The Girl In The Spider’s Web screenwriter Jay Basu has been chosen to rewrite the screenplay for Universal’s big screen Battlestar Galactica. This new version of the 1970s science-fiction television series is set to be directed by Hunger Games franchise director Francis Lawrence.
This new version of the property has been under development at the studio since at least 2009. Initially Bryan Singer was attached to direct, but by 2016, Lawrence was brought onto the project to helm. Basu will be doing a rewrite on a draft turned in by Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy.
Battlestar Galactica centers on the last warship of a space fleet that was decimated in a surprise attack from a robotic alien race known as the Cylons. The Galactica now protects a “rag tag, fugitive fleet” of spaceships of the survivors of the twelve worlds decimated in the attack as they search for a fabled lost thirteenth colony known as Earth.
The original 1970s series starred Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict and was an attempt to bring the science-fiction swashbuckling adventure of cultural zeitgeist Star Wars to a weekly TV show. A reboot on Sy-Fy that started 2003 had a much darker tone, understandable as the country was still coming to terms in many ways with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. When Singer was developing the project he stated that his goal was to find a tone between the original and reboot series.
