The Cancelled Stargate Movie That Would Have Brought Every Show Together
MGM Television
When Roland Emmerich made his 1994 sci-fi adventure “Stargate,” he likely never envisioned the sprawling media saga that would follow. In fact, after the film proved a modest success at the box office, there was talk of making a whole “Stargate” trilogy. Instead, Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner took on the task of continuing the story begun by Emmerich. The pair oversaw “Stargate SG-1,” a TV show that launched in 1997 and revolved around the same team from the movie, following their exploits across the universe as they explore strange alien worlds using the Stargate portal. Kurt Russell might’ve refused to reprise his lead role as Colonel Jack O’Neill for the franchise’s small-screen continuation, but Wright and Glassner had “MacGuyver” star Ricard Dean Anderson to help propel their series to success. Indeed, the show proved a cult hit, lasting for 10 seasons before the Sci-Fi channel (now SyFy) cancelled “SG-1” in 2007.
But that wasn’t the end of the “Stargate” story. During its time on-air, “SG-1” spawned a couple of spin-offs, most notably with the live-action series “Stargate Atlantis,” which debuted in 2004. The animated series “Stargate Infinity” also began airing during the “SG-1” years, though some fans don’t consider this canon. Even after “SG-1” was cancelled, the franchise kept coming back with two direct-to-TV films and more live-action series in the form of 2009’s “Stargate Universe” and 2018’s “Stargate Origins.”
Following the cancellation of “Stargate Universe” in 2010, however, the whole saga was left in limbo as the series ended on a cliffhanger that seemed doomed to remain unresolved. While comic books have since tried to continue the story, they haven’t involved the series’ creators. But had Wright gotten his way, we would have at least seen “Universe,” “Atlantis,” and “SG-1” wrapped up a lot more neatly via a movie that was shelved before it even had a chance to get underway.
Season 2 of Stargate Universe ended on a cliffhanger that was never resolved
MGM Television
Today, the “Stargate” empire comprises Roland Emmerich’s film, multiple TV series and direct-to-home-media movies, and a slew of comics, video games, and books. With such a vast expanse of media, watching the “Stargate” franchise in order has become a confusing prospect to say the least, especially when there are unresolved storylines involved. But “SG-1” co-creator Brad Wright, who went on to co-create “Atlantis” and “Universe,” at least had plans to wrap up his contribution to the “Stargate”-verse somewhat cleanly.
While “Stargate SG-1” and “Stargate: Atlantis” both focused on teams that used the eponymous portal device to traverse the universe, “Stargate Universe,” oddly enough, was a much different series. It followed a research crew stranded aboard the spacecraft Destiny as they tried to find a way back across billions of light years to Earth. Led by scientist Dr. Nicholas Rush (Robert Carlyle), the crew was sent on a research initiative to investigate ways of allowing travel across remote distances utilizing the Stargate. But after a planet exploded, members of the group used a wormhole to escape, landing them aboard the derelict Destiny. Season 2 sees crew member Eli Wallace (David Blue) propose a void jump, which would see the group use pods to enter stasis for three years in order to complete the journey. Although they go ahead with the plan, one of the pods proves to be faulty, leaving the group to decide who should stay outside and try to fix the pod with only two weeks before they would have to shut off life support. Eli claims to have the best chance of fixing the pod and therefore stays out of stasis before the season 2 finale closes with him watching the stars from the ship’s observation deck.
Sadly, the show was unceremoniously cancelled before it could reveal whether Eli fixed the pod in time to survive, leaving fans to wonder what “Stargate Universe” season 3 could have been. Well, had Wright been given the greenlight for his ambitious movie project, we would have found out.
The Stargate film that never was
MGM Television
Even before the season 2 finale of “Stargate Universe” aired on May 9, 2011, the series had been cancelled, with SyFy announcing on December 16, 2010 that it had not picked up the series for a third season. Though a non-canon “Stargate Universe” comic series from Mark L. Haynes and J.C. Vaughn attempted to carry on the story after “Universe” season 2, we never got an official continuation.
But Brad Wright at least tried to come up with a last-minute solution when he learned “Universe” was ending prematurely — one that would have united all three live-action “Stargate” shows (at the time, “Origins” had not been created). Speaking to GateWorld in 2023, Wright revealed that he pitched production company MGM Television on the idea, which would have seen characters from “SG-1” and “Atlantis” return to rescue the crew of Destiny from “Universe,” giving the franchise, as it existed at the time, a proper send-off. The co-creator explained he “just started typing” and implored MGM to let him use existing sets from “Stargate” for the project before they were dismantled. Wright recalled his approach:
“If I can get a script in your hands quickly enough, I bet I can get the cast of ‘SGU’ and bring aboard enough cast members from the other show that I could at least give us a two-hour movie to wrap it up, or a 90-minute movie to wrap up ‘SGU’ and finish the story that we were trying to tell.”
Alas, the fate of Wright’s section of the “Stargate” universe was sealed.
Brad Wright’s scrapped film wasn’t fully fleshed out
MGM Television
As Brad Wright remembered in his GateWorld interview, his initial idea was fairly crude. However, there was the seed of a storyline that involved using David Hewlett’s Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay — an “SG–1” character who was a last minute replacement in “Stargate Atlantis” and who went on to appear in 100 episodes of the series:
“I pitched him the rough idea that I had for it — and it was rough. I mean, I was typing as fast as I could. I didn’t whiteboard it. I just had this structure in my head and concept for the characters from the other series that I was going to bring in. And I started laying it out, and it started with McKay and began [with a] recognition that Destiny was in trouble.”
Lamentably, Wright wasn’t even able to put together a proper first draft of the script before MGM pulled the plug. “Like two weeks into the process I found out it’s not gonna happen,” Wright said. “There comes a time where the desire to finish something doesn’t line up with the financial resources to do it. And that was where it was already heading when I found out they’re not interested.”
As SyFy has noted, the DVD market had taken a downturn at the time Wright was pitching his movie, which likely played into MGM’s decision not to move forward with the project. Considering SyFy had already cancelled “Universe” after just two seasons anyway, I can’t imagine the prospect of a movie based on the series was ever all that enticing to begin with — at least not for MGM or the network. For fans, however, the fact Wright’s vision never came to fruition will remain as tragic a moment in the vast “Stargate” saga as Eli’s decision to stay behind for the sake of his fellow crew members.
