Unofficial Buzz: Stargate in Stages

There has been some “unofficial” buzz going on about the Stargate franchise from various sources, including executive producer Joseph Mallozzi (in interviews and in his personal blog) and fan reports of actors’ recent appearances at the various conventions around the world. Hopefully, we’ll be getting “official” announcements (i.e., through MGM or the Sci Fi Channel) soon.

Stargate SG-1 Movies

We’ve been given a tentative date for the release of the first DVD, Stargate: The Ark of Truth, by Robert C. Cooper in Joseph Mallozzi’s blog: March 11, 2008. He didn’t want to be quoted for that date because it is merely a tentative one, and at the time of his statement, he qualified this release date as being specifically for North America. According to Ben Browder at Creation’s Farscape Farewell Con, held this past weekend, the actors will be given a premiere viewing of the movie in December. Script coordinator Alex Levine had said in his scifi.com blog that the final touches on the mix were due soon after the producers got a viewing of the first mix on October 19. (see Solutions Blog: “The Ark of Truth” Almost Ready for Release)

There has been no more buzz about the release date for Brad Wright’s Stargate: Continuum. However, word from Michael Shanks at the Creation Con in Secaucus this past weekend is that Brad Wright is currently penning a script for a third movie. Christopher Judge also mentioned a third Stargate movie during his appearance in New Zealand in October. As to whether or not the script includes Richard Dean Anderson as Jack O’Neill still remains a mystery, but Wright has said in the past that he couldn’t imagine a Stargate story without him.

Stargate Atlantis

According to Joseph Mallozzi, co-showrunner for Stargate Atlantis, the fifth season is already under way with the pitching and breaking of the first half of the season (of a 20-episode season). Mallozzi has stated that the current Writers Guild of America strike will not affect the production of Season Five, and that he hopes that each writer will have two scripts each to work on before they reconvene in January 2008. The writers for this season are the same as for last season, except for maybe the absence of Robert C. Cooper who wrote and directed Season Four‘s “Doppelganger”: Carl Binder, Martin Gero, Joseph Mallozzi, Alan McCullough, and Paul Mullie. Recently producer N. John Smith started working on the director slate for Season Five, and it is possible that Ken Girotti may be added to the list, which included Robert C. Cooper, Andy Mikita, William Waring, Peter Woeste, and Martin Wood during Season Four.

New episodes of Season Four are currently being aired on the Sci Fi Channel on Fridays at 10pm Eastern.

Stargate Universe

Stargate Universe is the working title for the third Stargate TV series and is being created by Robert C. Cooper and Brad Wright. According to Darren Sumner of Gateworld, Cooper and Wright recently pitched the new series to the Sci Fi Channel, and according to Mallozzi, it was a “revised pitch”, meaning that some things have changed from their initial outline. Early versions of the new series’ premise included its taking place in the present and offering chances for current Stargate characters to cross over. Whether or not the ninth chevron premise still applies is also unknown, since we don’t really know what parts of the pitch were “revised”.