Bad news for fans hoping to see Stargate return to the big screen. A few years ago, around the same time that filmmaker Roland Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin announced their plans to make Independence Day 2, the duo also revealed that they were working on a Stargate reboot. The idea was to finally realize their plans for the Stargate franchise that they developed back when the 1994 original was made, and as recently as this summer Devlin said that in order to enact their trilogy plans, they were going to be starting over with a reboot of the first movie. James A. Woods and Nicolas Wright, the writing team behind Independence Day: Resurgence, were put on the project and all seemed to be moving ahead, but now, unfortunately, the Stargate reboot is dead.

Speaking with Empire, Devlin revealed that the plans for the new Stargate have been halted:

“It looked good for a couple of months, but now it’s not looking so good. There are just a lot of things that have to fire at the same time, and there was a moment where I thought it was all firing at the same time, and then it all kind of fell apart.”

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Devlin noted that studio concern over numbers and product instead of quality is one of the reasons the Stargate reboot is no longer happening, as well as a fear of screwing up the property:

“Listen, I think if we did Stargate right, the fans would like it and we could do something really good. But if we screw it up, they’ll reject it. As they should. But I kind of don’t want to do it if I think that we’ll screw it up, and that’s one of the things that’s holding us back.”

And while Devlin doesn’t say it, there’s likely another reason a Stargate reboot isn’t happening: Independence Day: Resurgence. The 20th Century Fox sequel was one of 2016’s most anticipated blockbusters, with expectations soaring high after millennial nostalgia boosted Jurassic World to a $1 billion box office. But Resurgence suffered absolutely scathing reviews and only managed to conjure $389.6 million at the box office against a reported $165 million budget. Once you factor in marketing costs plus expectations that Resurgence would be a major international player, the film’s disappointment becomes clear.

And thus, while Stargate isn’t set up at a studio, the prospect of greenlighting a continuation of a 90s sci-fi film from Devlin and Emmerich in the wake of Resurgence becomes more risky, and thus whatever studio would sign on to make the Stargate reboot would no doubt want considerably more creative oversight to protect their investment.

So, alas, the Stargate reboot doesn’t seem meant to be. But who knows, the project could resurface in a few years’ time. Stranger things have happened.

 

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Image via MGM