Stargate Atlantis executive producer and writer Joseph Mallozzi has been answering questions about the first Stargate Atlantis movie that is to pick up where events left off in the series finale “Enemy at the Gate”. His most recent update indicates that they will most likely not film the movie until the fall.
“There was initial talk of a summer shoot but, given the tight scheduling, fall looks more likely,” Mallozzi stated in his March 11 weblog entry.
Back in February, following up on the controversial rumor that the first Atlantis movie had been shelved indefinitely, Mallozzi wrote plainly when accused of playing coy, “No. My way of telling you whether or not there will or won’t be a Stargate movie would be to tell you whether or not there will or won’t be a Stargate movie. Sneaky, no?”
For a while, the rumor died down, but was just recently fueled by an interview with Rachel Luttrell that was posted by Gateworld (the actual interview date isn’t known). She said, “None of us really know what’s going on and if it happens, great! Last I heard was that they were just going to kind of see how things played out in terms of viewership with Universe and potentially viewership with the SG-1 films that they have already shot. There are a lot of ‘ifs’ in place. And if it was going to happen I would be surprised if it happened this year. So there you go!”
Showing how things can change from one day to the next, Mallozzi updated fans on March 11, “SGU’s performance has no connection to the Atlantis movie. If it did, then that would mean we wouldn’t be shooting the movie until 2010 since there is talk of SGU premiering in the fall.”
Right now, Mallozzi and writing and production partner Paul Mullie have a detailed outline for the movie’s script. They are aiming to have the first draft of the script completed by next month.
So, it looks like all is on track for the production of the first Atlantis movie. Mallozzi appears to want to ease every fan’s mind that there will be a movie. MGM has green-lit it and the script is being written. They haven’t drawn up contracts yet, but obviously, they do plan to approach the actors. He told About.com, “We picked a window where the cast should be available. It’s just a matter at that point of trying to work out a deal with them, with the individual actors.”