Babylon 5 Movie Is Happening, Details Revealed By Creator
Series creator J. Michael Straczynski confirms that an animated Babylon 5 movie is on the way.
A Babylon 5 animated movie, written by series creator J. Michael Straczynski, is officially on the way from Warner Bros. Straczynski made the announcement on Twitter earlier today, calling it “raucous, heartfelt, nonstop, a ton of fun through time and space & a love letter to the fans.” He also promised that more details, including the full title and release date, will be released next Wednesday, May 10.
In a follow-up tweet, clearly expecting some doubting fans, Straczynski wrote that the Babylon 5 movie “is already finished and in the can. So it’s 100% real, happening, and coming out very soon.”
In all fairness, fans would be more than justified for feeling at least a little skeptical about the Babylon 5 movie. On one hand there’s Warner Bros. infamously pulling the rug out from under Batgirl, which likely had a much bigger price tag than this animated film. On the other, there’s the planned series reboot which has gone completely silent for months and seems likely to be hovering development hell.
The Babylon 5 animated movie is no doubt what Straczynski was teasing last week, when he tweeted a picture of himself with former series lead Bruce Boxleitner. The writer’s cryptic teaser read that he and Boxleitner had gotten together “to do a thing for a thing.” Now we know what that thing was.
It also seems likely that the Babylon 5 animated movie is something Straczynski has been hinting at for a while now. Back in September, he tweeted that a project with the series’ original cast had been completed in secret. Considering that presumably only voice work would be needed from the actors, it would explain how they were able to complete the entire thing without the public knowing.
The fact that the Babylon 5 movie will be animated likely helps bypass the tragic reality that to date a significant percentage of the original cast has died. Richard Briggs (Dr. Franklin), Andreas Katsulas (Narn ambassador G’Kar), Jeff Conway (Zack Allan), Michael O’Hare (Jeffrey Sinclair), Jerry Doyle (Garibaldi), Stephen Furst (Centauri diplomat Vir Cotto), and Mira Furlan (Minbari ambassador Delenn) have all died. Furlan is the most recent, having succumbed to West Nile Virus in 2021.
Thankfully, that doesn’t mean Boxleitner is the only original cast member whose voice might be heard in the Babylon 5 movie. Also still with us are Claudia Christian (Lt. Commander Susan Ivanova), Andrea Thompson (Talia Winters), Bill Mumy (Lennier), Tracy Scroggins (Captain Elizabeth Lochley), Jason Carter (Marcus Cole), Patricia Tallman (Lyta Alexander), and Peter Jurasik (G’Kar’s Centauri rival Londo).
Then there are plenty of actors with recurring roles in the original series who might lend their voices to the Babylon 5 movie. Perhaps most memorably, there’s Star Trek’s Walter Koenig, who recently did voice work for Paramount+‘s Star Trek: Picard. His character Alfred Bester dies in the series, but so far we don’t know when in the timeline the film takes place.
