More 'Battlestar Galactica' TV movies to come?

Source: Chicago Tribune


There's big news on the "Battlestar Galactica" front.

There will be another set of Webisodes that will link the first 10 episodes of Season 4 and the second half of the fourth and finale season.

Even bigger news: More "Battlestar Galactica" TV movies may get made.

As Galactica Sitrep noted Thursday, an internet radio show, The Doctor and Mrs. Who, reported last night that up to three “Battlestar Galactica” TV movies may get made later this year. Several sources at the show confirm that those films are indeed being discussed right now.

BattlestarExecutives are now doing number-crunching for these proposed films, and any deals for these movies are far from done. However, it would make sense to make more “Battlestar” TV movies while the show’s creative team and actors are still all in one place, as it were. (Pictured at left are cast members Jamie Bamber, Edward James Olmos and Katee Sackhoff.)

According to one source at the network, the talk about the films is just idle chatter “at this point.” But several other sources close to the show says there is good reason for “cautious optimism” about one to three future “Battlestar” films, which would get made this summer, if they get the green light.

“Nothing’s etched in stone yet,” one source said – creative decisions haven’t been fully fleshed out and the casts have not been locked in.

And it's worth noting that "Battlestar Galactica" executive producer Ron Moore is a very busy man -- he's currently writing the show's series finale, his Sci Fi project "Caprica" is in pre-production and his Fox pilot, "Virtuality," which he co-wrote with "Battlestar" writer Michael Taylor, has been picked up for next season. Last month, he also signed a deal with United Artists for three yet-to-be named feature films.

As for the proposed "Battlestar" TV movies, "there have been scattered notions floating around as to what the movie/movies (nobody's even nailed down how many) would cover -- and then there's the issue of whether the actors will be around and affordable," one source noted.

But the films could indeed get made. And it’s important to note that these proposed films won't affect the finale of "Battlestar Galactica" in any way -- that series finale will still proceed as planned. The films would be about incidents in “Battlestar Galactica’s” past. They will not take place after the time frame of the series finale. And the stories in the proposed films will depend, at least in part, on what actors are available to work on them.

For those keeping score at home, “Battlestar Galactica” is currently airing the first 10 episodes of its fourth and final season. The current batch of episodes will finish up in early June. Production is underway on the last 10 episode of the show and the final scenes for the series finale will be shot in June. Production could get under way on the TV movies as early as July, and one source says the films could get the green light in the next two weeks or so.

By the way, at this point, it’s not known when those last 10 episodes of "Battlestar" will air. Informed sources say that a decision on that won’t get made until mid-summer, so my guess is that Sci Fi won’t the final 10 episodes until 2009.