Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming - The Second Coming

The Second Coming

Created, executive produced and co-directed by Richard Hatch who starred in the original series as Captain Apollo, the pilot film was conceived to convince Universal Studios, the owner of the Battlestar Galactica franchise rights, to greenlight a new project based on this concept. The pilot film was co-directed by Jay Woelfel and produced by Johnnie J. Young.

Richard Hatch was able to get many stars from the original series including Richard Lynch (in place of Patrick Macnee as Count Iblis), John Colicos (Count Baltar), and Terry Carter (Colonel Tigh, now President of the Quorum of Twelve) to appear in the film. Hatch himself also reprised his own role of Apollo (now Commander of the Fleet).

Filming on the project began in the summer of 1998 and lasted through late 1999. Some of the filming was done in conjunction with the Battlestar Galactica 20th Yahren Reunion which was held at the Los Angeles Hilton in September 1998.

The finished edit of Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming had a running time of thirty minutes in length. A four minute trailer was later assembled from this thirty minute version and state of the art computer generated special effects were added. The rare thirty minute version of the pilot film has never been shown publicly.

The partially complete Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming trailer was first shown at DragonCon in Atlanta on July 3, 1999 and received rave reviews from fans. Once it was complete, Hatch traveled to a series of science fiction conventions to show the trailer and it proved to be very popular at these events.

However, Hatch never succeeded in getting Universal's attention, and a different project, the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica conceived by Ronald D. Moore was ultimately pursued.

Later, Richard Hatch joined the new Battlestar Galactica series cast as the recurring character Tom Zarek. However, Hatch continues to push for a revival/continuation of his own vision of the original series (he writes original novels based on it).

There are no plans to release Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming on DVD and/or Blu-ray.