Economy Is Delaying The SG1 And Altantis Movies

[bigdaddy]

That long tradition of fictional Presidents was not one the show took part in until a new President was shown in office in the final three episodes of season seven. That's why the President(s) beforehand were always off screen, and why General Michael Ryan played himself in season four. Cheyenne Mountain was even a real facility inside of a mountain and closed off to visitors! The writers openly lauded themselves for producing a series that could be taking place in the present day several times in the early years, on audio commentaries and in interviews.

But the series definitely got away from that idea as it went along, introducing a fictional president (who took office in the spring of 2004 ) and having massive alien spacecraft (and our own massive spacecraft, that were somehow built on Earth entirely in secret) enter orbit over and over again but eluded discovery from numerous observatories on Earth. Hell, by the ninth season, a whole building in Seattle (well, they called Vancouver Seattle, anyway) was transported into space in front of hundreds of spectators and nobody was the wiser!

And yet, what is the number one reason repeated again and again in (recent) interviews as to why the series won't reveal the Stargate publicly? But of course--because the series takes place in the 'real world.'

Yeah. Okay. Whatever.

I like you. That's exactly right, it's not the real world, it's a fictional TV show and there are several reasons why the Stargate needs to come out, every time something huge happens no one notices, it's extremely silly. Of course they build huge secret ships and no one knows!

The series had always taken place in relative real time before (Why else is the episode called '2001,' besides as another callback to Clarke?).

I really like you.

 

[David cgc]

And what's the diff with Cheyenne Mountain closing - did they ever use the location for anything but establishing shots?

Well, all things being equal, they'd probably ignore it, but since they heavily redressed the sets to stand in for an off-world base for the Universe pilot, and I'm not sure what condition they're in now, it might make for a convenient excuse to redesign Stargate Command if they can't get it back to the way it was.

 

[Hyperspace05]

But the series definitely got away from that idea as it went along, introducing a fictional president (who took office in the spring of 2004 ) and having massive alien spacecraft (and our own massive spacecraft, that were somehow built on Earth entirely in secret) enter orbit over and over again but eluded discovery from numerous observatories on Earth. Hell, by the ninth season, a whole building in Seattle (well, they called Vancouver Seattle, anyway) was transported into space in front of hundreds of spectators and nobody was the wiser!

And yet, what is the number one reason repeated again and again in (recent) interviews as to why the series won't reveal the Stargate publicly? But of course--because the series takes place in the 'real world.'

Yeah. Okay. Whatever.

Yep!

The problem seems to be that the writers and producers want to have "have their cake and eat it too".... They want the Stargate program to stay secret so they can claim in takes place in the "real world", yet they also want massive [earth built!] space ships in epic battles like Star Wars.

It just isn't meshing together, and it hasn't really since the Prometheus was created.

Do they have any idea how blindingly obvious a massive space ship in earth orbit would be? Noone could miss it!!! During night time the outlines of such a ship in LEO would be clearly visible to the naked eye.

 

[Harvey]

I really like you.

Well, don't get carried away. I am a Ronald D. Moore bootlicker, after all.

 

[bigdaddy]

And what's the diff with Cheyenne Mountain closing - did they ever use the location for anything but establishing shots?

Well, all things being equal, they'd probably ignore it, but since they heavily redressed the sets to stand in for an off-world base for the Universe pilot, and I'm not sure what condition they're in now, it might make for a convenient excuse to redesign Stargate Command if they can't get it back to the way it was.

There are rumours flying around that will be the excuse to make a smaller SGC because they are out of room to have sets for movies and TV shows.

 

[TemporalFlux]

There's an article at Yahoo that may give broader perspective on how financial woes are affecting the production of new DVD movies.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio ousts Sloan as CEO

Struggling Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is turning to a turnaround expert who has helped businesses from energy to doughnuts to help it dig out from billions in debt.

The studio said Tuesday it hired Stephen Cooper, the former CEO of such ailing businesses as Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. and Enron Corp., to join an "Office of the CEO," which replaces Chief Executive Harry Sloan.


...


The studio has made about $500 million a year in revenue from its library of 4,000 movies and TV shows including a range of James Bond classics, but declining DVD sales have cut that by about 5 percent this year.


It also abandoned talks last year to continue selling its movies to CBS Corp.'s Showtime pay TV channel and instead took a 28.6 percent stake in Epix, a fledgling pay channel to be launched in October with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures.


Epix has so far struck just one deal with a distributor, Verizon Communications Inc.'s FiOS network, which has 2.5 million customers.


...


Sloan began his tenure at MGM in October 2005 and agreed last August to continue as CEO through October 2011, but was an apparent casualty of the collapse of the credit markets and an industrywide decline in home video revenue.

 

[Kpnuts]

That long tradition of fictional Presidents was not one the show took part in until a new President was shown in office in the final three episodes of season seven. That's why the President(s) beforehand were always off screen, and why General Michael Ryan played himself in season four. Cheyenne Mountain was even a real facility inside of a mountain and closed off to visitors! The writers openly lauded themselves for producing a series that could be taking place in the present day several times in the early years, on audio commentaries and in interviews.

But the series definitely got away from that idea as it went along, introducing a fictional president (who took office in the spring of 2004 ) and having massive alien spacecraft (and our own massive spacecraft, that were somehow built on Earth entirely in secret) enter orbit over and over again but eluded discovery from numerous observatories on Earth. Hell, by the ninth season, a whole building in Seattle (well, they called Vancouver Seattle, anyway) was transported into space in front of hundreds of spectators and nobody was the wiser!

And yet, what is the number one reason repeated again and again in (recent) interviews as to why the series won't reveal the Stargate publicly? But of course--because the series takes place in the 'real world.'

Yeah. Okay. Whatever.

Great post

 

[DWF]

But the series definitely got away from that idea as it went along, introducing a fictional president (who took office in the spring of 2004 ) and having massive alien spacecraft (and our own massive spacecraft, that were somehow built on Earth entirely in secret) enter orbit over and over again but eluded discovery from numerous observatories on Earth. Hell, by the ninth season, a whole building in Seattle (well, they called Vancouver Seattle, anyway) was transported into space in front of hundreds of spectators and nobody was the wiser!

And yet, what is the number one reason repeated again and again in (recent) interviews as to why the series won't reveal the Stargate publicly? But of course--because the series takes place in the 'real world.'

Yeah. Okay. Whatever.

Yep!

The problem seems to be that the writers and producers want to have "have their cake and eat it too".... They want the Stargate program to stay secret so they can claim in takes place in the "real world", yet they also want massive [earth built!] space ships in epic battles like Star Wars.

It just isn't meshing together, and it hasn't really since the Prometheus was created.

Do they have any idea how blindingly obvious a massive space ship in earth orbit would be? Noone could miss it!!! During night time the outlines of such a ship in LEO would be clearly visible to the naked eye.

Originally when The Lost City was meant as a movie they were going to let out the secret of the stargate, but they changed that after they didn't get to make the movie.

 

[Kpnuts]

What type of movie are we talking about? A movie that people go and see in cinemas? An SG-1 movie would NEVER make it onto the big screen.

So therefore you must mean a DVD or TV movie, which is pretty much what we got. A 2 hour (ok 1 hour 30) tv movie.

What difference does it make what format the episode is in. If they want to reveal the Stargate to the world, then why didn't they do it? No balls, no point upsetting the status quo, and perhaps even knowing deep down that they wouldn't do a very good job of it.

 

[bigdaddy]

The Lost City was planned for a real movie. They were planning the Atlantis spin-off since like season 3. The plan was have the show end with season 5, then make The Lost City as a movie where Atlantis would have still be on Earth, then the spin-off. Those plans were changed of course because the show would never end. There was also a rumour of Jonus being on Atlantis, but I think that was just made up by Jonus fans.

 

[Kpnuts]

When you say a real movie, do you mean the big screen, ie buy a ticket a to go see?

I find it hard to believe an SG-1 film would ever make it there

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

That long tradition of fictional Presidents was not one the show took part in until a new President was shown in office in the final three episodes of season seven.

It exists and is routinely accepted by audiences nonetheless. Pointing to it as reason that a series "doesn't take place in the real world" - especially a show as otherwise full of nonsense as Stargate - is obsessive and foolish. No show takes place in the real world.

No one named Joesph Friday was a homicide detective in L.A. in the 1950s, did you know that?

 

[Kpnuts]

That long tradition of fictional Presidents was not one the show took part in until a new President was shown in office in the final three episodes of season seven.

It exists and is routinely accepted by audiences nonetheless. Pointing to it as reason that a series "doesn't take place in the real world" - especially a show as otherwise full of nonsense as Stargate - is obsessive and foolish. No show takes place in the real world.

No one named Joesph Friday was a homicide detective in L.A. in the 1950s, did you know that?

You seem to have trouble distinguishing the difference between:

"takes place in the real world"

"actually happened in the real world"

 

[bigdaddy]

When you say a real movie, do you mean the big screen, ie buy a ticket a to go see?

I find it hard to believe an SG-1 film would ever make it there

Yes a real movie is tickets and popcorn and cell phones and people talking.

The DVD movies were overpriced episodes, to this day I don't know what they spent 7 million on in either movie.

Also it never did make it here, so problem solved.

 

[Skywalker]

Good thing there never was an SG-1 movie, it would have bombed terrifically.

 

[bigdaddy]

Good thing there never was an SG-1 movie, it would have bombed terrifically.

I don't think it would have.

They could have made the movie for $50 million, and that's a cheap movie, and then released it in the theaters. It would have done better than the Serenity movie, and then the DVD sales would have brought in $10 million more.

At the time it would have been made, after season 6 I think Stargate was at it's height.

 

[InvisibleGT]

They could have made the movie for $50 million, and that's a cheap movie, and then released it in the theaters.

$50 million? That's a full $20 million more than the budget of District 9, and a full $10 million more than Serenity.

If the writers were to take the series back to where it began, and deal more with exploration and discovery, there is no way it would take any budget on the level of $50 million.

 

[DWF]

They could have made the movie for $50 million, and that's a cheap movie, and then released it in the theaters.

$50 million? That's a full $20 million more than the budget of District 9, and a full $10 million more than Serenity.

If the writers were to take the series back to where it began, and deal more with exploration and discovery, there is no way it would take any budget on the level of $50 million.

They could've made a movie for about $30 million dollars and it could still have made money. The original Stargate movie cost about $70 million and made close to $300 world wide so it's possible and they already had the sets and the actors so things would've pretty simple.

 

[bigdaddy]

Stargate cost 70 million 15 years ago, that would be double today.

Also the Stargate CGI people are horrible and overcharge for their CGI.

And the movie would have been a bigger The Lost City, and I think they could have easily have done for 50ish million.

 

[Harvey]

If Stargate cost $70,000,000 in 1994, it would have cost $84,973,009.45 in 2002 (end of season 5) or $86,909,581.64 (end of season 6), using this inflation calculator (which only goes up to values of ten million, so do a little math).

They may have already had the sets and actors, but they wouldn't have come free. Surely the cast would have earned more for a big screen feature film (look at how large the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation saw their paychecks increase for their motion pictures) than they earned for the television series. The sets would have been redressed for a larger screen, just as the sets for the Enterprise-D were for Star Trek: Generations. Visual effects would have to stand muster on 35mm film prints (more money).

I don't see a big screen version being made for less than $50,000,000 in 2002 or 2003, when the film was most likely. People weren't in the same position to want as make it (and thus, make it for less) as the cast and crew of Serenity were.