Bryan Singer’s Battlestar Galactica Series And Movie Never Happened But Saved The Franchise

By David Wharton | Updated

battlestar galactica cylon feature robot

The old saying often goes that news is good news, but when it comes to the Hollywood development process, no news often means a project has slid into that abyss known as Development Hell. Sometimes that’s bad news, if it’s a project you were really excited to see. But then other times, it just means all was right with the world. When it comes to Bryan Singer’s Battlestar Galactica feature film, the latter is definitely true.

Back in 2013, it looked like Bryan Singer was actually going to make his Battlestar Galactica movie, with seemingly significant progress. But then it came to a halt. Thank goodness.

At the time, Singer’s involvement with X-Men: Days of Future Past, the sequel to the surprise hit X-Men: First Class meant no Battlestar Galactica. He said at the time, “I have that one on hold for a moment, so hopefully, I’d love to be able to get back to that, but for now I’m just focused on this X-Men business.”

There was no telling how long that hold would last, or when/if Singer would get back to his Battlestar Galactica movie. But it seemed years and years at least.

There had also been conflicting reports about the direction of the Battlestar Galactica film. Back in 2009, it was planned to be an outright reboot under the auspices of original series creator Glen Larson, ignoring Ron Moore’s successful Sci-Fi Channel series that ran from 2004 to 2009.

But by October of 2011, Singer was involved and it was rumored that it might in fact exist within the same universe as Moore’s version.

And remember, Bryan Singer had also been involved with a Battlestar Galactica series all the way back in 2000-2001. That was picking up steam with significant work having already been done on the project. But then the 9/11 terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 put a halt on production.

After that, there were significant concerns regarding some of the series’ moral and ethical overtones, which were going to look unnatural when compared to the attacks. It took some time to sort all of that out, and by the time they did, Bryan Singer had moved on to other projects.

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That, of course, set the stage for the 2003 Battlestar Galactica miniseries and then the subsequent television show, which aired in 2004. That ended up the fan-favorite series we would come to know and love. No doubt Bryan Singer’s involvement would have greatly altered the path for this both before, and then after.

Bryan Singer’s vision for the movie was essentially going to ignore that series.

And as we know, when it came to Bryan Singer, he had nothing but controversy from there on out. There was a 2014 civil lawsuit in which someone accused Singer of rape, but the case was later dismissed. In 2017, Singer was fired from the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody due to repeated absences and clashes with the cast and crew.

In 2019, there were allegations from four men who said Singer had sexually assaulted them when they were underage in the late 1990s. He really hasn’t been involved at all in Hollywood since.

Not having him go through with the Battlestar Galactica movie ended up being great for the franchise in the long run. Whether we ever get another crack at it, from someone else, remains to be seen. But at least Bryan Singer’s name isn’t on it.