As a sci-fi fan, I remember the 1970s being an incredible time for the genre. Star Trek was gaining a huge following in reruns, and then Star Wars exploded onto the scene in 1977, completely changing everything. Networks immediately wanted in on the action! You saw this with shows like Battlestar Galactica in 1978 – ABC really went all-out with the special effects, which were amazing for TV at the time, trying to capture that Star Wars magic. Then NBC gave us Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, developed by Glen A. Larson and Leslie Stevens from the original character by Philip Francis Nowlan. The show actually started as a movie released in theaters in March 1979, and it made a whopping $21 million! That convinced Universal to greenlight a weekly series right away, and it quickly became a pop culture hit.
The show Buck Rogers in the 25th Century centers around Buck Rogers (played by Gil Gerard), an astronaut from the 20th century who is frozen for 500 years and wakes up on a future Earth facing danger from aliens. Along with his companions, Colonel Wilma Deering (Erin Gray) and the robot Twiki (Felix Silla), Buck appeared in 32 episodes over two seasons. The show changed direction in its second season, focusing more on exploring space with a mobile starship. However, this wasn’t enough to keep viewers interested, and the series ended on April 16, 1981, with the episode “The Dorian Secret.” Since then, Buck Rogers hasn’t appeared in live-action television for over 45 years.
Why Buck Rogers Never Got a Reboot?
Despite the enduring popularity of Buck Rogers, fueled by its long history in comics and television, numerous attempts to revive the franchise have stalled. One promising effort came in the 2000s with acclaimed comic book creator Frank Miller, who was set to direct a movie. However, after his first solo film, The Spirit, received overwhelmingly negative reviews and performed poorly at the box office in 2008, that plan fell apart. By 2015, producer Don Murphy announced another new movie was in development, but the project was ultimately blocked by years of legal battles over who owned the rights, preventing any studio from investing in it.
By 2020, the legal issues surrounding Buck Rogers had been mostly settled, allowing Legendary Entertainment to start developing the property with actor Miles Murphy, producer Susan Montford, and Flint Dille—the grandson of the original publisher. Legendary planned a large-scale project including a high-quality TV series, a movie, and an anime spin-off. In December 2020, Brian K. Vaughan, a well-known comic book writer famous for works like Y: The Last Man and Saga, was hired to write the TV series. Then, in January 2021, George Clooney and Grant Heslov joined as executive producers through their production company, Smokehouse. For the first time in many years, the project had real progress and the involvement of established, successful creatives.
The initial progress on the Buck Rogers project lasted about two weeks. In February 2021, the Nowlan Family Trust, which manages the estate of Buck Rogers creator Philip Francis Nowlan, sent a legal notice to Legendary, claiming they had already made a deal with Skydance Productions, led by David Ellison. Legendary disagreed with these claims, but the resulting public disagreement stopped the project in its tracks. Ultimately, neither the television series planned by Legendary nor the film proposed by Skydance ever got made.
In October 2025, Legendary announced that Zeb Wells, one of the writers for Deadpool & Wolverine, would be writing a new version of a Buck Rogers movie. While the project is still in development, it currently lacks a director, cast, or release date. Considering the character first appeared in print in 1928 and became a science fiction television icon in the late 1970s, the franchise has been on hold for so long that it’s spanned the entire careers of many filmmakers.
Is a new version of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century actually happening? Share your thoughts in the comments and join the discussion on the ComicBook Forum!
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2026-04-16 23:13