New Sci - Fi from JMS?!

[Whyruss]

Hi everybody - I'm new to this forum but I'm an old B5 fan. It's simply on of the best things that ever happend to TV!
A while ago I read that Mr S. is probably working on a new Sci Fi series in the B5 universe. Do you know any facts or at least conjectures about this matter?
Does anybody know the numbers of the Crusade sells? I mean if they sold quite a "lot" perhaps the series could be continued?!

All the best - Richard (Austria / Europe)

[Jan]

Hi Richard, welcome!

The last word we had of JMS working on anything B5 related was the feature film, The Memory of Shadows. After over a year of trying, the company who'd optioned the movie rights and commissioned the script wasn't able to put a deal together to make it, so the project dead-ended. You can read JMS's post about that here.

JMS has spoken a few times about being offered series, none of which he's been able to give details on until they go into production. As far as I know, the latest one is something for Marvel Productions but it's still in development. Many more projects go into development than ever end up in production, unfortunately, and they always seem to take forever. In this post he tells us that he's had a non-B5 treatment optioned for a major network.

I don't think that any of them he referred to recently were B5 related. The last possibility for that (that we know of) was the pilot movie made for the Sci-Fi Channel, The Legend of the Rangers. That wasn't picked up due to the ratings not reaching what they needed to be. Unfortunatly, the B5 demographic matches the football demographic and there was a big game televised on the East Coast at the same time as Rangers. Where Rangers didn't conflict with the game, the numbers would have been more than sufficient, but that's not something that can be factored in when setting advertising rates, so the series wasn't picked up.

I understand that the DVD sales in general were excellent but I don't know anything specific about the Crusade set. I'm reasonably sure they were lower because there seemed to be a fair amount of resistance to the set since people knew it was only a 'limited series'. Plus some people stayed away because WB went back on it's word and edited JMS's commentary telling the story of how TNT acted.

As for continuation of Crusade *as* Crusade, I'm afraid that's pretty doubtful. Gary Cole is working on a series, so is Daniel Dae Kim. Peter Woodward is generally busy with projects, too. So it would need to be a complete restart. I think, if anything, it's more likely that some of the pieces of the Crusade story might end up in future projects. There was some indication that Crusade influenced the Memory of Shadows movie.

Hope that helps. If there's any news, you can be sure we'll be talking about it here, so stick around.

Jan

[SpooRancher]

Another reason for the poor sales on Crusade, I think.

The DVD's were not available in a lot of smaller markets. People had to travel to larger cities in order to purchase them. I had to travel over 2 hours to find it, and even in that city, had to check about 12 stores before I even found one copy. It was not at Wal-Mart where I looked, neither Target nor Best Buy. I finally ended up finding it at a store called FYE (For Your Entertainment). They only had one copy, and told me that they could only get one at a time, and generally sold it just about as soon as it came in, but still couldn't get more than one at a time.

I think the problem with the Crusade DVD's might well have been from the distribution end, rather than the customers.

[Satai Delenn]

I don't know anything more about JMS than Jan does As for Crusade I don;t think it is at many stores certainly not in the area I live .I usually can find a Babylon 5 set but Crusade I usually don't find any at all.On the day it was released I got lucky I went to local Best buy they only had 4 copies and if I remember correctly didn't know when they were going to get more .Three of them had been sold the fourth was on hold for a customer but didn't show up to purchase the copy and the computer said it was still in the store so we hunted it down and I purchased it .As for the sales issue I am sure there many B5 fans who didn't purchase Crusade because it was only 13 eps why waste money I guess on show that was never completed.

[SpooRancher]

Regardless of the "finished or not finished" issue with Crusade, I bought it, because JMS has modified his projects along the way to deal with uncertainty and disappointment. Some day, I believe he will tell more of the story, and therefore, Crusade and Legend of the Rangers will be part of it, even if those stories themselves did not mature to fruition.

They are part of the universe, and are therefore still trying to make sense of themselves.

Now, if we can just get the suits at some studio to make sense of themselves, we can progress on to helping the universe itself make sense.

[Griffin]

Another reason for the poor sales on Crusade, I think.

The DVD's were not available in a lot of smaller markets. People had to travel to larger cities in order to purchase them. I had to travel over 2 hours to find it, and even in that city, had to check about 12 stores before I even found one copy. It was not at Wal-Mart where I looked, neither Target nor Best Buy. I finally ended up finding it at a store called FYE (For Your Entertainment). They only had one copy, and told me that they could only get one at a time, and generally sold it just about as soon as it came in, but still couldn't get more than one at a time.

I think the problem with the Crusade DVD's might well have been from the distribution end, rather than the customers.

I think Whyruss is talking about the Crusade DVD because he is from Austria. In Austria and Germany the box set was released on the 26th of august, that's now a few weeks ago. I think the sale went quite well (at least at amazon.de) and is still going, for a while it was in the best 5 sale-charts and no1 in sci-fi!

Many of you seem to run into stores to get the dvd they search. Well I have already learnt that stores aren't that great in holding up release dates etc., so I wouldn't wonder about that! Their range is mostly crap! I'm actually ordering all from the Internet (especially Amazon), because 1. it's cheaper 2. no trouble because it's not available or something of that sort!

[Whyruss]

I think Whyruss is talking about the Crusade DVD because he is from Austria. In Austria and Germany the box set was released on the 26th of august, that's now a few weeks ago. I think the sale went quite well (at least at amazon.de) and is still going, for a while it was in the best 5 sale-charts and no1 in sci-fi!

Many of you seem to run into stores to get the dvd they search. Well I have already learnt that stores aren't that great in holding up release dates etc., so I wouldn't wonder about that! Their range is mostly crap! I'm actually ordering all from the Internet (especially Amazon), because 1. it's cheaper 2. no trouble because it's not available or something of that sort!

absolutley right! But since Crusade was released a lot of stores sold a huge amount of this boxes (incl. all B5 boxes) - one box for about 30Ç - that's really cheap!
I bought them all on Amazon... soon I'll get The Legend Of The Rangers...