New Galaxy Quest Series Is Happening

A Star Trek parody with its own humble fandom is finally getting its own series in Paramount Plus, the new Galaxy Quest series is really happening. This is not a drill.

Since the streaming service is already home to the Star Trek franchise, why not explore more quests in other galaxies? While Star Trek will be the serious science fiction, Galaxy Quest will be that series that will be the comedic break people will be looking for in between episodes or seasons.

The 1999 movie Galaxy Quest was a science-fiction comedy by Dean Parisot, and it was written by David Howard and Robert Gordon. Starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, and Daryl Mitchell, it was the welcome parody of intergalactic sci-fi stories that was very well-received by critics and audiences alike.

Having already popular actors as part of its cast at the time, development for follow-up movies was difficult mainly due to the availability of the cast. Now the good news lands on the planet that finally, the film that has grown its own cult fandom will have a continuation in the form of a series.

Galaxy Quest Continues As A New Series in Paramount Plus

The news initially comes from The Hollywood Reporter, where Mark Johnson, executive producer of the movie, returns for the new series set to arrive from Paramount Television Studios.

Apparently, this will be the second time the Galaxy Quest revival ball gets to roll again. In 2016, plans were put on hold after Rickman passed away due to cancer. Rockwell said at the time:

We were ready to sign up, and [then] Alan Rickman passed away and Tim Allen wasn’t available — he [had Last Man Standing] — and everybody’s schedule was all weird. It was going to shoot, like, right now. And how do you fill that void of Alan Rickman? That’s a hard void to fill.

Later, Allen stated:

Galaxy Quest is really close to being resurrected in a very creative way. It’s closer than I can tell you, but I can’t say more than that. The real kicker is that Alan now has to be left out. It’s been a big shock on many levels.

7 years later, the fandom gets the news of its revival again. The bittersweet fact that it is happening, but this time, Rickman won’t be there among the crew.

Paramount Develops A Series To Continue Galaxy Quest

Credit: Dreamworks Pictures

The movie presented the premise that an actual alien race with very real interstellar war enlisted the support of a sci-fi cast in their endeavours. The alien race believed that the cast was actually the capable crew that they had seen on their monitors, thinking that the footage they saw was documentaries of their victorious feats.

The 1999 comedy sci-fi had a budget of $45M that generated a worldwide box office record of $90M. It was a decent financial performance for its time. Rotten Tomatoes display a certified fresh 90% rating on the Tomatometer with a 79% audience score from more than 100,000 ratings.

Unlike some parodies which did not capture the interest of the fans of the work they copied, Galaxy Quest got favourable reception from Star Trek fans. In addition, many non-Star Trek fans enjoyed watching the movie. That in itself was something of a brownie point for the film since it was able to introduce new fans to the genre.

The current project is still in early development with Johnson as it has yet to find a writer for the series.

What do you make of the developing Galaxy Quest series for Paramount? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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