‘Galaxy Quest’ TV Revival on Hold Following Alan Rickman’s Death

Plans for a possible Galaxy Quest revival have been grounded.

Nearly a year after news broke that a TV series based on the 1999 film was in the works, those plans have come to a halt in the wake of star Alan Rickman’s death.

Sam Rockwell, who co-starred in the film, on Tuesday spoke about the nixed plans on Chris Hardwick’s Nerdist podcast.

“They were going to do a sequel on Amazon,” said the actor. “We were ready to sign up, and [then] Alan Rickman passed away and Tim Allen wasn’t available — he has [Last Man Standing] — and everybody’s schedule was all weird. It was going to shoot, like, right now. And how do you fill that void of Alan Rickman? That’s a hard void to fill.”

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The DreamWorks film, which also starred Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shalhoub, Daryl Mitchell and Enrico Colantoni, centered on the cast of a canceled space TV show who are beamed aboard a spaceship and must save an alien nation. 

Galaxy Quest scribe Robert Gordon was expected to write the TV version and executive produce with the film’s director Dean Parisot, producer Mark Johnson and Johnson’s producing partner Melissa Bernstein. Paramount Television was producing the project, which landed at Amazon in late August.

Rickman died of cancer in January at 69. Shortly after his fellow actor’s passing, Allen talked to The Hollywood Reporter about the revival: “Galaxy Quest is really close to being resurrected in a very creative way. It’s closer than I can tell you, but I can’t say more than that. The real kicker is that Alan now has to be left out. It’s been a big shock on many levels.”

Revivals have become popular with the success of similar sequel-type series like Netflix’s Fuller House and Fox’s recent X-Files reboot.

Paramount Television and Amazon could not immediately be reached for comment.