Amazon MGM Studios has a new creative lead for its long-stalled “Stargate” revival. Jac Schaeffer created “WandaVision.” She is now developing a new “Stargate” television series for Amazon MGM, Variety reported exclusively on October 9th. The project falls under the overall deal Schaeffer already has with the studio. Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell of Safehouse Pictures will also executive produce. They held the same credit on the scrapped Martin Gero version of the show. Variety said a writers’ room is expected to open soon. Deadline confirmed the story separately, saying a writers’ room has already opened in New York.
Reps for Amazon and for Schaeffer both declined to comment on the new series, Variety said. Amazon also declined to comment when Deadline asked.
This is Amazon’s second attempt at reviving “Stargate” since it bought MGM for $8.5 billion in 2022. Deadline reported that “Stargate” was among the very first MGM titles the studio identified for a new series or film. The first attempt did not end well. Amazon MGM Studios gave Martin Gero’s “Stargate” revival a series order in November 2025. Gero was a writer on “Stargate SG-1,” “Stargate Atlantis,” and “Stargate Universe” earlier in his career, and he also created NBC’s “Blindspot.” The studio announced his version in a video, with Gero and franchise veterans Brad Wright and Joseph Mallozzi delivering the news straight to fans. Wright and Mallozzi then stayed on as consulting producers. When Gero first signed on, he said he was taking the job seriously and was building the new series with the fans who had kept the franchise alive for years, ComicBook reported. None of that saved it. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for the original “Stargate” franchise and for what is known about the Gero version that came before this one.
Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell of Safehouse Pictures will also executive produce.”
Amazon pulled the plug on Gero’s version in June. By then the show had completed a 20-week writers’ room and was already in pre-production in the United Kingdom. No plot details for that version were ever made public, Variety reported at the time. A source with knowledge of the situation told Variety that Amazon executives were concerned Gero’s take “would not have broad appeal beyond the franchise’s already dedicated fanbase.”
Deadline’s own sources gave a different frame for the same decision, saying the new series’ vision and creative direction no longer lined up with Amazon’s programming strategy. Deadline also tied the call to turnover among the executives who had championed Gero’s project inside the studio. Gero remains under his own overall deal at Amazon MGM Studios, where he will keep developing new projects.
The Gero order came from Peter Friedlander, Amazon MGM Studios’ head of television. Deadline reported it was one of his first pickups after he joined the company. The two executives who had developed the project with Gero and championed it internally both left the studio within months of each other. One left when a new department head arrived, and the other left two months later, after that department head restructured the team.
The cancellation did not go quietly. Collider reported that it set off a sustained social media pressure campaign from the franchise’s sizable fan base, aimed at getting Amazon to reconsider. That fan base is exactly what Variety’s sourcing says Amazon worried Gero’s version would not grow beyond.
Harold and Tunnell are the one constant between the two versions. They executive produced Gero’s canceled take too, alongside Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, the writers of the 1994 film. Wright and Mallozzi served as consulting producers on that version. None of those other names have been mentioned for Schaeffer’s version. That makes Harold and Tunnell the only confirmed link between the “Stargate” Amazon scrapped in June and the “Stargate” it is building now.
Schaeffer is coming off the biggest run of her career. She created “WandaVision” for Disney+ in 2021, the first Marvel Studios series on Disney+, starring Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany). It earned 23 Primetime Emmy nominations, Variety reported. She followed it with “Agatha All Along” in 2024, the “WandaVision” spinoff built around Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn). Schaeffer stayed on as an executive producer for the trilogy’s finale, “VisionQuest,” but handed the showrunner’s job to Terry Matalas.
Before Marvel, Schaeffer wrote the screenplay for Disney’s “Olaf’s Frozen Adventure” and the 2019 comedy “The Hustle,” a remake of “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson. GateWorld also credits her with the 2009 Emma Caulfield film “Timer” and a Disney+ pilot for “Holes” that the streamer passed on in December.
The timing lines up in one more way. Dr. Daniel Jackson (James Spader) was one half of the original 1994 “Stargate” film, opposite Colonel Jack O’Neil (Kurt Russell). Spader returns to the Marvel Cinematic Universe on October 14th, when “VisionQuest” premieres on Disney+ with a two-episode opener, playing Ultron in both his robotic and human forms. The two franchises brush past each other almost in the same week.
None of this is a greenlight yet. GateWorld reported that Schaeffer joined Amazon MGM from Marvel Studios and 20th Television in February on a three-year overall deal. GateWorld also cautioned that tasking her with developing “Stargate” is still a long way from an order. Two of her other recent development deals ended up with other creators attached instead: adaptations of “Fourth Wing” and “Exit Party.”
The franchise itself goes back three decades. Roland Emmerich directed the 1994 film. He and Dean Devlin also wrote it, and it grossed $196.6 million worldwide. Variety also notes two direct-to-video “Stargate” films exist, beyond the three TV series and their animated and web spinoffs. “Stargate SG-1” followed, running ten seasons from 1997 to 2007 and starring Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Shanks, Amanda Tapping, and Christopher Judge. “Stargate Atlantis” followed for five seasons from 2004 to 2009. “Stargate Universe” ran from 2009 to 2011. The animated series “Stargate Infinity” aired in 2002 and 2003. The web series “Stargate Origins” arrived in 2018. Across the three live action TV series alone, GateWorld counts more than 350 episodes of continuity. That is a lot for whoever ends up writing the next one.
Handing the keys to someone with no “Stargate” history of her own is the opposite of what Amazon tried the first time. Gero was a franchise veteran, and that version still never made it to cameras. Schaeffer has already proven she can take a dense, established universe and make it feel new. That trick worked on a thirteen year old superhero universe, but whether it works on a thirty year old military science fiction franchise is the real question Amazon is betting on. ComicBook’s broader count, across all of the franchise’s shows, comes out at more than 360 episodes. That is a lot of continuity for a writer with zero prior “Stargate” credits to either honor or ignore.
What Do You Think? Should Amazon have stuck with a “Stargate” veteran like Martin Gero instead of starting over with an outside creator? Does Jac Schaeffer’s run on “WandaVision” and “Agatha All Along” make you more confident in this version, or less? And would you rather see a new “Stargate” series respect thirty years of continuity, or start clean the way “WandaVision” did for the MCU?
Catch up properly: the entire “Stargate” saga in chronological order on our Timeline Hub’s Stargate timeline.
See you on the next binge!
