Devlin Announces Plans for Stargate Sequels
Source: Blake Wright
July 20, 2006

Producer-writer Dean Devlin confirmed today at the San Diego Comic-Con that he is in talks with MGM Studios to shoot parts two and three to his original 1994 sci-fi film Stargate, which starred Kurt Russell and James Spader.

Devlin, speaking to the Comic-Con crowd about his next production, the World War I pilot drama Flyboys, said he has signed a multi-picture deal with MGM and wants the completion of his originally envisioned “Stargate” trilogy to be considered for those slots.

“I’d want the films to stay on track for what the original three were planned to be,” said Devlin. “I’d want to let the series stand on their own.”

Stargate, a project that no one believed in – according to Devlin, has become an international sensation following successful SCI FI Channel series “SG-1” and “Atlantis.” Devlin told attendees that watching what the “Stargate” phenomenon had become has been a great experience – likening it to a dream that had ‘come to life, left his head, walked across the street, got married and had children.’ You can’t help but be proud of that.”

“We’ve always envisioned it as a trilogy,” Devlin added later when talking directly to the press about the sequels. “‘Stargate’ was also supposed to be the first part of three. We had written all three, not the script, but the story, when we did the first one and due to the nature of how that film got made, and how MGM has changed so many times, and their commitment to doing the series, they’ve been very reluctant to do the movie. Well, under this new regime we’ve been in discussions with them and basically said, ‘Look, one doesn’t have to hurt the other. The series is doing great. Fans love the series, so much that it got a sequel. They may even be doing a third spinoff they’re talking about. So it’s alive, well and in good shape. But it would be great to finish telling the story we set out to tell 12 years ago.

So would he get Kurt Russell and James Spader back? He said, “Absolutely.” Roland Emmerich? “Roland would absolutely be involved in it, whether or not he directs it will really depends on how much money I raise to make the picture.” (laughs) “‘Stargate’ started as a story that Roland wrote in college called ‘Necropol: City of the Dead’, which was about a space ship buried underneath the Great Pyramid of Egypt. I had been working on, separately, without ever knowing, this thing I always called ‘Lawrence of Arabia on Another Planet.’ And when we met, he pitched me Necropol, and I told him mine, and I said how can we turn these into one story and our conceptual artist suggested, he said, ‘Well, you know what’s used a lot in science fiction and literature, but not that much in movies is the idea of the transporter. You see it in ‘Star Trek’ and a little bit in ‘The Fly’, but it’s really a common device in literature but not used properly in movies. And that became the link, the Stargate became the link between his script and my script.

Devlin talked more about the story throughout the three films. “Our first movie was only trying to tap into Egyptian mythology. The second was to move into other mythologies. Then the third was to realize that all mythologies are actually tied together with a common thread that we haven’t recognized before. So if you make it through all three, hopefully we’re tying up all kinds of mysteries on our planet that makes one cohesive story. My hope is that the series could live as beginning when the third movie ends.”

Flyboys opens on September 29.