over it. I'd personally be up for more B5 books.
Yeah, it seems rather stupid to take such a short comment on Facebook and report it as "possible news." Hell, "Ask me again after next April" probably only means that, right now, that'd be the earliest opportunity he'd even have to think about any new B5 project!
I would think that is the only B5 we might see, but no movie or series. Crusade 1998-99 tv series was a new direction that unfortunately failed, it was basically a remake of Star Blazers:Quest For Iscandar 1979-80 animated series with Earth has a limited time and a prototype Excalibur starship with a massive main weapon looking for the cure.
"Ask me again after next April" It could simply mean that something related to Babylon 5 might be given the greenlight by then--or it might not. It's neither a denial or a confirmation of a project in development, but a lot of entertainment news is like that these days, IMO.
Eh. I'm not going to bat for them very strongly or anything, but it was passable B5 fare, a reasonably okay return to the universe with new CGI. I can't imagine them ever giving JMS a high budget for a Babylon 5 project, and isn't that what he wants? I could see bargin-bin producton values as is the franchises' hallmark, but nothing too flashy.
Ask him on April 1st, more like. Even if this were real, my thinking for a long time has been that while JMS created an undoubtedly great show in B5, he does not seem to be able to recreate that magic on any return to that universe. It doesn't seem to have provided the same 'return to the well' magic that Trek has. The tv movies were okay, far from essential and Crusade was total cack. Haven't seen Legend of the Rangers but the general view seems to be that it was more of the same. Perhaps there is potential in the B5 universe for more stories, be they sequels, prequels, spin-offs or reboots but I don't think JMS can tell them alone. If more B5 is to be made, he needs to bring in co-writers. Certainly Trek would never have been anywhere near as good if Roddenberry had written it all by himself.
^ I think that's partly because, ironically, of Babylon 5's greatest strength. The universe was created to tell a specific story, a story that ultimately gives a rather fulfilling outline of the entire damn universe. We get a sense of its ancient history and distant future and how the five years on the last, best hope for peace play in all that. It's the same problem Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica faces. Crusade and Caprica, for all that did and did not work in either title, were almost side stories to the central narrative addressed in the main series (this is especially true of Crusade, as at least Caprica was touching a central and mostly unelaborated part of the BSG mythos). Star Trek, by contrast, has always been a more episodic, free-floating franchise which has never structured itself the way these serialized shows did... and as such has proven a little more malleable as a concept. There aren't a checklist of Big Questions and one single all-embracing galaxy-spanning myth arc... and so we can go on and on.
I'd mostly like to see a wrap up of the Crusade storyline, as a movie or, preferably, a mini-series; I wish they had resurrected Crusade instead of wasting time on Legend of the Rangers. As for Lost Tales, I enjoyed it well enough. I wish he had been able to do a few more.
After the crap we got served up with (though I did like Sheridan's TLT), I hope we don't see a TV show unless its in the BSG mold rather than Legend of the Rangers. I'm sure SyFy are looking for new shows? Crusade had potential, but the Lucasesque use of CGI ruined it. I just can't see what else they had left to cover in the universe, the telepath war sounded rather uninteresting and wouldn't suit TV. I think Crusade done properly could work, its a simple enough concept.
He couldn't get the budget he wanted for further LOST TALES. So the idea was scrapped. This all strikes me as pretty cryptic. Basically, I'll believe it when I see it.