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B5 theatrical movie to finish Crusade?

D

**DONOTDELETE**

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i found this stuff and decided to post it here
i dunno if it's a) old news, b) has been posted before or c) is actually going to happen but this is what i found:

As for the feature...that one is going to be the object of some considerable attention from me. I'll probably do what I tend to do for special stuff (should it get into development): noodle it and play with it and outline stuff until finally it refuses to wait any longer, then take a week or so and do nothing else but burn through the draft, then stick it in a box for another week, not look at it, then come back and pretend somebody else wrote it and tear it to shreds, then rebuild.

Any idea who'd direct the movie?
I wouldn't want to say anything on this issue that might preclude any discussions; everything is fluid at this time, since nothing is set.

What did you think of the trailer for the new "Star Wars" movie?
Thought it looked great...and definitely raises the idea that maybe there shouldn't be a B5 movie until after the last of the three new SW films is out and done. Ain't no way any other SF film project can compete with that.

There were some preliminary discussions about a possible storyline (none of which has been accurately reported anywhere, that info is still held only by us), but it's my feeling that a) it's best to concentrate on getting CRUSADE right first, and b) I'm loathe to compete with the new Star Wars movies, and would rather wait until that's all done, so we can also take advantage of new technologies to make the show. Simply put...I'm in no hurry. I'd rather get it right than get it done on Tuesday.

The B5 tv movies produced so far cost just a tick under $3 million.
We could almost certainly do a high-quality theatrical feature for about $35-40 million.

The average going price for a feature these days is $55 million.

so if it happens and jms' comments above are an accurate guide to the future it probably won't be out untill 2005/6
 
I've never actually seen this JMS post before, so thanks. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

But from what I can gather, it looks like this is the stuff he was talking about before all the Crusade problems started. In other words, when B5 was still hot stuff, Crusade was looking like a great new project and generally all things looked good for the B5 universe. Had Crusade got the 5 (or maybe 6 or 7?) seasons, the movie would have come out right after that and all.

So it seems to me that he was not talking about finishing Crusade off in a movie, rather that he was just getting started with the Crusade project. The telepath war is the subject most often mentioned in connection with that once-planned movie.

I would guess things would be a bit more difficult right now, with B5 becoming an "older" series and no successful follow-up, so getting a theatrical movie, considering the costs, doesn't sound - to me, anyway - quite as likely now. But of course, you never know - in a couple of years, things might be different once again, and the B5 theatrical movie plan might just seem viable again. What the subject would be... heh, I guess only JMS would know that. /forums/images/icons/grin.gif
 
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
So it seems to me that he was not talking about finishing Crusade off in a movie, rather that he was just getting started with the Crusade project.

[/quote]

Exactly. This is a quote from around the summer of 1998 when Crusade was ramping up and Warner Bros. saw "franchise" and was thinking about cashing in via a theatrical movie.

You never know. If genre films continue to perform strongly, and the DVDs do well, Warner Bros. might well consider a B5 theatrical film again. With TV shows it seems the chances of their being adapted for the big screen get better as more time passes. (Although their chance of doing so with the original cast intact diminishes.) Since the series is going nowhere fast on TV, it might make sense for Warner Bros. to produce a (relatively) modestly budgeted B5 film. That in itself could get Sci-Fi hot for another series, if the movie does well, or they could do a series of films, introducing the Rangers and eventually Crusade casts into them so that they'd have more flexibility and be less dependent on particular cast members being available.

Regards,

Joe
 
thanks for the information /forums/images/icons/smile.gif
it would be cool to see babylon 5 on the big screen, maybe a movie of Jeff Sinclair when he became Valen or something else
wb would stand to make a profit if they produced a moderately budgeted B5 movie and if jms got the script just right and got a great director in. cos once that happened and if it did well then sci-fi would probably beg jms to do another series in the babylon 5 universe.

the alternative would be to wait for that kind of sci-fi to come back into fashion with people, but i'm a bit too impatient for that...
 
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
maybe a movie of Jeff Sinclair when he became Valen

[/quote]

Virtually no chance. /forums/images/icons/frown.gif One of the points of doing a movie based on a recent TV show is to pull in the show's established base - which means people are going to want to see the main cast and the familiar universe. A Valen 1000-years-ago story wouldn't allow this. And almost any SF film that expects to draw a broader audience has to have Human (or functionally Human) main characters. Everybody in a Valen movie would be a Minbari, or maybe a Vorlon. Finally JMS has always viewed the "big payday" a feature film would bring as a way to reward the main regulars for all their hard work on the series. So he'd want a plot that would involve as many of them as possible. That's why he wrote the feature film outline in 1998 about the Telepath War, because it gave him a reason to use nearly all of the characters. (Even Sinclair and/or Marcus could be brought in via flashbacks.)

Best of all, the Teep War story is relatively self-contained, and wouldn't depend on prior knowledge of the B5 universe, so non-fans could enjoy it. Nor would the ultimate resolution of its major plot threads be left to future events covered in the series. This is a major reason why JMS mostly avoided the whole period in Crusade, the Rangers pilot and his outlines for the Del Rey trilogies.

Regards,

Joe
 
Right on, and to date, we've only received snippets and bits of information from the war: the flashbacks from Matheson's POV in Crusade; the short story written by J. Gregory Keyes (The Nautilus Coil), set about midway through the war; and finally, the information that JMS allowed Mr. Keyes to insert into the third Psi-Corps novel, which was a fairly good amount.

As Mr. DeMartino and others have pointed out here in the past, it seems clear that Straczynski has been writing around the Telepath War, both in the hopes of keeping the story fresh, as well as to hopefully someday present it in a "prestige" format...whether that would be in a feature film, or some other medium is yet to be seen, but it remains probably the single biggest "untold tale" in the entire Babylon 5 canon, with the Crusade resolution coming in a very close second place. /forums/images/icons/wink.gif
 
I wouldn't discount the possibility of a B5/Crusade film appearing sometime in the future. Star Trek TOS was dead and buried for about 10 years before it was resurrected in film. Crusade is definitely a black mark against JMS but through no fault of his own (damn TNT). Having read the proposed story arc for Crusade S2 in the other thread, there is definitely potential there (moreso than Star Trek).
 
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
<font color="yellow"> Originally posted by Rorschach: </font color>
Crusade is definitely a black mark against JMS but through no fault of his own (damn TNT).

[/quote]

Then why do I enjoy it so much, if it's a black mark? TLaDiS is much more of a black mark, IMO.

A black mark in the eyes of the myopic TV industry and the Sci-Fi Channel? ... maybe. I swear, it's a bonifide MIRACLE if anything good gets picked up anymore.

Sci-Fi had the chance to erase any perceived black mark of Crusade, but alas, they had no balls, and probably never will.

/forums/images/icons/mad.gif
 
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
they had no balls, and probably never will.


[/quote]

TV Executives never do. They always go with what is safe and will get them the most money in their pockets.
 
Unfortunately, it's not up to JMS to make a movie of any sort.

It's up to the money guys at WB Studios.

As to Star Trek being "dead and buried", that myth keeps growing, but it couldn't be further from the truth.

Star Trek had fortune of being around before cable developed and caused the TV universe to fragment. Even when it was canceled, Star Trek had higher ratings than many "hit" shows do today. It then went immediately into broadcast--not cable--syndication, where it got great ratings there.

There was also a cartoon series in there and loads of Star Trek conventions. (When the last time in the U.S. that B5 had a well-attended convention just about B5?)

It also had demographics on its side. The show's young NBC viewers were just getting out of college and in the prime Adults 18-34 demographic group when 1979 was rolling around.

None of these "media environment" conditions exist with Babylon 5. They may never exist again.
 
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
<font color="yellow"> Originally posted by SavantB5: </font color>
Unfortunately, it's not up to JMS to make a movie of any sort.

It's up to the money guys at WB Studios.

[/quote]

So who do we have to write to, to let them know we want to see a Babylon 5 theatrical release, ...say about the Telepath War?


</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
<font color="yellow"> Originally posted by SavantB5: </font color>
Star Trek had higher ratings than many "hit" shows do today.

[/quote]

That's because the pie wasn't so fragmented back then. Their ratings may have been low relative to hits of that day and age.


</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
<font color="yellow"> Originally posted by SavantB5: </font color>
When the last time in the U.S. that B5 had a well-attended convention just about B5?

[/quote]

Well, since I'm in the northeast (US), and the really big B5 conventions are no where near me, I've never seen a convention just about B5, well-attended or otherwise.
 
Savant's point about Warner Bros. having to decide to finance such a feature film is correct, of course. I didn't mention it because I thought the could safely be assumed. Probably a mistake on my part. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Their ratings [for Star Trek]may have been low relative to hits of that day and age.

[/quote]

Actually, Trek was cancelled just on the cusp of a change in the way Neilsen calculated the audience, providing more accurate demographics on people actually watching, rather than merely reporting households with a TV tuned to a given station. Had this system been introduced even a year earlier, it is quite likely that Star Trek would have completed its third season and gone on from there, even saddled with the Friday night death slot. (A number of folks at NBC confirmed this in the years immediately after the show's cancellation.) Moved to an earlier timeslot the show would probably have done very well - as it did when local TV stations habitually ran it around the dinner hour.

B5 has never had the kind of "rerun rebirth" that Trek did, and likely never will. (Although the constant reruns have gradually increased the fan base.)

I disagree about the conventions, though. While the early Trek conventions were more-or-less "pure Trek" (and attracted only a couple of thousand people), the later cons were much more general, including lots of non-Trek panels and attracting a broader Sci-Fi audience. In the mid-to-late '70s you'd see the same fans (and the same dealers) in January at the annual Trek convention in New York and in July at the N.Y. Comic Art convention, and eventually at the Creation Cons which ran in November. Trek may be the headliner at modern "Trek" conventions, but all the folks who attend them are not necessarily Trek fans.

Regards,

Joe
 
Re: B5 theatrical movie to finish Crusade, I think of a B5 Crusade movie as something to <font color="red">ignite</font color> interest in Crusade, not complete the Crusade story. They'd never be able to pull that off (complete the Crusade story) in a two hour movie.
 
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
So who do we have to write to, to let them know we want to see a Babylon 5 theatrical release, ...say about the Telepath War?


[/quote]

Always with the letters and petitions...

When are you guys going to get the realization that to make anything happen in Hollywood you have to haul your butt out to L.A. and do a meeting?

You gotta take them out to The Ivy wearing you Armani suit, park your Mercedes with the valet, and pull out your American Express Platinum Card.

That's how things work. /forums/images/icons/cool.gif
 
</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
<font color="yellow"> Originally posted by NAME: </font color>
Always with the letters and petitions...

When are you guys going to get the realization that to make anything happen in Hollywood you have to haul your butt out to L.A. and do a meeting?

You gotta take them out to The Ivy wearing you Armani suit, park your Mercedes with the valet, and pull out your American Express Platinum Card.

That's how things work. /forums/images/icons/cool.gif

[/quote]

Every B5 fan in the US can't do that. I was coming at it from the angle of demonstrating to them that there IS a market.

If a meeting, dinner at some ritzy place in L.A., an Armani suit and a Mercedes are "requirements" to get them to hear that there is a market, well, the hell with them.
 
First of all, it's good to be back having gone AWOL sor such a long time! In response to an earlier criticism of TV execs I'd like to point out something else. JMS was sickened by their amoral stance towards plotlines in Crusade, what they tried to make characters do, influencing motivations and trying to swing a large emphasis of plot on sex and violence (yes because it sells). B5'ers know what they like, intelligent scripting and in-depth characters, don't need gratuitous stuff in there at all. Whenever jms raised the subject matter of violence and exuality, it was rarely gratuitous, it was normally essential to the plot. TV execs are sick in the head, they market teenagers and schoolkids as pop icons, and we wonder why we have so many paedophiles wandering about, tv execs actively encourage it with their banal attitude! Sorry just getting a bit of angst off my chest here. /forums/images/icons/mad.gif /forums/images/icons/mad.gif /forums/images/icons/mad.gif
 
Just to point out though, I am not saying that the things that TV execs market are the cause of psychological problems, merely that they provide ammunition and incentive to people who are that way inclined.
 
Well, If every fan paid a bit, maybe we could afford to send someone out there! Who would get to go? /forums/images/icons/wink.gif
 
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