J. Michael Straczynski has announced a Babylon 5 animated movie. The Great Maker, as he’s nicknamed in the fandom, has also specified that it’s a finished project that is 100% real and will be released very soon. The reference is to the other project announced in 2021 of a reboot of the show that was under discussion and ended up in limbo after the changes that came after the merger between Warner Bros and Discovery.
February 22 saw the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the debut of the TV movie that marked the beginning of the Babylon 5 saga. After the end of the show, some TV movies and the spinoff “Crusade” were produced. The TV movie “The Legend of the Rangers” was produced with the idea of starting another spinoff but the project didn’t take off. Unfortunately, some of the show’s protagonists passed away prematurely over the years, setting limits to further productions. For years, it seemed Babylon 5 would remain a cult show.
In September 2021, J. Michael Straczynski announced a project to reboot the show that was to be broadcast in the USA on The CW channel. Discussions regarding the project have been going on for some time but the merger between Warner Bros and Discovery caused significant corporate changes. The reboot hasn’t been abandoned and indeed its development was confirmed again in recent days but at least for now, it seems stuck, also because of the beginning of the Writers Strike.
Once again, it seemed that Babylon 5 fans would have to settle for the old productions but recently J. Michael Straczynski announced a new project not related to the reboot and yesterday revealed that it’s an animated movie. Details on this new project will be revealed next week.
Novels and comics connected to the Babylon 5 saga were published in the 1990s, so it’s a saga that already started going beyond live-action shortly after the start of the TV show. An animated product becomes an additional medium to tell a story linked to this saga and the fact that the Great Maker is behind it bodes well.
Honestly, the TV movies had their ups and downs but this new project could lead to a revival of the original saga, one way or another. J. Michael Straczynski described it as a love letter to the fans, suggesting that the story fits well into the Babylon 5 saga and isn’t just a kind of extended episode.
