The producers of Stargate Universe still hope to finish out the story that they started — one way or another. Series co-creator Brad Wright has made his first public comments on Syfy’s cancellation of the series (story), stating that they have not given up yet.
“We haven’t given up on finishing the story we started,” Wright told Show Patrol. He told the site that he and executives at MGM — the studio that owns the Stargate franchise — are currently exploring several options for continuing the series in some form.
Wright heard about the cancellation news while he was on a trip, according to the site. He and several members of the SGU cast were reportedly at sea (and incommunicado) on board an aircraft carrier when Deadline.com broke the story one week ago, citing a Syfy announcement.
The cancellation was quickly confirmed via Syfy’s Twitter account, after which it became evident that at least some of the show’s cast hadn’t been informed by the producers yet (story).
Wright said that, in spite of the bad news, he was encouraged to return to find that many people were upset by it. “It’s heartening to see so many people upset about Syfy’s cancellation of the show,” he said, “but it’s important to remember that their license fee represented only a portion of our total budget.”
Brad Wright
SGU is also licensed internationally, and supported by online and DVD sales. MGM announced this week that its bankruptcy restructuring is now complete, and that the studio has secured $500 million in financing to kick-start its film and television productions — some of which may likely go into keeping the Stargate franchise alive.
Executive producer Joseph Mallozzi also commented at his blog on the current state of Stargate Universe’s future: “Obviously, it doesn’t look good,” he said. “But is this the end? Well, the Syfy cancellation makes it very long odds that we’ll be producing a third season next year. But is this the end? … The honest answer is: I don’t know.
“No, that’s not entirely true. The truth is I do know some — but only enough to say it doesn’t look good and it’s very log odds we’ll be producing a third season next year — yet still only enough to say I can’t say this is definitely the end. At least for now.”
Just what Universe‘s odds are for finishing up its major storyline — and whether this might take the form of a third season on another network, a DVD movie or two, or something completely different — remains to be seen.
Read the full story now at Show Patrol, and stick with GateWorld for the latest! The final episodes of Stargate Universe air this spring on Syfy in the United States.
Well isn’t this a nice Christmas present?
HOPE!
Merry Christmas to all!
On another network would be interesting. Which one?
Yay, we have some hope now…I wonder if “Hope” will be the name of one of the episodes to come.
MGM will hopefully use this money to film the SG-1 and SGA movies that we’ve all been waiting for!
It amazes me how one channel can have such power over the future of one show maybe you could approach Sky or someone like that. I was just getting into the story it was coming together nicely. Loved it.
Hopefully we can get both the SG-1 and SGA movies, along with SGU’s third season on a different channel.
@General Jumper One Maybe Hope will be the episode SGU’s ratings spike to 3 million. :o
we will never rest until SGU returns for another season!
Imagine this!
Stargate: UK
I like L&O: UK. Maybe Jaime Barber could do double duty. Just a thought.
Good eggnog!
Well, if all this somehow gets us an SGA movie I’m all for it!
Hope!!! this notice make me so happy!!!
The SGU story will probably continue in books or audiobooks, which is a shame since it is a very visual part of the Stargate lorE.
Please learn from your mistakes. Fans want SG-1, SGA or something new in the typical stargate style. Otherwise it won’t be watched again…
I really hope that if they do it in film format, it supersedes the SGA or SG1 films – at least those two have stories which are wrapped up. SGU’s situation is currently like being part way through the last ever copy of a book, and then someone coming up and ripping it out of your hands, and burning it.
(Plus it would greatly irritate the people who have been constantly flooding any SGU news story with negative comments (regardless of what the stroies are about) too, which would always be a plus! ;))
just make a movie to finish it off. no books or comics please. i want to WATCH it.
maybe a subscription channel for sg only on the Internet.. and DVD… let the sci-fi (bogus syfy) channel rot … there needs to be a real sci-fi network that actually cares about it’s fans…. sG franchis eis a cash cow, and there must be more than enough investors that will back it up…
Well this is potentially great news to get this Christmas Eve! Fingers crossed!
I’ll take anything I can get from the franchise. Even if they move it to a premium channel I’ll be signing up.
I am delighted to see that Bred and team won’t give up without a fight. We don’t know details yet, but something what Bred said made me curious: ““It’s heartening to see so many people upset about Syfy’s cancellation of the show,” he said, “but it’s important to remember that their license fee represented only a portion of our total budget.”” Does that mean that SyFy didn’t paid for all production costs and actually they need to find a replacement only for part of it? I didn’t know that. http://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com/2010/12/24/december-23-2010-learning-to-julienne-carrots Also it is interesting that Joseph in blog entry linked… Read more »
If Syfy’s fee represented only a portion, couldn’t they continue producing the show for the syndicated market?
I’d hate to see this end up on a crappy comic or novel. I want live action, I want actors, I want SFX, not drawings or words on a piece of paper. That’s not Stargate,.
@roodaka
ooooh… maybe they could move to Starz.
I’m hoping for AMC. It’s the only channel out there that gets it. I mean, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Walking Dead… All shows that nobody wanted, and look at those shows now. Some of the best TV out there.
As successful as Walking Dead has been, on more than one occasion reviewers have pointed out that it doesn’t have a big budget due to being on AMC, so AMC may not be able to afford something like Stargate SGU.
Starz may not be able to afford it either. As good as Spartacus is and looks, it does rely far too much on green screen. I doubt we’d enjoy seeing green screen replace location shooting when they go to other planets.
Is it too corny to say “the ship on SGU was called Destiny for a reason”?
I really hope they get the chance to finish the SGU story. I don’t mind it ending, just as long as it ends with a conclusion, not a cliffhanger.
I’m sure the season will end on a cliffhanger, most likely the Lucian Alliance’s attack on Earth.
If Atlantis is still on Earth, would they use it to defend the planet, thus leading to a full-blown crossover on season 3?
Perhaps if there were cousins who married on the show, or a special NASCAR episode, something SyFy’s new audience could relate to?
I’m enjoying it, I’d love to see it finish. I’d love to see the franchise move to a channel where the average viewer has a family tree which forks. Fine with me.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news….but this is a bit overly optimistic, I’d say. The news just recently broke and most of the production team just got back from various trips recently. Obviously they’re going to try to find a way for things to continue. That doesn’t mean there’s any actual real chance of it happening. From what I’ve seen of what’s publicly available, Syfy was putting in about $40 million per season. That’s probably 2/3 of the budget based on comments made about how much it costs to make an episode. So we’re not talking about making… Read more »
what about webisodes
You know what bothers me isn’t so much that the show was canceled, but that its ends on a cliffhanger. That’s like a black thorn in the foot of the franchise – even Star Trek Enterprise, as weak as it was at times, had a finale (as TERRIBLE as it was) when it was canceled. I’m even okay with continuing the story in novel format ala the Star Trek TV series as long as the producers state that the novels are canon. I hope that we get more than a DVD movie to conclude it because this is a series… Read more »
@PEAKKING19
They air right after the Farscape episodes.
Wow, isn’t that mythos, biggest sceptic of SGU? :) Welcome back. Long denial post, heh? Problem with your numbers is that they are pure speculation. You know where 40$ mil. number comes from? That’s right, Robbie when they started to shoot mentioned that ep cost 2$ millions without giving bigger details. That’s BS. Two parters, pilots – maybe. Regular – I really, really doubt that. Again, speculation how much SyFy covers – Brad in this article says that SyFy covers only portion of costs. Wow. How much they’re really spending? We *don’t* know. It could be half, could be 1/3.… Read more »
@ mythos These ratings you talk about are live ratings. The ratings that SyFy care’s about are live ratings. There are a lot of ppl who watch it via DVR — like myself. I can think of several channels who would want SGU — Showtime is one of those, and they don’t care about live ratings, only if people are paying a monthly fee to watch their favorite show. I know I would support SHowtime — or any other network — that takes on SGU! And hopefully they would keep the series for at least 3 more seasons, if not… Read more »
Mythos, you have a grand total of ZERO facts or verified information, therefore you have no “bad news” to be the “bearer” of. Just like everyone else, you have absolutely no clue what is going to happen to SGU (or SGA and SG1 for that matter). So please stop writing mega posts that try to make out like you know what you’re talking about when you clearly don’t.
Also Lightmaker, it’s Jamie Bamber, not Jaime Barber.
@Pecisk – I’ve been here the whole time. And I’m not an SGU skeptic. I was pretty certain it would fail based on the facts of the falling ratings and the blatant disregard of the long-standing fans by the showrunners. That I turned out to be right isn’t because I knew anything that others didn’t, it was simply an educated guess based on what’s out there. But I also thought that it stood a chance for a third season because of MGM’s situation. As long as the show was making money, it seemed likely that both parties would go forward… Read more »
By the way, I’ve had a DVR for 10 years. It’s not that new of a technology. The DVR conversations were going on during SG1 as a reason for the drop in ratings. Seriously, get over it. SGU failed. It’s over. I’m sorry that the story won’t be told but they dug their own grave. It’s amazing that people are so intent on trying to pretend that the show didn’t fail when by all measurable means it did. It’s time to say goodbye to it. I’ve watched Stargate since it began and now, thanks to SGU failing to perform, it’s… Read more »
Until they strike the sets, there’s hope of some sort of follow up or moving the show somewhere else.
how about cw that would be great. its smallvilles last season i hate to say .then you can put sgu back on fridaynights in smallville time spot. heck any spot on cw would be great as long its back on the air
ps and these mid season breaks is where u are losing fans
All I’m going to say is: this is a great piece of news to receive on Christmas Eve! Thank you GW for making my day even more awesome! Thank you Brad for being so loyal to SGU!
and what about some movies you havce been talkingabout for years .sga sg1 would be great
@ mythos … again. The DVR discussion has been in high gear ever since Atlantis, really. Maybe SG-1 too, towards the end, but I wasn’t online paying attention to SG-1’s ratings back then. But go back and see that with live+7 (DVR ratings) you will see improvement — if that was live, then we would have more seasons @ SyFy. Also, with Hulu there are a lot of people who want SGU via Hulu or even Netflix (my friend only has Netflix so he watches it that way). How many people watch it via Hulu or Netflix? No way of… Read more »
MGM could always partner with someone like Sky or DirectTV, or someone else that gains from having SGU on the air to broadcast the show.
Well, didn’t SyFy buy the airing rights for the whole SG franchise for the US territory? Wasn’t that the reason why they couldn’t shop SG-1 around after SyFy canceled it? I doubt that SyFy would give up those rights just because SGU failed, with them they would lose the right to air any other future show/movie.
Why NOT get funding from a combination of foreign channels!? They all air it! Spirit of co-operation!
In America, how about the channel G8?
If they do a film format, there better damn well be MORE THAN 2 FILMS…. this story deserves a proper telling!
Could Syfy’s deal be moved to some of the other networks owned by NBC, like USA, NBC, or any other?
NBC = Comcast.
Love to see a fitting end to the SGU story.
Let them finish the story with a direct to dvd movie.
@michael Sacal
I was under the impression that Spartacus was shoot infront of a green screen so they could add a highly stylised visrual background, which lets face it adds greatly to the whole Spartacus experience. Also from what I understand, the budget for season 1 (13 eps) was about $35m-ish (One or the produces said they had about half the budget of ‘300’ which was $70m)
why does it always have to be about the benjamines and why cant it be about the fans for a change all the stargates were great shows with great stories. i think syfy sucks for cancelling the shows like they did. I guess they have to have that wrestling crap on instead. i wont be watching syfy much anymore that is for sure. long live Stargate all of them, BSG and Caprica
Really? I didn’t know those details.