‘Galaxy Quest’ was all set to make an interstellar comeback as a television show under the guiding hand of Paul Scheer (‘The League’,’The Disaster Artist’) but now the writer has shared that it is “in a little bit of a hold pattern.” While there is a delay in production of this new Amazon series, he did share a big tease on how he plans on expanding the comedy past just “Star Trek” and into a galaxy far, far away.
The delay for the series is due to Paramount TV’s president Amy Powell having been fired which has slowed down production of many projects, including this one. The original 1999 film starred Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver in a loving homage to the “Star Trek” franchise and even has Trekkies rating it above some of the official “Star Trek” movies in the franchise. The new television series by Gran Via Productions was meant to be an updated ongoing series based around the same concept.
According to Scheer as for the reason for a delay:
“We currently are in a little bit of a hold pattern because our executive at Paramount, Amy Powell, was fired for some insensitive comments.”
He did go on to talk about the show and stressed that it wouldn’t just be drawing from “Star Trek” this time around but as hinted ‘Star Wars’ as well!
“We want to create this kind of thing that feels like this epic sequel, but a continuation. I compared it to what ‘The Force Awakens’ is to ‘Star Wars.’ It is continuing a story but bringing in new characters.”
While Scheer loves the original film, he feels that an update is necessary:
“One of my big fears is, what is so great about ‘Galaxy Quest’ is it’s a fish-out-of-water story, and I hate when you just go back to the same fish in the same pond. We need to kind of change it up.
My pitch for ‘Galaxy Quest’ was, ‘How can we kind of blow this out and pay off things for the fans that love ‘Galaxy Quest,’ but more importantly — and the thing that I really wanted to do is — appeal to the ‘me’ of now. Who’s the 18-year-old version of me that loved ‘Galaxy Quest’ now? What would they want to see? Because I think that that is a movie that we haven’t really made yet: the ‘Tropic Thunder’ in the world of modern-day science fiction.
When ‘Galaxy Quest’ came out, it was a niche thing, ‘Star Trek’ fandom is a niche thing. Now it is selling out Hall H in Comic-Con, so that’s kind of the impetus for the continuation.”
While I’m not a fan of reboots, this is the kind of show that could easily lend itself to a reboot or even a soft reboot if done right. They could easily pull off it being based on a spinoff show such as ‘Galaxy Quest: The Future Generation.’ We’re a long way off from seeing how this will be realized, even if it will be as it is in a holding pattern, but I’m hoping we find more details soon.
Are you looking forward to a television series based on ‘Galaxy Quest’? How do you think the writers will be approaching it? Share your thoughts below!
Source: The Wrap