Babylon 5’s highly anticipated reboot is still on its way, but not as soon as we were hoping. J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of the original show, which is now considered one of the best sci-fi series of all time, has provided an update on the development of the planned reboot for The CW.
The original show ran from 1994-1998 for 110 episodes, with stories that continued from episode to episode, rather than each one being more-or-less self-contained. The reboot of Babylon 5 would be “from-the-ground-up” and it “would follow John Sheridan, an Earthforce officer with a mysterious background, who is assigned to Babylon 5, a five-mile-long space station in neutral space.”
Posted on his Patreon, Straczynski said; “I received a call from Mark Pedowitz, President of The CW. I should mention that Mark is a great guy and a long-time fan of B5. He worked for Warners when the show was first airing, and always made sure we got him copies of the episodes before they aired because he didn’t want to wait to see what happened next.”
“Calling the pilot ‘a damned fine script,’ he (Pedowitz) said he was taking the highly unusual step of rolling the project and the pilot script into next year, keeping B5 in active development while the dust settles on the sale of the CW.”
“Here’s the bottom line: Yesterday, Babylon 5 was in active development at the CW and Warner Bros. for fall 2022. Today, Babylon 5 is in active development at the CW and Warner Bros. for fall 2023. That is the only difference.”
Since Babylon 5 ended, Straczynski has gone on to to write for Marvel Comics, as well as collaborating with The Wachowskis on Sense8.
While we wait for more updates on the Babylon 5 reboot, check out our guide to watching all of Star Trek in order.