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The ‘Babylon 5’ reboot will survive the sale of The CW

It remains in development at Warner Bros. for a 2023 launch.

Warner Bros. / Babylonian Productions

Toward the end of last year, it was revealed that seminal ‘90s sci-fi series Babylon 5 would be rebooted by creator J. Michael Straczynski for the CW. Not long after, however, and WarnerMedia put its youth-skewed channel up for sale, putting the show’s shot at a second life in jeopardy. Today, however, Straczynski has revealed on his Patreon that CW head Mark Pedowitz has personally guaranteed the pilot’s survival.

Rather than being shot and produced in preparation for a late-2022 launch date, says Straczynski, it’ll now be top of the pile for the 2023 slate. “The project is very much alive,” he added, even if “we will have to wait a little longer,” to see it hit the screen. Given that Pedowitz is apparently a big fan of the show, hopefully the postponement can only be seen as a positive despite all of the turmoil that surrounds the channel.

As someone once kinda said, the Babylon 5 reboot is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in a moment of revelation. No-one knows the shape of the reboot, or if it’ll get a full five-year commitment, we know only that it is always born in the pain of having to wait another year to see it.