Posted in: MGM Television, TV | Tagged: stargate

Stargate SG-1 Co-Creator Feeling Confident About Franchise's Future

Stargate TV co-creator Brad Wright on why he's optimistic that a studio will "take their time" and eventually revive the franchise.

In the age of streaming, content comes at a premium as platforms are always looking for original content or revivals that may have built-in dedicated fan bases. Sci-fi has certainly seen its share of original series and revivals, including its most famous in Star Trek and Star Wars. Since the mid-1990s, Stargate emerged as a force, originally as a theatrical hit for MGM from director Roland Emmerich and co-writer Dean Devlin. The studio developed the IP into a TV empire thanks to Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright, starting with Stargate SG-1 in 1997, which would spawn two other series with Stargate: Atlantis in 2004 and the short-lived Stargate Universe in 2009. Sadly, beyond the web-oriented Origins limited series in 2018, MGM hasn't produced a proper TV series since Universe's cancellation on SYFY in 2011, and with Amazon's acquisition of MGM Studios in 2022, Wright's waiting on the right opportunity to fire up those chevrons again.

Stargate TV Co-Creator Very Optimistic About Franchise's Future

"Yes, there probably will be another Stargate," Wright told fans at FedConn 33 in Germany (via Gateworld.net). "No, I don't know when. … These are smart people. They know that they don't want to piss of the people that love the existing franchise that they just spent a ton of money on. And they learned the lesson from another show recently (that I won't mention) that they should stick to what the fans already love a little bit. I don't know — I have not had this conversation — but I'm pretty confident that they're going to try to find a new audience while not alienating the old audience. … I think they would be crazy [to] alienate the existing fan base, and not to keep in mind that Stargate belongs in the here-and-now."

Amazon has a deluge of IPs from MGM that it can play with: James Bond, Rocky/Creed, and RoboCop, to name a few. Stargate alum Devlin and Glassner have been collaborating on their SYFY space sci-fi drama The Ark, with season three in development. When it comes how far along creatively Wright is on the Stargate revival/reboot, he told Bleeding Cool in 2021 before Amazon's acquisition, "I wrote a pilot for [MGM who asked] and the timing could not have been worse in terms of delivery because the pandemic hit pretty much as I was typing the end."

Since then, Wright told the crowd, not knowing what form the return may take, "Amazon bought MGM in no small way because Stargate is one of their assets," he said. "So I don't know when — but I promise you they will do something. And because they're taking their time, that just means that it's going to be cool … I'm hoping! Because I'm going to be a fan — just like everybody else in this room — of the new show." For more, you can check out the video.

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