“‘Stargate’ was a film a lot like [Devlin’s new film] ‘Flyboys’ because it’s a film no one wanted to do or fund and we had to get our funds ourselves. I thought one time about what it would be like if I didn’t do this. It’s like being a dream … and now the it’s like the dream has walked out of my mind, across the street, married someone, etc.”
While Devlin and “Stargate” director Roland Emmerich never raced to support the television series produced by MGM without their involvement, the producer said that he is proud of the success of his brain child.
“You can’t help but be proud of that, especially when no one believed in that,” he said. “There was a day we went back to the editorial suite and no one was there — everyone was gone.
“The interesting irony is that now that Flyboys is independent, we’ve made a deal with MGM to release it. And suddenly now I’m in a position where I could suddenly do those sequels. We’re in talks with MGM to do ‘Stargate’ sequels.”
MGM originally acquired full rights to the “Stargate” franchise when it signed on to distribute the film in 1994, after it had been produced by Emmerich’s Centropolis Films. Though Devlin hoped that the movie’s box office success would make a second and third feature film happen, MGM instead tapped veteran television producers Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright to create Stargate SG-1 for Showtime.
In light of SG-1‘s small screen success, MGM has for years expressed a desire to see Stargate return to the big screen, even penning a deal with Wright and SG-1 executive producer Robert C. Cooper to create an SG-1-based film.
Whether hope remains for Devlin’s original “Stargate” concept — and whether there is room for two different versions of the “Stargate” mythos — remains in MGM’s hands.
Read more about Devlin’s Comic Con comments at FirstShowing.net and ComingSoon.net. “Flyboys,” the story of a group of World War I fighter pilots, is in theaters September 29.
(Thanks to Alex Billington, Jonas, Jon Khanna and Michael Gibbins for the tip)