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Jerry Doyle interview...

-Marty--Marty- Earthforce Officer
.....at IGN Filmforce.

Here you go:
[url]http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/435/435444p1.html[/url]

I've taken a glimpse look at it. Those of you who still remember the "koshy" comment by Jerry Doyle might find the last paragraph on page two interesting.

[QUOTE]
IGNFF: Well, according to what I understand to be the original idea for the series, that would have been the case...

DOYLE: Yeah. And I was of the contention – and I still am, but there's smarter people than me, who wear suits – that we, right now, should be starting our 10th season. Because there were so many subplots and relationships among characters that could have been explored of the years, and could have lead to new into new into new. But to make a long story short, a business associate and friend of Mancow's is a radio syndicator – I don't want to use his name – but he's been an advisor to Rush, and he's responsible for 3 of the top 5 syndicated radio talkshows on the air today... and a huge Babylon 5 fan. He didn't know that Mancow and I were buddies, and we started talking – and the next thing I know, the phone rings and it's Mancow, and he's got this guy on the line, and he's talking about the original Babylon 5. Which to me is funny, because this guy has got huge juice in the radio market, and he's a fan of mine – which I think is funny. I still find that odd. And we started talking, and he said, "Well, where is the original cast at? What do you think the word would be?" I said, "I can tell you exactly who'd be willing. If you gave us a call time of Monday at 6:30am and blah, blah, blah, we'd show up like we were on hiatus for a month and just hit the boards running." Because the cast was tight, the crew was great, the relationship between cast and crew was great, and it worked. The writers knew the actors, the actors knew the writers, we knew the directors... it all just worked. I think we were fortunate enough that we were able to suspend the realities of what we were – which was we were a plywood space station in a cul de sac in Sun Valley, with people with 3 heads and scales. We could suspend that, and allow ourselves to become immersed in what the B5 universe was all about. His contention – not Mancow, but the other guy – is that the show should be back on the air with the original cast. So I said, "Okay, fine. Make it happen." And he said, "I can make that first conversation happen with a certain network." And I said, "Okay." I don't want to say the name of the certain network, but sometimes the network's name would be followed by a hound. And then I called John Copeland and brought him into the loop, and then he called Greg Mayday over at Warner Bros., and they started floating some things around. Right now, I can't tell you exactly where it's at, but it's somewhere in some type of movement forward. But there's nothing concrete except right now, it's just talk.
[/QUOTE]

Well, as expected its pretty vague, but hope is all we got afterall ;)

Comments

  • BekennBekenn Sinclair's Duck
    Erm... I see no mention of JMS there. Without his leadership, the rest really shouldn't happen.

    Moreover, the show was designed to go five years and [i]stop[/i]. It did just that. Best to leave it that way.

    Now, on the other hand, if you wanted a spinoff series featuring perhaps one or more of the original characters, that would be different -- so long as it was still headed by Straczynski and wasn't set on the station.
  • David of MacDavid of Mac Elite Ranger Ca
    You know, it seems like every actor on that show seemed to miss the five year arc thing. So many say that it should have gone on, and on, and on.

    I mean, did they mumble it at the meetings or something?

    "Well, as you all know, we need to lay some groundwork and foreshadowing in this episode for some things that will happen before the show ends [i]infiveyears[/i]."
    "What was that? You mumbled a bit."
    "Oh, nothing."
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Imhotep [/i]
    [B]Did you ever consider that they just enjoyed the jobs so much they didn't want it to end? [/B][/QUOTE]

    This is my opinion as well, particularly after listening to the commentaries on the DVDs and hearing how much they enjoyed working on the show.


    I'd still like to see the feature film about the telepath war. :)
  • FreejackFreejack Jake the Not-so-Wise
    I think that would be the most interesting option, a B5 big screen movie. Imagine seeing the special effects with up to date cgi!

    My only concern would be that a movie would not be long enough to tell the story the way JMS likes to tell it. Revealing just bits at a time.

    Jake
  • David of MacDavid of Mac Elite Ranger Ca
    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Imhotep [/i]
    [B]Did you ever consider that they just enjoyed the jobs so much they didn't want it to end? We all know JMS meant it for 5 years, which we know the actors did as well. So lets not continue to question on their actors supposed lack of grasping the concept of the 5 year arc.[/B][/QUOTE]

    Why, of course I considered it. I would've considered it much more seriously if, whenever someone mentioned how they wished the show had gone on, there wasn't a subtext suggesting that ending the show after five years was a foolish and abrupt decision that surprised and enraged the entire cast.

    They always tend to say something along the lines of “Jeeze, we should be in our tenth season now, [subtext]why, oh, why did they guys up there end the show, are they stupid or something?[/subtext]” as opposed to “I really loved working with everyone, and I wish I was still with them. Maybe we should make a feature film one of these days, like [i]Star Trek[/i] did.”

    It's armchair producing. And most actors are not experienced with producing a television show. I truly don't think that B5 could've become the next Law and Order, running strong for a decade and beyond. If you ask me, if B5 had gone on, JMS would've either quit or been incapacitated by the stress[url=http://www.jmsnews.com/scripts/MsgStore.dll?MfcISAPICommand=GetMsg&List=1&Topic=770&Flags=0&Query=BrowseCmd&QFlags=0&ls=771&qs=0&qt=0]*[/url] sometime in the sixth or seventh season, some Fred Freibergeresqe producer would've been moved in, and the remainder of the episodes would be Warzone-like crapfests until the show was ultimately canceled. The fans would hate it because it was Tits in Space, the crew would hate it because they had been reduced to making Tits in Space, and the actors would hate it because they would be doing endless fistfights and sex scenes and none of the meaty character stuff they love so much.

    So yes, I understand that they would want to continue working on an enjoyable job. I just don't understand the apparent bitterness that it didn't (especially since, in my opinon, the job would've become a lot [i]less[/i] enjoyable real quick like). Perhaps I'm just reading too much rancor into harmless reminiscing. But either way, I'm rather sure that when it came to B5's run, more would not have been better.
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    I think you're probably reading a bit much into harmless reminiscing. :) I agree that more B5 would not necessarily be better, but I also think there's nothing wrong with one feature film.
  • The Cabl3 GuyThe Cabl3 Guy Elite Ranger
    Im sorry I will not watch it if its not written by JMS. Yeah it would be great if the whole cast could come back together & do another 5 seasons but if JMS doesnt write G'kar your not getting G'kar your getting someone who thinks they know what G'kar would say. Without JMS the characters would not be who they are & I won't see them in any other light other than what they were intended. I think its also showing respect to JMS it is his work after all. not watching it would hurt B5 itself but I think we owe JMS that much for such a great story.
  • without JMS B5 would turn into a dull, boring, preidictable sci-fi *cough* [I]enterprise[/I]
  • David of MacDavid of Mac Elite Ranger Ca
    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Biggles [/i]
    [B]I also think there's nothing wrong with one feature film. [/B][/QUOTE]

    I would love a feature film. Hell, I'd love five or six feature films.But since we weren't talking about feature films, I didn't mention that.
  • I thought this part was particularly interesting regarding DVD sales...

    [QUOTE]Speaking of the DVDs – when you look at the first run box set... what are they selling for? Seventy bucks a piece? Eighty bucks a piece? So they sold 350,000-something of the first run. So if you did 70 times 350 – what are you looking at, 22-23 million dollars? Figure discounting, giveaways, promos... so let's say they took in $20 million. We shot the first season for somewhere around $950,000 an episode for 22 episodes... you do the math. That's $19 million. They sell 350,000 DVDs at $70 or $80 and they're making $21 million – boom! Done! If they want to do 20 years of Babylon 5, they recoup their entire production cost just one box set run of DVDs.
    [/QUOTE]
  • Alpha-1Alpha-1 Elite Ranger Germany
    from jms about the interview

    [quote]A couple of points on this.

    There have been no discussions concerning a return of the Babylon 5 series
    between myself and WB or any other studio or network. Nor do I think anything
    is likely in that area.

    Jerry took umbrage when, a few years ago, I commented on his statements that he
    would be able to put togeether a new B5 series deal. From the interview, he
    still seems to be in high dudgeon over this. But the fact remains: I was
    correct in my statement, he didn't have the pieces in place to make it happen.
    If he'd had the wherewithal to make it happen, it would've; it didn't, so he
    didn't. My statement was correct.

    Once again, the pieces simply aren't there. He has lined up a radio guy who
    feels the show should return. Which is great, it's a terrific compliment. But
    that is not in any way, manner, shape or form anywhere near anything of a
    serious nature in terms of getting a show on the air.

    I've always been happy to listen to anyone -- Jerry, his pals, anybody -- who
    would come to me with a serious proposal and have the moxie, the money, and the
    resources to make it happen. It hasn't. That's the simple fact of it.

    Jerry's a terrific operator, he always has an angle going, he's always working
    it...but that ain't the same thing as always having the real deal in hand. If
    WB were involved in this -- and they'd have to be -- both Doug and I would be
    in the loop by contract. But that is not the case. I spoke with Doug five
    minutes ago as I type this, and he confirmed: there is nothing happening on
    this front other than Jerry talkling with the radio guy.

    As for his notion that the characters in Crusade were just B5 characters with
    the names changed...as the person who created those characters, nothing could
    be further from the truth. Nor was Bruce ever set to be the star of Crusade.

    There's a natural tendency for people to hear or think what they expect, what
    they want to hear. I told all the B5 cast members as a group that there would
    certainly be opportunities for guest appearances throughout Crusade, but at no
    point did I promise Bruce that he would be the lead of the series, or that we'd
    simply transplant the characters. It wouldn't be a new series if we did that.

    Finally, in his interview, both Jerry and Bruce seem to blame me for B5 not
    being in its 10th year right now. Which is true and not true. B5 was always
    meant to be a 5 year story; every actor knew that going in. It wasn't like
    this was a surprise at the last minute. We all knew the deal.

    WB had told us to shut down after year 4 because even though the show was doing
    well, our network, PTEN, was going out of business. At the last minute, TNT
    took on the task of financing a fifth year *in order to get the end of the
    five-year story*. They never talked about anything beyond that, nor did anyone
    else. So anything else is a moot point. I don't think that TNT would ever
    have committed to anything more than one season in any event. They wanted the
    end of the story to make the package complete. If that had been a six-year
    arc, they would not have picked it up because two years would've been too
    costly.

    So them's is the facts.

    Yes, there's one or two things percolating n the B5 universe that may be of
    interest, but neither of them are series deals.

    I hate to throw water on this, but I don't want fans to get all excited about
    something that's simply not happening anywhere except in Jerry's interview.

    He probably won't like that I said this any more than he did the last time, but
    then as now, I have to put out the facts and let the passage of time validate
    them.

    jms

    (jmsatb5@aol.com)
    (all message content (c) 2003 by synthetic worlds, ltd.,
    permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine
    and don't send me story ideas)



    [/quote]
  • RhettRhett (Not even a monkey)
    well, sounds like thats the end of that (not that there was anything in the first place, hehe)
  • C_MonC_Mon A Genuine Sucker
    Damn, I still wish that TNT would have let JMS do his work at crusade. THis thread reminds me I haven't yet seen Legends of the Rangers.
  • Communication

    I' ve seen the Jerry Doyle Interview, and I 've seen what JMS said.

    Now the question is:
    Are they communicating ??? It seems to be not. But why do they this ???

    And Jerry Doyle. He is the man who takes the Babylon 5 - Series in minds. So no one forget the Babylon 5 Series. I think that 's a good point for Jerry Doyle.

    For JMS, the Babylon 5 Series is off. But I think, it 's now 10 years after the old Babylon 5 - Series. In the Babylon 5 - Series, there are scenes, where the future after Sheridan will be told. Things like, that Sheridans Son would be doing terribly things. But there are no descriptions for the future. Only suggestions.

    I think, this all "Suggestions" in the Babylon 5 Series can be a good background for a new Babylon 5 - Series. Only the man or woman, who will do this, is missing.
  • Well atleast Babylon 5 is being mentioned and maybe oneday some "big" people will get it into their sub concience and fund whether the series return or a feature movie which would be really great.Didn't JMS mention somewhere that a feature film could happen after the star wars prequels were finishd?
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    I believe so, yes. I'm fairly sure he also mentioned that that is how he wants to tell the story of the telepath war.
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