In news that’s almost certain to increase the number of times that non-gas-station-adjacent sci-fi nerds think the word “chevron” in their day-to-day lives, Amazon MGM has confirmed today that it’s bringing the Stargate franchise back to television. This is per Variety, which reports that Blindspot creator Martin Gero, who came up in the business on spin-off series Stargate Atlantis, has been tapped to revive the franchise with a new installment for Prime Video.
Stargate had a good long run on TV in the late ’90s, and then through the entirety of the 2000s, with the original Showtime series (eventually transplanted to Syfy) spawning both Atlantis and the later Stargate Universe. (Plus a handful of animated spin-offs and direct-to-video movies that repeatedly attempted to bring the series to some flavor of satisfying conclusion.) Building (and then building, and building some more) on the mythology of the original 1994 Roland Emmerich flick, with its tales of aliens masquerading as gods and big circles that can send you to the far reaches of the universe, the show became a fan-favorite for its blend of sci-fi, action, and a surprising amount of Richard-Dean-Anderson-makes-a-fun-little-quip-based humor.
Amazon has been sniffing around at a revival of the franchise for a couple of years now, but Gero’s hiring marks the first serious movement toward getting a new Stargate show back on the digital air. (The show was most recently brought back, briefly, for a web series, Stargate: Origins, in 2018.) A press statement from Gero—in which he called the show a “next phase” for the franchise, and promised that “those that are new to our world” were in for “something extraordinary”—makes it sound like the series will exist in at least some degree of continuity with the old Stargate shows. Gero will serve as showrunner, with long-time Stargate creatives Brad Wright and Joe Mallozzi both attached as consulting producers. There’s no word yet on when the revived series might end up landing at Prime Video.
