Warner Bros May Be Ready To Bring Babylon 5 To The Big Screen.

January 19th, 2009 | Published in Movie News | 2 Comments

Breaking News from Skewed and Reviewed.

So JMS says that there is no more Babylon 5 unless it is a full picture and is ready to leave the series be rather than compromise it with on the cheap sequels. Seems that despite the series constantly selling better than Warner dreamed of, they always do it cheap. Well as he prepares for New York City Comic Con, JMS, series creator says that now that he is doing films, (The Changeling), and (Upcoming Forbidden Planet), and that he is getting award talk, Warner Bros has initiated contact to ask JMS just how “Big” does it have to be in order to bring Babylon 5 to the screen.

I confirmed this through a JMS source and we are breaking the news to you fans first. I will believe it when and if shooting starts, but I am happy to see that Warner Bros has initated the conversation rather than the other way around.

JMS: When I set out to write and create Babylon 5, it was with the
intention of doing a five-year story and then you get out clean. We did
that. Everything we set out to do, we did. My error was in falling so
much in love with that universe, and the cast and crew, that I was
tempted — and succumbed to that temptation — to keep it going. Some of
the first TV movies were worth doing, such as In the Beginning. Others
less so. Some of it added to the B5 legacy, some of did not, mainly
because we were always fighting budgetary concerns that substantially
limited where the story could go. But when you’re in love, you don’t see
those things until later, in retrospect.

The first rule of subsequent storytelling is Do no harm to the original.
So in terms of the future, the only thing that would compel me to return
to the B5 universe would be if WB came around and said “Here’s enough
money to make a Really Big Movie, go and write whatever you want.” I
don’t think the fans are owed more B5 sui generis, but I do think the
fans might be owed more good B5. Ironically, WB never seemed interested
in doing a big B5 movie just on its own terms, in recognition for what
it is and was. But now that I’m suddenly doing all this movie work,
they’ve started calling and saying, “So, how big a movie would it have
to be for you to come back and make a B5 movie for us?” So we’ll see.

Gareth