Red Sparrow Director Offers Battlestar Galactica Movie Update
The director of Red Sparrow still intends to film a cinematic reboot of the cult sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica, and will provide plenty of nods to the original incarnation. In an interview, Francis Lawrence states that he’s a huge fan of both versions of the show and wants to make an appropriate film that will please everyone.
Lawrence started out filming numerous music videos, before helming Constantine and I Am Legend. He then went on to direct the last three entries in The Hunger Games franchise, before reuniting with Jennifer Lawrence for the upcoming spy thriller Red Sparrow. However, he was first linked with a reboot of Battlestar Galactica as far back as September 2016. Little has been heard about the project since then and there have been no further updates regarding it until now.
Speaking to Coming Soon, Lawrence confirmed that the Battlestar Galactica film is indeed still in development and offered up its current status, as well as the reasons why he was drawn to it, saying;
I’m working on that, that’s something I’m developing. I’m working on that with Lisa Joy, who is one of the creators of “Westworld.” The original series was actually one of the first sets that I ever went on. I remember being a kid and loving that show and they were filming near my house and my mom took me down there and I got to try on a Cylon helmet … There will definitely be visual nods. We’re all fans of both series so there will definitely be nods, but for it to be worth doing for us we have to have our own take on it.
While the original television series that started airing in 1978 was pretty much a Star Wars ripoff – and in fact mashed-together episodes played in theaters as feature-length films – the Glen A. Larson-created show did strike a chord with sci-fi fans. This was partly due to the well-designed spaceships and other memorable imagery, including the robotic Cylons.
The nostalgia for the show carried over to the Syfy channel reimagining in 2003, which took the central concept into much more mature territory. The once-alien Cylons were now revolutionary androids, and the militaristic tone was accompanied with plenty of mind-bending plot-twists. The series gained plenty of awards and acclaim, and was followed up with the prequel TV series Caprica, and the web series spinoff Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome. Lawrence has plenty of source material to choose from, and it looks like he will be leaning towards the 70s incarnation for visuals, whilst retaining some of the mature themes present in the reimagined version.
The future film and TV schedules are certainly filling up with a huge number of reboots, and it might seem like too short a time has passed between the last Battlestar Galactica and this one. That said, this new incarnation will be a big-budget version designed for the big screen, which is fresh territory for the franchise. It’s interesting to note that the 80s sci-fi series V may also be getting the same treatment soon. Hopefully the project will eventually proceed past the development stage, and Lawrence and Joy will soon be bringing fans new versions of Adama and Starbuck.
