New Babylon 5 feature film involved in casting controversy

[Granite]

First a little bit on the Movie:

Steven Beck will direct a big screen adaptation of the popular sci-fi TV series Babylon 5. The movie, titled The Memory of Shadows, is intended for theatrical release and was written by series creator J. Michael Straczynski. Production Weekly reports that the project starts filming this April in the UK.

In "Shadows," the technology of the ancient and extinct Shadow race is being unleashed upon the galaxy by an unknown force, and Earthforce intelligence officer Diane Baker, whose brother was recently killed in a mysterious explosion, it out to find out who is behind the intergalactic conspiracy.

Joining her is Galen, a techno-mage who has been charged with keeping the technology out of the hands of those who would abuse it.

Next up the controversy:

From B5tv.com website operator Joseph DeMartino (link to board post):

Some of you may have heard the recent rumors about the upcoming B5 feature film, “The Memory of Shadow” – how the money people are talking about recasting many of the roles from the original series with “name” actors

I am here to tell you that this rumor is true and that unless the powers that be are convinced that tinkering with the cast will hurt them in the pocketbook, they will do what they want to do, without regard to JMS’s wish or ours. The only people in a position to convince them that there’s money on the line are US.

WE are the ones who watched the show in great enough numbers to keep it on the air for 5 years. WE are the ones who made the reruns and B5 S5 such a success on TNT that they spent millions of dollars on two extra TV movies and a half season of Crusade before they pulled the plug on that show for reasons of network politics as much as anything else. WE are the ones who lobbied and wheedled and threatened until a very skeptical Warner Bros. finally released the series, the movies and ultimately Crusade on DVD – and then bought the DVDs in such numbers that the studio decided to make this feature film in the first place....

...I’ve heard that some fans don’t believe the rumor, that recasting the roles seems so obviously stupid and counter-productive that they don’t think Warner Bros. would ever do such a thing. I was skeptical myself when I first plugged into the ‘net after an absence of several month (hurricanes are such a bother) But I’ve since checked with a few individuals whom I trust implicitly and who are in a position to know about such things. They assure me the rumors are true. The studio is pressing for this, and since they write the checks, there isn’t a lot the production office can do about it....

...Some have even suggested that the story line and the cast changes are part and parcel of the same thing – that the studio dictated a story that prominently featured new characters and reduced the old ones to cameos that could be cast with “name” actors as part of some deep, dark plot to remake B5 in some new image of their choosing.

Wrong

I don’t know the story line for the new film. But I DO know that it is the story that JMS chose to pitch to the studio for the first B5 film....

...An ad hoc committee of fans has been working on ways to get the studio’s attention, including press releases and getting stories into the mainstream press. You can help by participating in a letter writing campaign with a bit of a gimmick to help it stand out from similar campaigns. Go to www.keepb5alive.com. Download one of the “B5 Bucks” (Note from Granite: B5 Bucks are little slips of paper that promise that you will purchase a movie ticket only if the original cast members are kept) designs on the site. Print them out, cut them out, and include them with your letter...

...This may seem like a silly gimmick. So were the Budweiser frogs. Silly gimmicks are memorable, they get attention. They WORK. So can this if Warner Bros. gets socked with thousands and thousands of letters containing these novelty items. And that’s the key – make them realize that this isn’t an issue that concerns only a few fanatical fans of particular actors but something the vast majority of the fan community cares deeply about and that we will have to consider whether or not the B5 movie WB eventually puts in theaters is really B5 or some pale imitation that we, as loyal fans, can and will rightly ignore...

We’ve been here before folks. Our backs against the wall, no chance in hell of getting what we want. We’ve been here every single season, we were here at the end of S4 most of all. We were here trying to get the show released on some form of home video and ultimately on DVD. We were here trying to get a feature film off the ground at all. We’ve always tried to do the impossible and we’ve always been told that we never could. (One SF entertainment news web site won’t run a story on this controversy because they haven’t seen an official announcement of the film from WB and they don’t believe that anybody is ever going to make a feature film based on a “little” cult show like B5)

We’ve always succeeded in the long run.

Faith manages.

Start writing.

Joe

Edit: Note from Granite: I included sections of the post concerning a website called keepb5alive.com, as an effort to illustrate the fan response to the proposed casting changes.