‘Battlestar Galactica’ Reboot No Longer In Development At Peacock, Will Be Shopped

The long-gestating reboot of the popular sci-fi franchise Battlestar Galactica, from Sam Esmail‘s Esmail Corp., is no longer set up at Peacock.

First announced as being in development at the NBCUniversal streamer in 2019, the new incarnation of Battlestar Galactica never got to a green light but remained in development, including a writer change within the past year as The Sinner creator Derek Simonds came on board as writer, executive producer and showrunner.

That version of the project from Simonds will now be shopped to other platforms by its studio, Peacock’s NBCUniversal sibling UCP.

A new take on the classic IP, the latest incarnation is executive produced by Simonds as well as Esmail Corp’s Sam Esmail and Chad Hamilton. UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, is the studio.

Battlestar Galactica has been a passion project for Mr. Robot creator Esmail who is a big fan of the original.

“We are working on it,” Esmail told Deadline in October. “And in fact, I just read a great outline and it’s in great shape. Because the strike is over now – at least the WGA strike is over – we’re back into developing it.”

This is the second piece of famous sci-fi IP that Esmail has attempted to revive at UCP, along with Metropolis, which was in pre-production as a series for Apple TV+ when UCP pulled the plug amid the WGA strike.

The original Battlestar Galactica centered on the last group of humans on the verge of extinction after a series of wars with a robot race, The Cylons, destroyed the Twelve Colonies. All the humans are left in one remaining battleship group, anchored by the Galactica, as they search for their last option for survival: a fabled Thirteenth Colony known as Earth.

The original Glen A. Larson-created series, produced by Universal and starring Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict and Lorne Greene as Commander Adama, ran on ABC for one season in 1978-1979. It was followed by a short-lived sequel and several book and comics series, a board game and a video game as it gained cult status, if not commercial success.

UCP (then known as Universal Cable Productions) produced Ron Moore’s critically and commercially successful 2003 revamp, which started as a miniseries before becoming a series, starring Edward James Olmos in Greene’s commander role, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackoff and Grace Park, which ran for four seasons and spawned a short-lived prequel, Caprica.

News of Battlestar Galactica not going forward at Peacock was first reported by Variety.