According to a report from TV Wise, Babylon 5 showrunner J. Michael Straczynski   
   will shortly begin work on a rebooted big-screen version of his 1990s sci-fi TV   
   series. Straczynski made the announcement at San Diego Comic-Con last week.   
      
   Babylon 5’s pilot episode originally aired in 1993, with the series beginning   
   its regular run almost a year later as a foundational component of the now-   
   defunct Prime Time Entertainment Network. The show lacked the production budget   
   of its contemporary rival Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (which allegedly lifted some   
   or all of its core concepts directly from Straczynski’s original—and rejected—   
   Babylon 5 pitch meeting with Paramount). Still, it attracted enough of an   
   audience to accomplish a noteworthy feat: Babylon 5 became the only non-Star   
   Trek science fiction show on American television to reach its series completion   
   without being cancelled. Not until 2004’s Battlestar Galactica reboot would   
   another non-Star Trek show earn the same distinction.   
      
   After Babylon 5 ended in 1998, Straczynski (usually referred to simply by his   
   initials, "JMS") tried multiple times to bring a B5 movie to theaters. The most   
   recent attempt in 2004 came the closest, with a completed script and some   
   preproduction work underway, but without financial backing from Warner Bros.   
   the project had to be abandoned.   
      
   In the intervening years, JMS has worked on other projects in a variety of   
   media, including comics, television, and film; he shares a writing credit on   
   the film adaptation of World War Z, though not much from his draft made it to   
   the final Brad Pitt-produced film. The last time Babylon 5 appeared on a screen   
   of any sort was as 2007’s The Lost Tales, a direct-to-DVD project made up of   
   two episode-length vignettes set in the Babylon 5 universe after the end of the   
   main series.   
      
   According to JMS’s latest announcement, the new script will be targeted at a   
   2016 theatrical release and will be a reboot of the series rather than a   
   continuation. This is necessary for both dramatic and practical purposes—the   
   series was in regular production from 1994-1998, and the cast has simply aged   
   too far to credibly play themselves again during the series’ main timeline.   
   Additionally, several of the foundational cast members—Michael O’Hare, Andreas   
   Katsulas, Richard Biggs, and Jeff Conaway—have passed away.   
      
   However, JMS reportedly said he would attempt to use the original cast members   
   in whatever ways he could, including potentially having series anchor Bruce   
   Boxleitner play the president of the Earth Alliance (though as B5 fans know,   
   exactly which president JMS is talking about would have a tremendous impact on   
   Boxleitner’s role).   
      
   The movie rights to the Babylon 5 property remain in JMS’s hands, but the   
   creator is hopeful that this time around, Warner Bros. will choose to finance   
   the film instead of passing on it. Nonetheless (at least according to TV Wise),   
   JMS is prepared to fund the movie through his own production company if   
   necessary—something that wasn’t a possibility ten years ago—suggesting that B5   
   will in fact come to the big screen at last.   
      
   /\llen   
      
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