Roland Emmerich Confirms Why The ‘Stargate’ Reboot Is No Longer Happening

While Star Wars and Star Trek have dominated space-opera fiction during the past few decades, another film staked its claim to a piece of the pie in 1994 when Stargate made its bow in cinemas. Although not as popular or successful as the aforementioned franchises, or as staggering or dominant at the box office, Stargate has gone on to become a cult classic and earn a massive following. Since making the switch to the small screen in the form of several popular TV series, the show has enjoyed a steady run. As Hollywood nature goes, it was only a matter of time until it returned to the big screen.

Roland Emmerich, who directed the original movie, stated back in 2014 that he was intent on bringing Stargate to the big screen once again in the form of a franchise-rebooting trilogy. Cinema Blend broke this news, which had the fans waiting with bated breath, but it has been some time since the announcement, and it seems that things have now changed. This week, the director and his team have stated that he will no longer be rebooting the series due to unforeseen complications.

Speaking to Empire, Emmerich and writer/producer Dean Devlin informed us that the reboot was met with positive enthusiasm a few years back. However, it looks like the reboot will no longer be moving forward.

“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.”

After Stargate was released in 1994, there were plans for a number of sequels but nothing ever came to fruition. The original movie was actually produced independently without the backing of a major studio, which granted the filmmakers a great deal of freedom. Devlin stressed these concerns, and hinted that the presence of a large studio had a major impact on the stalling of the trilogy. In a world where financial objectives and performance is key, Devlin stated he wasn’t happy with that type of pressure.

“It’s one of the reasons I prefer to work independently. 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. You’d have several studios involved and a lot of voices and, you know, you may make something great, but you also may have something that doesn’t resemble what you wanted to do. That kind of ‘collaboration’ is a terrifying aspect of the whole thing.”

You have to give credit to Emmerich and Devlin for sticking to their guns, though. They want to produce a Stargate movie for the fans, one that they will love. Whether they dropped out or the studio simply lost interest remains to be seen. It’s no secret that studio-presence has affected franchise films in the past. Also, with Independence Day: Resurgence, a film directed by Emmerich, bombing critically in 2016, there’s a possibility that MGM saw this revisiting of a popular ’90s science-fiction franchise and didn’t want Stargate to share the same fate.

With the Stargate movie reboot in limbo, maybe MGM should bring the series back to TV. It enjoyed a lengthy run until 2011, with Stargate SG-1 airing for ten seasons and creating the spinoffs Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe. Let’s not forget that TV has more prominence now with the streaming culture of Netflix and Amazon becoming more popular than ever. The small screen has never been as important, and it provides the perfect platform for this type of project.

Whatever the future holds for Stargate, the fans will hold out hope that one day they will see the return of their beloved franchise. The reboot is on hold, but it’s not dead just yet.

[Featured Image by Alberto E Rodriguez/Getty Images]