Peacock Drops The Battlestar Galactica Reboot Series

The Battlestar Galactica reboot is going to need a new home. Peacock has dropped the show after it spent five years in development for the streamer. And in that half-decade, Peacock never formally ordered it to series.

Via Variety, Universal Content Productions still plans to shop the Battlestar Galactica reboot around to other outlets now that it’s no longer in development for Peacock. Within UCP’s parent company, Comcast, the most-likely destination other than Peacock would be Syfy, the channel that broadcast the 2003 Battlestar Galactica reboot. Beyond that, the other major streamers could potentially have interest in the show.

Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail was the driving force behind the Battlestar Galactica reboot, which was reportedly still set in the continuity established by the 2003 miniseries and the subsequent series that followed in 2004. Michael Lesslie was hired to write the new show in 2020 before he left the project the following year. Derek Simonds was hired to be the new Battlestar Galactica showrunner and writer at the beginning of 2024.

Glen A. Larson created the original Battlestar Galactica for ABC in 1978, where it ran for a single season. The show followed a space fleet of survivors who were on the run from the Cylons, a race of robots that nearly exterminated humanity. The Battlestar Galactica protected the fleet while they searched for Earth in the hope of finding sanctuary. The short-lived sequel series, Galactica 1980, featured the fleet arriving on Earth in the present.

Syfy made a few attempts to keep the franchise alive following the conclusion of the second Battlestar Galactica series. The prequel show, Caprica, only ran for a single season. Another prequel, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, was a 10-episode web series that was under consideration to become an ongoing TV show, but it wasn’t picked up by the network. In 2020, X-Men: Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg was attached to a Battlestar Galactica movie that was separate from Esmail’s reboot. There haven’t been any updates on that project for a while.