It’s been fully a decade since The Ark of Truth and Stargate: Continuum arrived on DVD. It was a new era for long-form storytelling in the Stargate universe, and the show’s writers hoped that the DVD market would remain strong enough to support new SG-1 and Atlantis adventures for years to come.
History proved otherwise, of course. In his appearance on stage at Gatecon: The Invasion last month, Brad Wright — co-creator of all three Stargate television series — told fans about that day when MGM pumped the breaks on additional Stargate movies.
“I called MGM and they said, ‘Could you just slow development back a bit? We’ve got some weird numbers coming out …'” Wright told the crowd. “And we said, ‘OK.'”
Jack O’Neill would have been at the center of the third SG-1 movie.
“About a month went by and they said, ‘OK, we’re going to have to put the movies on hold.’ And I went, ‘Really?‘”
Two movies were on the drawing board in 2009, following the successful DVD releases of the two Stargate SG-1 films. Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie completed a script for Stargate: Extinction, continuing the story of the city of Atlantis. And Wright and Carl Binder were working on SG-1’s third film — the Jack O’Neill-centric Stargate: Revolution.
The production studio fought to keep Stargate’s sets in Vancouver standing for as long as possible, despite the ongoing costs to rent the sound stages. Eventually that proved to be a losing battle, and the S.G.C. and Atlantis sets were struck. MGM went into bankruptcy at the end of 2010.
“Ark of Truth and Continuum did very well,” Wright said. “For MGM is was a huge home run. And they may have been the last successful DVD releases. Because once streaming kicked in and you could just choose a movie from your house, and didn’t have to go to a video store any more, people found out that was better.”
Wright suggested that at the time online streaming was little more than an after-thought for the various production studios (including MGM).
Despite the best laid plans, Stargate: Continuum (2008) ended up being the team’s last adventure.
“All the studios had just sort of given shows to Netflix as an extra revenue stream, without recognizing the paradigm shift that was actually happening,” he said. So they sold the streaming rights to various catalog films and series to Netflix below what they were worth.
Ironically the industry factor that helped to cut the legs out from underneath the home video sales a decade ago is today driving new programming — on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and other digital streaming services. And it could be responsible for Stargate’s own return. MGM launched Stargate Command last fall, with the short-form Web series Stargate Origins streaming exclusively online earlier this year.
In his full, hour-long panel Wright also encouraged fans with the news that he is talking with MGM again. The studio wants to keep the Stargate franchise alive, he said, and is currently working toward that end.
Check out GateWorld’s exclusive video from Gatecon, which includes six minutes of highlights from the panel. Brad also talks about how Netflix changed the television industry, and how the writers’ room on all of his shows works together to hone a great story.
Always cancel good ones caz bunch of idiots in Hollywood they think everybody wants to watch kid movies look up the favorite movies on Netflix or Hulu to see that
Why don’t these people attempt to sell a Stargate Atlantis movie to Netflix? Stargate has a built in fan base already and Netflix will create more fans. The show was the best sci for show of all time and SG1 was right there with it. There has to be money to be made if Netflix funded that.
This really sucks, as ORIGINS was so awful. To think that we could have those two films instead.
When is stargate coming back
STARGATE.
Was .. Is. Still a fantastic syfy series. Adventure and mystery. Drama suspense and fun movies and a series should come BACK……..
STARGATE SHOWS were my favorites. Broke my heart when they ended. PLEASE! Bring them back!
Too bad there’s no plans on reviving SGU. I HATED how the 3rd season ended…so many more possibilities of what DESTINY could have hiding.
I popped in my sg-1 dvd’s Into my Xbox one s with my new 4K tv for the first time in several years and was astounded at the quality of the picture. If Netflix can get it in Canada I have no doubt people will watch the old series and that should lead to a new one. Obviously Atlantis will look amazing in 4K but that will have to wait until I get through Rewatching sg-1 again. Until stargate returns at least we have endless adventures to return too.
The best science fiction since Star Trek!
My two favorite shows of all time!
You’ll be sorry if you let this go! It is the future, in do many ways!
I think it’d be awesome to bring it back for a limited run. Say six episodes.
Say they slept longer. (However long it’s been,so if they went in during 2012, it’s been 6)
Then wake them up and create a six episode event to finish the story.
I would like an end for Stargate Atlantis. It’s my fav Stargate Series, John Sheppard my fav character. SGU sorry but for me it never existed and they cancelled SGA to make SGU, I’ve felt it that way.
The fifth race. That is where i would start again. They always talked about this behind in the story background. Jack’s alien friend told that the human race was well on the way of becoming the fifth race. Always waited when they build on this, the writers. There is plenty of material for new and original content. I think your success ate up your creative energy and you became lazy at times. The fans are hungry and probably grown even larger given streaming and techniques of viewing. Maybe try something edgy as practice run, like an animated version on this… Read more »
“I HATED how the 3rd season ended” Well, that’s interesting since Universe only ran for two seasons.
Una serie buena, la cual abre un poco mas la mente sobre el dominio de los gobiernos sobre temas tan importantes en el universo, el reparto es bueno a excepcion del aburrido,fastidioso y estupido personaje de “vala”. Hay episodios de relleno sin sentido con temas poco interesantes y sobre el personaje de “sam” es sumamente aburrido y predecible sea la unica “genio” del programa, exagerando los dotes de ese personaje gracias a la relacion con el productor richard dean anderson.
The problem with the Stargate Franchise is that MGM which owns the IP to Stargate, is still very financially weak, especially after its bankruptcy. Let’s be honest, Stargate as successful as it relatively was (for its genre), was not really a big money earner. The original movie, compared to say Star Trek, was financially at the low end of financial expectations. As for the TV Series it garnered very poor critical response, and viewership was not that great, which explains why Atlantis was killed after five seasons and Universe was even worse, killed after only two seasons. Stargate to be… Read more »
What i think killed shows like SGA or SGU, is the internet the number of ppl that really watched them most didnt watch it on tv but stole it from the internet, so they didnt show the numbers they needed. I remeber talking to friends amd they were why dont you just watch it online, and my answer was beacsue if i watch it there it wont show up as a show that many are watching.
Long live the STARGATE