Francis Lawrence and Lisa Joy to Adapt ‘Battlestar Galactica’ Movie

The recent (and somewhat unnecessary) backlash towards the Ghostbusters reboot might be sign that moviegoers and fans are getting tired of classic franchises being rebooted. And, to some degree, it makes a bit of sense: either Hollywood has really begun running out of original film content for audiences or they are really pushing just how far they can sell our nostalgia back. However, as much as we hate to admit it, Hollywood doesn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon, as sources have confirmed to Variety that Westworld writer Lisa Joy has been hired to adapt the classic Syfy series Battlestar Galactica into a movie.

For quite some time now, Universal Studios has been aiming to make a movie re-imagining of the BG franchise, and although no casting choices have been established yet, there are reports of talks with Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2) to direct the upcoming film. The film will also be overseen by Universal’s Vice President of Production, Jay Polidoro, which suggests a good amount of involvement from the studio. Hopefully, this means that they are going to take great care and caution with this classic science-fiction series.

Of course, this raises the big question of just how Universal will be able to faithfully recreate/reimagine Battlestar Galactica in a manner that will appease fans of the show. After all, there has already been a reimagining of the franchise before: the 2003 series, which was so beloved by critics and fans alike that Time Magazine ranked it as one of the “100 best TV shows of all-time.” This highlights the difficulty of adapting TV shows into movies, which are not restricted to merely two hours but instead can go on for numerous seasons in telling a story. Unlike something like Star Trek, in which each episode is self contained and usually doesn’t require a chronological viewing, BG’s seventy-five episode legacy goes into great detail about the battle between humans and the alien Cylon race, all the while discussing religious and political themes and comparisons to modern society. Even though there has been success in adapting such stories, it is still much more difficult to condense so much source material into one feature-length film without leaving key details out. Here’s hoping this adaptation goes the path of The Fugitive instead of The Last Airbender.