Screenwriter John Orloff (Anonymous) has been hired to write the screenplay for Bryan Singer's new adaptation of Battlestar Galactica. The new adaptation won't have anything to do with the excellent TV reboot, so it will be a new take on mediocre 1970s TV series. Both series focused on a war between men and sentient machines, but thematically and narratively they went in vastly different directions. There are currently no details on what Singer plans to do with his movie. The 2003 series took the premise of the original series and transformed it into a political drama with a mystical storyline woven in to the overarching plot. Orloff has a diverse screenwriting background—his credits also include A Mighty Heart (good!) and Legend of the Guardians (not good!)—so there's no clear indication of what he might bring to the script.
It's tough for me to give this new Battlestar the benefit of the doubt since Singer and now Orloff have chosen to put themselves in the shadow of the recent TV series rather than create a new outer-space adventure movie from scratch. [THR]