New StarGate series Prime Video.
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The New Stargate Series Will Take A While
With a writers' room assembling in January, series creator Martin Gero says that longsuffering fans should expect production to last around two years.
Stargate fans are ecstatic about the announcement that a new series is finally in the works, continuing the franchise for a new generation of fans. Amazon MGM Studios revealed last month that Stargate Atlantis veteran Martin Gero is creating the show for Prime Video, where it will stream globally.
On the heels of the recent news that the writers’ room will convene in the L.A. area in January, Gero has given us a better sense of the production’s timetable — and just when we might see the show on our screens.
“We’re starting the writers’ room on the other side of the year,” Gero told GateWorld and Dial the Gate. “These things take about two years, give or take. It might be a little shorter, it might be a little longer — hopefully it’s not longer. Just to set everybody’s expectations, it’s going to be a minute. We wanted to announce early because we didn’t want it to leak. … It had been 20 or 30 people inside the company that had known about it, and to make a show you have to hire 400 people! … We wanted fans to hear it from us, and not from a leak.”
Given the typical pattern of modern streaming series, we had speculated that if the new show was ready to go before cameras in 2026 it likely would not premiere before 2027. With the creative team assembling early next year, that debut window is now looking like it might be late 2027 or 2028. Long-time fans of the franchise are already 14 years into its hiatus, of course, so hopefully the new series will be worth waiting a little while longer — with new characters, new antagonists, and a story that is worthy of Stargate.
A longer production calendar gives Amazon plenty of time to localize episodes (including voiceovers in multiple languages) for a simultaneous global release. And, of course, it also allows the show to go big with its visual effects ambitions.
“We have resources that we haven’t had before,” Gero said. “We’re talking to some of the biggest visual effects houses in the world … but that work takes time. It’s a gift to not have to turn around a shot in three weeks, [but] to have in some cases a year to build out a sequence.”
Details about the show’s plot, setting, characters, and even the final title are still a closely guarded secret. Gero suggested that they are aiming for a 10-episode first season, but declined to commit to that when pressed. “I’m just focused on making one great season now,” he said. “Obviously it’s not a limited series. We want it to be a bunch! But my main concern right now is just making 10 episodes that everyone is going to want a second season for. … I think we can talk more about [the final episode count] at a later date.”
Gero also revealed that he has been at work on some version of a Stargate pitch for much longer than the current iteration has been gestating, as far back as 2016. “We had a general [meeting] with MGM, and I made a case for what I thought the show should be back then,” he said. But working for MGM at the time would have been complicated by Gero’s studio development deal, which at that time was at Warner Bros. “We had had some initial talks very, very early — but it just felt like it wasn’t going to work. And then I heard Brad [Wright] was working on something … for Peacock. And then I moved my deal over from Warner Bros. to Universal, who is the parent company of Peacock, and so they started talking to me about … potentially doing Stargate.
“I got to read Brad’s incredible script, and we started talking about it. Even then we had started talking about an early iteration of what this would eventually be.” But eventually the people who had commissioned Wright’s Stargate script were no longer there, and around 2020 or 2021 Gero, Wright, and Joseph Mallozzi briefly considered starting something new. But MGM’s decision to sell the studio to Amazon put the brakes on further development.
“Sure enough, when my deal at Universal was up I was going around seeing what was available,” Gero said. “And Amazon essentially said, ‘Hey, we know you have a history with the franchise. Is this something you would be interested in? Have you thought about it?’ And I was like, ‘I’ve actually thought about it so much! I would love to talk about this!'”
Gero was in negotiations by the end of 2023, and had an initial development deal closed by June of 2024. He said that the long period of silence after the Amazon-MGM deal was completed in 2022 was not due to any lack of interest inside the company.
“To their credit, Amazon had already identified Stargate as a prime candidate for a TV show,” Gero said. “They’re just a very secretive company. They’re a tech company. So the fact that you didn’t hear anything isn’t about their enthusiasm — it was about them internally trying to figure out what to get right.”
Be sure to watch the full, hour-long conversation with Martin Gero below, or over on GateWorld and Dial the Gate on YouTube. Gero also talks about landing the job on Atlantis as a young writer, his subsequent work on shows like Blindspot and Quantum Leap — and why Blindspot is canonical to the Stargate universe! We will continue to cover the very latest on the new production in the months ahead.
I was expecting a 2027 premiere anyway. Ten episode seasons is also in line with my expectations, though I thought it'd be closer to eight.
None of this is surprising.
so, July 27th 2027.. 30th anniversary. Get it done!!
While watching this video, I thought to myself, I hope they don't cast a young cast made up of overly famous young actors who became popular through Netflix shows and have over 5 million followers on Instagram. Because if they do, it will be a huge ego battle. Similarly, please don't include actors from popular Amazon shows like The Boys, Genv, etc. It would be better if they chose actors who aren't as popular on social media as the actors in The Expanse.
Yes, please don't let that happen either.
I'm sorry, but that is absolutely insanely limiting when you consider how many stars have been on Netflix and Prime shows, and then to limit the number the Insta followers they have on top of that is pretty much going to make impossible to cast anybody with any kind name recognition. Sure are a lot of up and coming unknows who could probably do a great job, but they're going to need at least one or two higher profile actors to try to bring in the kind of numbers they're going need to support a show like this.
Thhye'll try to get a Lead actor with some name recognition (whether from previous Stargate related stuff or just someone with a level pof 'buzz' at the time.)
They'll want to be able to generate new interest and free publicity with that casting (if possible).
That's just the way Hollywood (even when filming in Canada, Georgia or Florida) works.
Yes they do want to make something to draw back the original fanbase that's waited 14+ years; BUT they also know that if they want to have a solid hit, they have to bring in new fans too.
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I don't know how many Prime Video shows and movies you watch, but Prime Video – and Netflix too – is known for taking on young actors, some of whom are relatively unknown or in their first acting roles, and making them popular. Prime Video also prefers to select and develop young actors who are unknown or in their first acting roles in many youth shows. They could do that again. As for Instagram, nowadays many famous actors are cast in films and shows based on their Instagram follower count. Yes, it's a restrictive situation, but Hollywood itself imposes this restriction.
Actually, Jason Momoa and Jensen Ackles fit this description. They could just pick the rest of the cast from young, unknown players and that would be the end of it.
They'll cast the actors who are best for the roles, regardless of how active their social media presence or what other shows they have appeared in. Like it or not, Netflix, Amazon and other streaming shows are how a lot o today's younger actors are getting their work and it would be unfair to exclude them because of that. Likewise, social media is a thing in our society which isn't going anywhere. Refusing actors because of their social media presence (provided their content isn't controversial) is the proverbial tilting at the windmills.
We live in the 2020s. This new Stargate show can't act like it's the 1990s or 2000s.
I completely agree. What I mean is that Amazon, like other shows, should cast mostly unknown but instantly popular young actors.
Most TV shows usually do start off with a cast of unknowns anyway with one may two well known actors in the lead role and/or a another integral role. Take SG-1, when it started most of its cast were unknowns aside from RDA. Atlantis's cast were pretty much all unknowns when it started, though David Hewlett had enough clout to get the special "And" billing in the credits. SGU's cast was mostly unknown aside from Robert Carlyle and Ming-Na Wen. I see no reason to expect different with this show.
In the Altman and Gross Battlestar Galactica oral history, David Eick talks about how, after the miniseries but before season one started production, the Sci-Fi Channel wanted them to cut costs by recasting the secondary roles with cheaper actors, which he thought was ridiculous. The only "name" actors were Olmos and McDonnell, and the biggest thing most of the rest of the cast had on their résumés was the Battlestar Galactica miniseries to start with. They'd already gone as "unknown" as they were going to get.
You're right. When I watched the video, for a moment I forgot that only a few names from the entire SG-1 cast might be in the show, and I thought it was something like a Star Wars sequel trilogy – a reunion of the old and new cast members. But I guess it makes sense to put one popular star on Stargate, like Jason Momoa or Jensen Ackles, and choose the rest from unknown, new actors.
I think Don Davis was fairly well known from Twin Peaks and other roles. He may not have been a big-name star, but he at least would've been in the "Hey, it's that guy" category for many viewers.
Largely because he was spun off from his recurring SG-1 role.
Huh? Jensen Ackles was never in any Stargate production.
I want people who are right for their roles and can act, have screen presence, and chemistry with the other leads. If that means some new dude with next to nothing under his belt, so be it.
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