Co-written, 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 written by Hatch and his then girlfriend, writer Sophie LaPorte, directed by Hatch and Jay Woelfel and produced by Johnnie J. Young and Sophie LaPorte. Richard Hatch was able to get many cast members from the original series including
Richard Lynch (in place of
Patrick Macnee as
Count Iblis),
John Colicos (
Lord 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). The original character Starbuck was chosen not to be recast and instead, a new character was created as his daughter, a bold and brazen Viper pilot not unlike the female Starbuck character in the new series. 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 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. Sound was recorded by Larry Engle. 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. Hatch continued to push for a revival/continuation of his own vision of the original series, writing original novels based on it. There are no plans to release
Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming on DVD and/or
Blu-ray. == Competing developments ==