Revolt in The Stars - Development

Development

Hubbard wrote the screenplay in 1977, while living in seclusion in Sparks, Nevada with three members of the Commodore's Messenger Organization from the Church of Scientology. He went into seclusion in July 1977, and by December had finished his work on the 140-page screenplay and was ready to begin production of a film version. Revolt in the Stars was registered as a screenplay with the United States Copyright Office in November 1977, with Diana Meredith Dewolf Hubbard, Hubbard's daughter, listed as copyright claimant, and registered for release as a novel in May 1978 with Hubbard himself as claimant. A former Scientologist and Sea Org member told the Los Angeles Business Journal that Hubbard intended to distribute the film publicly so that people inhabited with thetans would become "restimulated and upset", and be motivated to learn more about Scientology. Hubbard moved to the Scientology facilities at La Quinta, California and began production on Scientology "Tech films" which demonstrated the practice of "Auditing". A 10-acre (40,000 m2) ranch in Indio, California was purchased in addition to a 140-acre (0.57 km2) ranch called Silver. The Tech films were produced at the Silver location, and by 1980 Hubbard had made plans to film Revolt in the Stars and publicize the Scientology OT III theology.

Hubbard's screenplay for Revolt in the Stars was passed around Hollywood in 1979. A production company called "A Brilliant Film Company", also "Brilliant Films", announced plans in October 1979 to produce Revolt in the Stars as an independent film production. The New York Post reported that the film had a US$49 million budget, and was described as "a science fiction thriller". One of the parties involved with A Brilliant Film Company, Gregory F. Henderson, had a contract to shoot the film. After Brilliant Film went bankrupt Henderson filed suit against the company along with other defendants including Hubbard in May 1984. Bent Corydon writes in L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? that millions of dollars in funding for film production of Revolt in the Stars was raised from investors, but "Highly questionable methods of fund raising brought the project to a halt." Efforts to promote the screenplay and get it developed as a film were unsuccessful, and Hubbard focused on writing "Man, the Endangered Species" which later became the novel Battlefield Earth. Revolt in the Stars never received commercial financing, and the film was not released.

Author Services Inc., the for profit subsidiary company of the Church of Spiritual Technology, controls development of Revolt in the Stars in addition to Hubbard's other writings. In a 1983 press release announcing that the independent feature film company Salem Productions Inc. had acquired motion picture and ancillary rights to Battlefield Earth in a deal with Author Services Inc., Revolt in the Stars is listed as one of Hubbard's "classics". Copyright was transferred in 1993 with the Church of Spiritual Technology and trustee for L. Ron Hubbard, Norman F. Starkey, listed as parties. Scientologist and actor John Travolta was involved in developing Battlefield Earth into a film of the same name, and in 1996 New York Daily News wrote of reports that he also wanted to develop Revolt in the Stars into a film. According to the website Operation Clambake a synopsis of the screenplay was posted to the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology in 1995. Scientology critic Grady Ward published a summary of the material. The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements notes that Revolt in the Stars remains one of Hubbard's unpublished science fiction works but unofficial copies circulate on the Internet, and this is confirmed in The Encyclopedic Sourcebook of UFO Religions by James R. Lewis, and New Religions: A Guide, edited by Christopher Partridge.