Battlestar Galactica is coming to the big screen.
Universal is planning to reboot the sci-fi franchise, with Glen A. Larson, who created the original 1970s series, set to produce.
Jack Paglen will write the screenplay for the film, which is designed to completely reinvent the franchise.
Paglen is a sought-after voice in cinematic sci-fi these days — he wrote the upcoming Paramount techno thriller Transcendence, starring Johnny Depp as a scientist whose consciousness is uploaded into an artificial intelligence that gains sentience. It is due out later this month.
The original Battlestar Galactica television show starred Dirk Benedict and Richard Hatch as hotshot pilots Starbuck and Apollo, respectively, and Lorne Greene as Commander Adama. It ran for one season after premiering in 1978 (with a short return as Galactica) and was reborn decades later on SyFy (then known as the Sci Fi Channel) under the stewardship of Ronald D. Moore.
Moore’s take on the series — which chronicled the efforts of a band of resourceful survivors to find a new home planet after a devastating attack by a race of beings called Cylons nearly eradicated humanity — starred Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell and Katee Sackhoff, and earned considerable critical acclaim during its four-season run from 2004 to 2009.
