By Grabthar's Hammer, we came really close to getting more GALAXY QUEST.
Finding a home at Amazon Studios late last year, a GALAXY QUEST television series was in development with the hopes of bringing the crew of NSEA Protector to the streaming content provider. However, that project looks to have quietly faded away, following the death of Alan Rickman who played Alexander Dane/Dr. Lazarus as part of the original GALAXY QUEST.
In an appearance on the Nerdist Podcast, Sam Rockwell spoke about how close it all came to happening, and then how quickly it all fell apart.
They were going to do a [GALAXY QUEST] sequel on Amazon and we were ready to sign up, and [then] Alan Rickman passed away and Tim Allen wasn’t available – he has a show – and everybody’s schedule was all weird. We were going to do, like, this sequel on Amazon. It was going to shoot, like, right now.
And now it's not. Granted, a GALAXY QUEST follow-up could still happen if the demand was great enough, but come on… Does anyone really want more from this crew with the absence of Rickman looming large over the whole thing? He was such a key part of that cast's chemistry that, to proceed without him, would leave an unfilled hole right smack in the middle of the concept.
It sounded cool while it was being tossed around as a possibility, but, given what's happened since last year, perhaps GALAXY QUEST was always meant to be a one-and-done. And that's fine by me. We'll always have that one movie to celebrate.