5 Minutes of Premiere up on YouTube

[DWF]

A quick search at GateWorld and we have an answer.

http://www.gateworld.net/news/2007/03/third-series-is-stargate-universe/

Like many of the producers ideas, Cooper said, the idea for Stargate Universe was originally conceived as a stand-alone movie. “When we originally were sitting around talking about this we were trying to come up with ideas for a Stargate feature — not an SG-1 feature or an Atlantis feature, but a feature that would fit into the Stargate franchise that we feel we have created,” Cooper said. “We were thinking, ‘How do we create a third arm to the franchise that is very connective and that fans will feel is born out of the material that has come before, but at the same time is very much something that stands alone?’

“When it became clear that a third series was a more realistic possibility at this point from the studio’s standpoint, we figured out how to tweak that idea and give it a little more legs than it would have had as a one-off story. We always, in the back of our minds even in coming up with that concept, felt that it could launch a third series. … But now that idea has become the core idea for the new show.”

Thank you.

 

[Broccoli]

Atlantis came about in pretty much the same way.

Erm...kinda...Sort of.

Atlantis was always meant to be a TV series. The initial idea was to end SG-1 during it's 5th (then later 6th) season. Then have a SG-1 theatrical movie which would have, more or less, covered the events of "Lost City". Atlantis would have then sprung out of the events of the movie.

When SG-1 was renewed at the last minute for a 7th season, the producers decided to abandon those plans, rework the movie as the series finale and have Atlantis come on after SG-1 went off the air.

Those plans were later reworked again when SG-1 got a very early renewal for an 8th season, so "Lost City" was reworked to add a cliffhanger ending (though, I doubt this really affected the beginnings/production of "Rising" or the rest of the series).