Singer returns to Galactica!

Update :Variety has confirmed that Bryan Singer will indeed be directing a “Battlestar Galactica” feature film for Universal. Says the trade, ”[It] appears to be on a fast track and sources said that Singer could be looking at a $10 million paycheck to sign on to the film. It wasn’t immediately clear whether [Ron] Moore would be invited to write the screenplay, but it is clear that Singer will put his own creative stamp on the project as the studio indicates that the film will be “a complete re-imagination.”

I’m still not convinced it needs to be, and I’d much rather see Ron Moore’s fuckin’ brilliant TV reboot get the cinematic treatment, but gotta say, I’m a little bit less dubious about the upcoming “Battlestar Galactica” movie now – if only meekly. Why? According to HitFix, Bryan Singer (“X-Men”, “Superman Returns’) may be producing and directing the recently-announced film. If anyone can come up with a goods sci-fi epic, it’d be Bry, right?

….. But still, as I said, I don’t think it needs to be.

You’ll recall that prior to the recent SyFy series, Singer tried to get a new small-screen “Galactica” up. The idea was abandoned because of the similarities between the tragic events of September 11 and plot points in Singer’s script, but from what I’ve heard over the years, his ideas were good. (A year or two after Singer abandoned his “Galactica”, newcomer Ron Moore presented the network with a just-as-topical reinterpretation of Glen Larson’s classic series. It became the “Battlestar Galactica” most of us know and love – well those that can accept Starbuck having titties).

Drew McWeeny over at HitFix writes, “The question this raises, of course, is how close will this be to the plans that Singer had for the material before Ron Moore’s show aired? Right now, my sources indicate that the big decisions haven’t been made yet. Singer is the first major creative element to be approached, so once they sign him, they’ll go find a writer and they’ll figure out exactly which story they’re telling. It seems like he’d want to get back to the ideas he originally loved about the piece, but since that was developed with another studio, I’m not sure that would work.”.

But I’m with you Drew when he declares, “And I’m not sure I buy that Singer’s going to come in just to direct a big-screen version of the show that just finished its run. The series wrapped up pretty conclusively, with “The Plan” and “Caprica” already in motion as extensions of that story in different directions.”.

Speaking to actor Richard Hatch (from both the old and new “Galactica”) recently, it was clear that he was far from interested in seeing any new film that didn’t have Ron Moore’s name on it. But if it has to happen, Hatch suggests the film should be a prequel to the recent series.

‘’I think they should go further back like Star Trek’’, Hatch told Moviehole. ‘’It was still the characters we love, but they went back twenty…thirty… years to when they were just kids. But with Battletar, they’re just going to go back to the same timeframe we saw in the series’ and recast those roles. I don’t think Star Trek would’ve been successful if they had recast the Star Trek characters at the same age as they were in the previous films. By going back, it gave the film a window so fans could expect a change of cast. I don’t know what they’re going to do, but I love Battlestar, and I think there are so many more wonderful stories to tell. And as much as I think the original series deserves the big treatment I think the new series deserves a series of movies as well.’’

Be interesting to see how this pans out.