Babylon 5 is going to relaunch as an animated film. The franchise began when the original series premiered season 1 on PTEN in 1993, introducing the world to a new epic space opera following the political and personal lives of the crew of the titular five-mile-long space station. The show ran for five seasons through 1998 and spawned a multimedia franchise.
Today, the show’s creator J. Michael Straczynski took to Twitter to share a major update on the rumored upcoming Babylon 5 movie.
He announced that Warner Bros. Animation and WB Home Entertainment are collaborating on the feature, which will be animated. He also shared that additional details like the film’s title and official release date will be unveiled just one week from today.
Every Form That Babylon 5 Has Taken So Far
At first blush, it might seem unusual that the series would be adapted into an animated film. However, there is much more to the franchise than just the original run of Babylon 5. It has existed in a variety of media formats over the years, including six television movies that ran through 2002, as well as live-action spinoffs (both produced and unproduced) like 1999’s 13-episode series Crusade.
Since it originally aired, the franchise has expanded into many different formats. This includes a series of novels (including three trilogies and a nine-part series) and comic books. Other Babylon 5 media includes roleplaying games and even a cookbook, though the comic series is the closest that the franchise has come to traditional animation thus far.
There was also recently a new TV reboot announced in 2021, to be developed at The CW. However, given the fact that the network has changed hands and radically shrunk its slate of series, it seems unlikely that the project will ever come to the screen in that form. This animated Babylon 5 film is likely a new iteration of what that project might have been.
Source: J. Michael Straczynski/Twitter
