The Hollywood Reporter interviewed filmmaker Dean Devlin, who also currently is the executive producer and director on TNT’s Leverage – and it seems that with Devlin re-uniting with partner Roland Emmerich, who together created Stargate and Independence Day, sequels to both movies are still possible.

Having resisted the idea of an ID4 sequel for 16 years despite its box office success, he things they’ve got the right concept. “I feel like we got it,” he said. “I think it took a long time, but I feel like we finally got something that really feels like, ‘that’s worth seeing as a sequel to Independence Day.’ ”

And it appears they are already talking to the cast about possibly returning.

As for Stargate, “Stargate has always had this empty hole,” he confessed. “When we made the first one, we always intended on doing part two and three, and we were prevented for years. And our hope is that we can get another chance at Stargate and tell the entire story we wanted to tell.” I presume “prevented” means that while the TV franchise was active, MGM wouldn’t entertain the idea of movies that were outside the the universe established the series. But we’ve heard this from Devlin before – just a few days more than a year ago – so we’ll wait and see.

If you remember way back when in 2006 when Dean Devlin mentioned that Stargate was originally envisioned as a trilogy of movies (doesn’t everyone do that now?) but with MGM having control and moving to a series he and co-creator Roland Emmerich disavowed, it seemed unlikely that they would get made…but now that the Stargate TV franchise is at least in hibernation, Devlin is still hopeful that parts two and three could still happen, although it may be changed a bit from their original ideas owing to so much time having passed.

I’m still not sure that a movie franchise that ignores the multiple series would help, but who knows…with the state of MGM and how much the word “reboot” is thrown around Hollywood, is they can see any money in it they’ll do it…

Need a Stargate to finish off your living room? Military uniforms? A Stargate Command chair? Well, now’s your chance – at least if you can be at Bridge Studios in Burnaby, BC, Canada this Friday and Saturday. Liquidator Maynards is is conducting a liquidation sale of assets associated with the Stargate franchise. It doesn’t appear that you can purchase anything online, however .

Breaking news from Vancouver: Information is coming from a variety of source via Twitter, but it is official – there will be no Stargate Universe movie, and even the written SG-1 and Atlantis movies (as they are now) won’t happen, according to Brad Wright (and confirmed by SGU actor Brian J. Smith), who is moving on to other projects. The franchise is still in MGM’s hands, and there seems to be plenty of hope that the franchise will live on…

A good summary of what is known so far can be found at the Stargate Solutions Blog.

So it appears that the Stargate: Resistance game was not as immune after all to the fallout from the Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment bankruptcy and losing the license. According to the official web site (via Gateworld), Cheyenne can no longer sell the game – which was an online-only game. They will, however, continue access to those who already purchased the game through January 15th, 2011. But in reading the Gateworld article, things are far from clear of the overall state of things in general…

AirlockAlpha has an article about the win-lose situation involving the Stargate Worlds MMOPRG game that has been in development for years and put on hold earlier this year – and now will likely never see the light of day. Developer Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year, won a court ruling that says it owns all the intellectual property for the game, which former employees tried to walk away with and form a rival company. However, MGM has revoked their franchise license – so all the materials regarding Stargate can no longer be used. However, Stargate: Resistance was apparently not affected by the license.

SyFy unveiled a list of upcoming guest stars on Stargate Universe (which starts again on Sept. 28th), and one character that fans have been clamoring for – Dr. Rodney McKay – will finally make an appearance, with David Hewlitt reprising his Stargate Atlantis role. Also announced are Victor Garber (Alias), as an alien ambassador; Robert Picardo reprises his role as Richard Woolsey, who last was head of the Atlantis expedition; Kathleen Quinlan (Apollo 13) as Senator Michaels, who replaces the deceased Senator Armstrong as the head of the off-world spending committee; French Stewart (3rd Rock From The Sun) as Dr. Andrew Covel, head of research at the SGC (and the original Lt. Ferretti in the Stargate movie); and Robert Knepper (Heroes) and Julie McNiven (Supernatural) in multiple episodes as Lucian Alliance members.

Season 1.5 of Stargate Universe was released a couple of weeks ago on Blu-ray and DVD, and I’ve had a chance to catch up and review the DVD version.

SG-U is a different beast from the previous efforts. It tries to expand the plot that was the genesis of Stargate Atlantis – a team finds itself extremely distant from home at the other end of a one-way stargate trip, mostly in isolation. Whereas Atlantis was still able to receive supplies from Earth (and eventually solved the general problem between starships and the stargate bridge), the team this time is totally isolated except for the ability to use the consciousness transfer stones – which themselves bring up several plot points which are addressed in the series instead of simply ignored. This time as well, the “team” is a combination of military and civilian characters thrown together by circumstance rather than by mission, forced into that circumstance to escape an attack but also through the non-altruistic intents of Dr. Geoffrey Rush (Robert Carlisle), who would rather prove his theories and general greater intelligence than solve problems. And instead of a floating city, they are stranded on an empty Ancient ship (of ancient Ancient design ) called the Destiny, where they have very little control over the ship, and few resources.
(continue reading…)

Anyone remember that MMORPG that was in development for years based on the Stargate franchise, Stargate Worlds? I wouldn’t be surprised if it slipped your mind since it has been 4 years. I believe it actually entered a closed beta phase at one point though…but now it is on hold per an email. The producer, Cheyenne Mountain, is restructuring in the hopes of finishing the game. This forum post however is a little more bleak, with zero developers, zero web site maintenance, everything on hold.

There is however a bright spot – an alternate project, Stargate Resistance, is a third person shooter developed as a “proof of market” vehicle, to show there is life in the franchise. There is an indication that if this game proves popular, development on Worlds might resume.

Unfortunately I think this falls in the bucket of “great projects that came too late”, with SG-1 done for several years, Atlantis gone, and Universe still seeking the audience of the previous efforts. But then again you can’t develop a tie-in too early without knowing the stability of the franchise…

A little more news coming out of Comic-Con: Caprica will return in January for the second half of its freshman season (is it really still the same season if it airs a year after the first half?) and Ronald D. Moore is confident that with the plot picking up we will see a second season; and in Stargate Universe‘s second season, we can expect to see Dr. Rush (Robert Carlyle) return to his self-deterministic ways when he discovered the bridge of the Destiny; Eli get a new love interest and also visit his grandmother (in Carlyle’s directorial debut), and the discovery of a larger overall mission for the residents of the Destiny. Also interesting was a discussion about the unique shooting style, with multiple hidden cameras on set.