The first step has been taken. Now what happens next for Stargate? Amazon is purchasing MGM, and with it the Stargate franchise!

Join David Read and special guest Jenny Stiven, owner of Clio Consulting and veteran of over 30 years in film and television marketing experience, to discuss LIVE!

Share This Video ► https://youtu.be/eHD7XJuuzXo

GateWorld Announcement ► https://bit.ly/34kJVMO
Visit DialtheGate ► http://www.dialthegate.com
on Facebook ► https://www.facebook.com/dialthegate
on Instagram ► https://instagram.com/dialthegateshow
on Twitter ► https://twitter.com/dial_the_gate

MERCHANDISE!
https://dialthegate.redbubble.com

SUBSCRIBE!
https://youtube.com/dialthegate/

Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Screen
0:20 – Opening Credits
0:48 – Welcome and Guest Introduction
2:38 – Jenny Stiven’s CV
5:15 – The Deal MAY Close This Year
7:34 – Streaming Is Changing Everything
10:04 – Amazon Is Buying Everything After 1986
14:26 – How will Amazon Parse Out MGM?
17:12 – Jeff Bezos wants to “Reimagine” Content
28:45 – How will Stargate be served by this sale?
34:20 – Amazon is Aware of Cultivating Fandoms
36:59 – The Expanse is a Shining Example
39:16 – Stargate and the Global Audience
44:50 – Brad Wright’s Show Can Be Fast-Tracked
50:48 – Amazon Has Deep Pockets for Production
55:37 – Would the new franchise be filmed in Canada or the US?
56:44 – Will the deal affect the upcoming Stargate game?
58:36 – How much merchandising will be involved with Amazon?
59:55 – Is Amazon’s streaming platform limiting to a worldwide audience?
1:03:22 – Fans need to rally together as One Voice
1:09:48 – Will this be a reboot or extension of the established franchise?
1:11:23 – Stargate Command & Special Features
1:16:53 – GateWorld’s Darren Sumner Joins In
1:20:30 – This Deal Won’t Finalize Overnight
1:22:55 – What are your thoughts on Amazon making Stargate movies?
1:25:36 – Final Thoughts
1:29:42 – Call to Action and Upcoming Schedule
1:32:03 – End Credits

***

“Stargate” and all related materials are owned by MGM Studios and MGM Television.

#Stargate

#DialtheGate
#TurtleTimeline

TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Episode 89, the new 89, of Dial the Gate, because everything is now shifting around, so the episodes that were pre-recorded and scheduled for my weekend off, of course, had to go back in and re-render them and re-upload them, because Amazon is buying MGM. Holy crap. Man, I’m gonna jump right to it. Jenny Stiven, Clio Consulting, marketing guru of the past 30 years with a focus on digital marketing, welcome back to the show, my dear friend.

Jenny Stiven:
It’s so good to be here. Thank you so much. I love this.

David Read:
And Tracy, you can hear me?

Tracy:
Yes, I can, David.

David Read:
Tracy, our moderator. Tracy is going to be assisting us with the in-chat comments. Thank you both for being available here. I have to say right up front, we were going to have live call-ins. I’ve been doing some checking this morning, and I am not configured yet, so I feel terrible because I’ve done a bait and switch, “So everyone show up so that they can call in,” and they can’t. But I’m having a technology issue that was not happening the other day, so we’re unfortunately not gonna be able to do that here. But go to youtube.com/dialthegate and submit in a chat with @dialthegate, and Tracy will add your question to the list. She’s gonna be helping to manage this for us. Jenny, you and I have had the privilege of being vendors for MGM, working on Stargate Command, may it rest in peace. We’ve been fans of Stargate for how many years now? Can you give us a brief rundown of your professional experience in this industry…

Jenny Stiven:
Sure.

David Read:
… and your connection to the franchise and why you’re here?

Jenny Stiven:
Sure. I am and have been a producer in TV and digital content for 25 to 30 years. I was a fan of sci-fi my whole life and like many of our fans that we talked to, my dad got me into sci-fi. I saw the movie, and then I stumbled with my husband onto the show in the last season it was on Showtime, and that was it for me. I was a dedicated fan. From a professional standpoint, I moved over into digital content in 1992 and worked in video games and other studio work for digital, and one of those moves was that I went over and started working for Fox. And they, at the time, were certainly, A: not particularly interested in digital content and digital marketing at all. Didn’t really understand what it was at the time. But also, B: they didn’t have anybody that was assigned to the sci-fi, TV geek and film franchises. Luckily, I raised my hand and said, “I love this stuff.” And they said, “Great, you take over.” In 2002, that’s when I started working full-time professionally on Stargate. I was lucky enough to be able to be there for a nice chunk of the franchises being on broadcast, syndication, home entertainment, and then of course, I got to do an enormous amount of digital content with you and with an amazing group of producers, writers, and creators that we worked with over the years. And then when we got to do Stargate Command, when it got, quote unquote, re-whatever we wanna call it…

David Read:
Reimagined.

Jenny Stiven:
… reimagined, rebooted, whatever word we want, in 2016, and then we worked on it through March of 2020 last year. And now I’m working with Wyvern Gaming to help them, and other than that, I’m not working with MGM anymore right now. I haven’t since March of 2020.

David Read:
I was let go from them November of 2019, so you hung on a little bit further. One of the reasons, the chief reason that I wanted to do this show was, A: to get everyone together to celebrate the fact that some gas has been put into Stargate’s tank. That’s the big thing. The second thing is, I want to sit down with an industry veteran and properly calibrate expectations so that people who want to get educated on the process and get some insight into how the industry is mechanized can come in and clear up some misconceptions. I think one of the ones is that; this is a done deal, Stargate’s gonna be coming out next year more than likely, because everyone… this is a huge…

Jenny Stiven:
No.

David Read:
… huge property. This thing is gonna close… if there’s no antitrust issues or anything like that with the government, we’re looking at maybe, the deal closing, maybe this year, right?

Jenny Stiven:
There’s a couple of things. My shout out to Victoria Rose, that’s her handle on Twitter, because I love her and she was one of the ones that called this out, that this is accurate. First of all, MGM’s fiscal year ends June 30th, on a normal, every day… that alone is something that has to enter into this. And then on top of that, just like the Fox deal with Disney, it will take about six to 10 months to finish the actual deal. Now, what’s happened is what’s called a deal on paper, meaning they’ve signed contractual agreements for a certain amount of money. It’s like a promissory note, essentially. “I promise–”

David Read:
They can all get to work.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s right, “I promise to pay this amount of money and you’ve agreed to give me these things for this amount of money.” Now, what’s gonna happen is multiple parallel paths are gonna happen, obviously, and a lot of our fans are very savvy. They read a lot about what’s happening in the industry so I think that they’ve seen this certainly with the Fox merger with Disney that’s happened, let alone Fox acquiring Lucasfilm and Marvel, let alone Warner Media being divested from AT&T last week to Discovery+. We’re reading a lot about how this happens, and I think what’s gonna be fascinating about this is twofold. So, setting the context of what’s happening in our industry, in the entertainment industry, it was a tectonic shift that was happening prior to COVID. Meaning the technology, streaming, everything about streaming, the fact that you had not just Amazon and Netflix but you had, on the back burner happening very quickly, the Peacock Channel, Discovery+, Disney… all of those. Besides those big behemoths, you had enormous amounts of people who were starting to break off from those studios, and some of them were agencies, production companies, who were saying, “I can distribute my own content. Why am I coming to you?” And that was starting to be a massive tsunami within the industry, where I was having meetings with people all the time where they were literally saying, “OK, this is gonna happen any minute.” COVID hits, everything goes on the back burner. In many ways, that was a good thing for our industry and for the people that wanted to start something new because it gave everybody a chance to take a step back, take a breather, and look and see what’s effective. What do they really think is a good way to distribute their content? And remember, we’ve got, I’m gonna use the word again, behemoths, that are in any description other than how the United States government is going to actually assign it, they are monopolies. They own the content, the distribution channel, the marketing channel, the production channel. Now, in the old days, that would be an antitrust case. Because of the shift in the FCC and FTC, so Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, who run for the United States all of the trade regulations and the communications, which is cable, distribution, streaming giants now, there’s a lot of gray area. What’s gonna happen is that this deal, and the AT&T, is going to force everything to the front burner for the government. It’s gonna force them to say, “Is this really a monopoly or not?” I just talked to contacts over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation yesterday and a couple of other friends. They say that the government is gonna opt that this is not an antitrust issue, that these are not monopolies. What I truly think this is going to do is you’re going to have an enormous rise of independents, production studios, people who say, “Fine, I’m gonna do this myself.” And part of that is that Amazon buying MGM is because they are, as everybody knows, desperate for content. So, that library, that IP, the franchises, and let’s put Bond to the side because it really isn’t part of the conversation right now. Everybody gets excited about Bond. Amazon would only own 50% of that.

David Read:
Let’s clarify on that point here because I was under the impression that they were going to get everything from 1920 forward, and you’re indicating here that that is not the case.

Jenny Stiven:
No. I was there, I was working with MGM. This is gonna date me. I was working with ABC and MGM in 1986. I had just entered the entertainment industry when Kirk Kerkorian sold off the library to Ted Turner. Ted Turner had put on a full-court press with him because he had Turner Classic Movies and he had his channels and he wanted to get content. Turner bought the entire library from 1924 through 1986. So, what Amazon just bought is everything post-1986.

David Read:
They don’t have those classic films…

Jenny Stiven:
But there’s a lot.

David Read:
… before 1986.

Jenny Stiven:
I’m not kidding. I’ve worked with them forever, but I had to write it out so I could remember what it is. MGM partnered up with United Artists Films years ago. They also bought Orion Films. They also bought Annapurna, which is Larry Ellison’s daughter who runs Annapurna Films, and then I think New Line was part of that at one point as well. All of that goes to Amazon. Now, what could happen, and what will probably happen, is that some of those will be absorbed, some of them will stay as their own shingles. It’s called hanging your own shingle out under the parent company of Amazon Studios.

David Read:
‘Cause MGM itself, the name is not going away.

Jenny Stiven:
No.

David Read:
It’s still gonna exist.

Jenny Stiven:
According to what’s on paper, and I called over to my friend at Amazon and I said, “OK, so as far as you know, is what they’re reporting in Variety and AP accurate, that MGM will continue to be its own brand identity under the Amazon Creative Studios?”

David Read:
Like Lucasfilm, like Marvel.

Jenny Stiven:
They said, “yes.” What is unclear is what happens to Mark Burnett’s reality production company, what happens to Annapurna Films, what happens to Orion, which is being run by John Hegeman and his brother, who had come from Blumhouse. There’s a lot of sub-brands that we don’t know what’s gonna happen with them. In addition to that, you’ve got film, television, and I know that some people probably don’t know this, but MGM has a fairly small but active video game division, and then they’ve also got obviously their catalog. So, all of those are split into very, very radically different silos. And we were very lucky to be working with a group, Michael Brown, Simon Grady, Gary Barber, who was running it from, I can’t remember now, 2012? Gary Barber came in when they filed for bankruptcy. He turned MGM around and put it in the black. And Anchorage Capital, Kevin Ulrich is the one who actually underwrites MGM, and they run it by a board of directors. This is a huge offset for them, and honestly, in the scheme of things, in theory, this is really good, because you don’t wanna have a studio being run by a committee. Everybody knows that’s not how you make good creative decisions; you need to have people in charge of these. Now, they’ve got great people in charge of the different divisions right now. Michael Wright, who came over from Epix, is in charge of scripted television. He is phenomenal, and as a side note, was super supportive of Stargate. So, these people, we hope, Michael De Luca, who’s in charge of film, what we hope is that they stay. The fear is what happens with the Fox-Disney merger where they stay for a year to two years, and then they’re slowly pushed out. That’s the cynical part of me that says, “that’s an option, that could happen,” and I think one of the biggest question marks I’ve got is, how are they gonna split it? Because Amazon Studios and Amazon Prime Video are different silos. Now, they’re now gonna be run by the same person, which is great. Jeff Bezos brought back in Jeff Blackburn, who had been pushed out, and he’s phenomenally creative. He’s so good, and the two people that are in charge of the actual studios, Mike Hopkins and Jennifer Salke…Mike Hopkins was over at Fox when I was there, at Fox Network. He’s really smart, really creative. That group is a creative group. But you’re part of a larger megalith, monolith, mega system, whatever. Megalith, I made up a new word. And I think that my biggest question is, how are they gonna divvy up catalog, new production, and new production TV, new production film, games? I don’t know how that’s gonna work. In a perfect world, let’s use Stargate as the example, you have 370 hours of catalog. You have potential new shows that Brad and Joe have talked about very openly. Amazon, I would imagine, would be very interested in that considering prior to 2020 they were hot to trot on sci-fi/fantasy franchises and were openly shopping for them. So, in a perfect world, you have catalog streams, they keep their current contracts, and those finish out. Those contracts worldwide would finish out for syndication, and then it would be available on Amazon in its entirety, and then you’d launch a new show under Amazon Creative Studios. That, in a perfect world, would happen with a lot of those, like Legally Blonde and Pink Panther. The film is probably gonna get the biggest focus first because Michael De Luca very aggressively over the past two years, through COVID, acquired some phenomenal content, and Amazon has just gotten that, so he has a great relationship with Sylvester Stallone for the Rocky franchise, the new Creed with Michael B. Jordan, but he also just signed contracts with Darren Aronofsky, Paul Thomas Anderson. Michael De Luca, who’s head of film, has some phenomenal chops, and I would hope that they keep him to finish that out. Michael Wright just came over from Epix and was getting started, so I think there’s a little bit more question on the TV catalog side.

David Read:
There’s a ton of irons in the fire that we’re talking about here.

Jenny Stiven:
There is a lot, and that’s why it’s gonna take six to 10 months, or more honestly, to unravel that.

David Read:
One of the concerns that everyone is talking about is Bezos’ comment that they want to reimagine a lot of this content for the 21st century. And reimagine, for our purposes, suggest a hard, complete reboot…back to square one of Stargate. So, wiping out SG-1, Atlantis, Universe. Thoughts on this?

Jenny Stiven:
I wouldn’t count much on that either cynically or optimistically. One of the reasons is that, and again, our fans are super savvy. They know how this goes. The PR teams at Amazon and MGM probably spent a month fine-tuning these quotes. I don’t know if everybody saw this, but that quote was not just attributed to Bezos, but it was also attributed to Mike Hopkins over at Amazon Studios, and to somebody over at MGM. So, my guess is they were told… ’cause you and I remember this ’cause we were told certain things at events where we could only keep… Not that we paid a lot of attention to that, but you’re given certain phrases that you have to say over and over again.

David Read:
We all have to be on the same page. That just makes sense.

Jenny Stiven:
Linda brought up a good point that AP probably had the most expansive quote, which brings us back to Bond. Bezos was saying that as it applies to Bond, so there’s a couple things there. Eon Productions, owned by Barbara Broccoli Wilson and Michael Wilson, who I worked with for years when I worked on Bond, they own 50% of Bond. MGM only owns 50%.

David Read:
So therefore Amazon.

Jenny Stiven:
It’s an even split. Amazon can’t come in and say, “We wanna do a Bond TV show.” So, just to give a perfect anecdote for this, we pitched a Bond TV show for years, and Barbara, God bless her, because she has a very clear and honestly a very good vision for Bond, was that it’s theatrical, period. Not that she doesn’t like TV and doesn’t think that the limited series and some of the things that are happening right now are phenomenal, it’s just that her goal is this is where it is, this is Bond, and every fan knows where they can find it. Period.

David Read:
It has a certain production budget to it. There’s just certain things that– a lot of sci-fi has largely always been better on television, particularly Star Trek, Stargate, even though Stargate, a couple of the larger productions like Ark of Truth and Continuum are great. But it served best where it normally can be found.

Jenny Stiven:
It’s especially with this fandom, and I do wanna talk about that a little bit later. Sci-fi fandom, as you and I know, considering how much time we’ve now been one but also spent professionally in that world, it is oftentimes better served by a series because you can give it time to grow. One of Brad’s biggest issues with Stargate Universe is that really, he only got time to get the exposition done. If you were reading a book, you would’ve gotten through the first 10 chapters. That’s it.

David Read:
And everyone says the last seven or eight of Universe were the best there was cause they were just getting into the end of Act One, beginning of Act Two.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s exactly right, and Brad said that several times to you in interviews, really that was the exposition of a sci-fi novel, that if you were comparing it to Dune or anything else, look, “I was only into the first ten chapters. We haven’t even gotten into the meat of where I wanted to go,” but I think that’s true for most sci-fi. I think that almost every sci-fi production I’ve ever worked on, fantasy, horror…horror doesn’t really count ’cause horror, you can bang out a cheap direct-to-streaming and it’s great and everybody loves it. But sci-fi, fantasy does best when it’s got that amazing character and world-building developed. And I think that Amazon becomes a good place for that, whereas ironically, even though Bond was an Ian Fleming book series, how they picture it is that these are franchisable theatrical releases. And I found it really funny that Barbara and Michael released a statement to Variety yesterday saying very clearly in response to Bezos’ reimagining and new development storytelling, she said, “We see Bond specifically in the theatrical world, in the theatrical setting, and that’s what we want.”

David Read:
They wanted to make that very crystal clear.

Jenny Stiven:
It was a neon sign that said, “This is what we’re gonna do, and you don’t get to really argue with me about this.” But to go back to the reimagining and developing the high-quality storytelling, honestly, I laughed when I read that because I read it three different places from three different people.

David Read:
That sounds about right.

Jenny Stiven:
It’s a typical PR blurb. However, this is what I think is interesting. So, if you go back and you look at Amazon’s plans pre-COVID, Bezos was very clear with the heads of Amazon Studios that he eventually wants Amazon Studios to be his fourth pillar. If you think about Amazon, you’ve got your marketplace, you’ve got the cloud computing, and then you’ve got Amazon Prime. He truly views the Creative Studios, and so does his board, as that fourth pillar, but he’s very careful about how he’s gonna roll that out. Notice that he certainly had the opportunity to purchase several other studios in the past two years. There were talks on the table for him to purchase Apple, which would’ve been insane, but there were talks on the table for him to purchase the Warner Brothers Media, that went to AT&T. So, he’s done his homework, and what he decided to do, in fact one of the other ones he was looking at was Lionsgate. What he’s looking at here is a very careful variable in his long-term equation. What we have to do as fans, not just of Stargate, but of entertainment in general, is look at how is this going to best serve us as fans? And will it serve the entertainment industry? And what I’m hearing from the entertainment business side…I called a friend over at Bloomberg who’s a Bloomberg journalist… it was a radically different take from my friend over at TheWrap, who writes entertainment news. It was two separate ends of the spectrum. Bloomberg, this was his quote from Steel House Advertising, “Advertisers are gonna love the deal, because it puts Amazon firmly, and studios, in the AVOD,” advertising video on demand, meaning ad-supported, industry. It doesn’t move Amazon up the food chain particularly, but what it does, and this is Bezos’ long-term thinking, is that it gets him in the entertainment industry without biting off more than he can chew, keeps the advertisers happy because he’ll do ad-supported, he’ll do both subscription and ad-supported…

David Read:
So, commercials, we’re talking about.

Jenny Stiven:
For fans, we all know streaming is a subscription service. That’s called, it used to be called SVOD, it’s now just called subscription services or subscription streaming. We still use ad-supported or AVOD, advertising video on demand.

David Read:
Like Hulu.

Jenny Stiven:
Exactly. Hulu, you can also do a straight subscription, like TV with no…

David Read:
But you have the choice.

Jenny Stiven:
Exactly. What Bloomberg is looking at is they’re saying from a business industry standpoint, this is super savvy. And from Amazon and MGM’s capital investors, this was an incredibly smart move because what this does is it offsets all of MGM’s remaining debt. Their content goes somewhere that they know the catalog is gonna be safe. Amazon’s not gonna sell it off, which was one of the dangers with two of the other suitors that had come to the table. They’re not splitting production and catalog. Again, that was a huge danger with a couple of the suitors that had come up for MGM. From a business standpoint for Amazon, this starts to build towards that fourth pillar that Bezos wants. Now, what I found highly hilarious was my friend over at TheWrap, she was saying, “OK, this could be a total disaster.” I was like, “Wait a minute. How’s this gonna work?”

David Read:
No. How?

Jenny Stiven:
Because what they’re afraid of from the entertainment side is you have a tech giant who is also, let’s quite honestly, a commerce giant. So, now entertainment industry it is as well, but that’s not how they sell themselves. They sell themselves as content first, commerce second. There was a huge shift in the early ’90s where a lot of, and please forgive me if there are any CPAs or anybody out there, but bean counters bought studios, as opposed to creative leads that bought studios. For instance, Anchorage Capital buying MGM. Now, the beautiful thing there was Kevin Ulrich, who runs it, is a diehard entertainment lover. So, he brought UA back. But that’s not true for everybody. Bezos is ultimately a bottom-line guy. And if this becomes something that comes under his marketplace, as opposed to just the studios, who starts to regulate that? Who’s in charge of the regulation? Is it Motion Pictures Association? Is it the FCC? Or is it FTC because you’re streaming across federal boundaries? That’s a massive potential conflict. Who regulates? Who dictates what the content is OK? Now, I truly do not see this as being a disaster. I see this as, this is me personally, blowing open what I was starting to see as being a very monolithic industry. What I think this is, is an opportunity for so many people in the world like yourself, who are creative, who have access, who are fans, to create their own content and have an opportunity to work with somebody like Amazon or somebody else to distribute it themselves. I talked to a lot of people who are independent production companies. They see this as an enormous opportunity. They see this as finally the shift that they wanted to see happen. The fact that AT&T was smart enough to say, “We can’t handle this.” I mean, in essence, what they said was, “We bit off more than we could chew. We’re gonna give this to Discovery+.” And that’s the behind-the-scenes conversation that happened with that. I think from a content creation, from a fandom standpoint, it means we’re gonna have more choices. From a business standpoint, it’s extremely smart for Bezos and MGM. From an entertainment industry standpoint, there is some nervousness about what this means from a regulation and independent content standpoint.

David Read:
How do you think Stargate is going to be served by this?

Jenny Stiven:
It was interesting to me. I went and I looked at which articles and which sources actually quoted Stargate, or brought Stargate up. Of course, all the sci-fi ones did.

David Read:
Of course. It’s our bread and butter.

Jenny Stiven:
What I was interested in was Slashfilm, CNN, Wall Street Journal, and then one other, all mentioned Stargate. TheWrap, obviously, the entertainment. Bloomberg and several others didn’t bring it up until the podcast by Bloomberg brought up Stargate. What was interesting to me is it was mentioned in the same groups as the Rocky, Legally Blonde, et cetera, Vikings franchises. When it was listed, it would be Handmaid’s Tale, Vikings, Stargate. To me, if there’s enough of the business and entertainment side that are calling Stargate out as an established, I won’t say tentpole, ’cause nobody said that, but an established franchise within the opportunities, which is what they did. It wasn’t just, “OK, well, you’ve got 370 hours of content in the catalog. Isn’t that great?” In every single case, it was, “You have 370 hours of content, plus the opportunity for more storytelling.”

David Read:
Right. They’re not just saying, “OK, let’s milk what exists. Milk, milk.” It’s like, “What can we do now? What can we do next?”

Jenny Stiven:
Now, what’s most likely to happen is the same thing that happened with some of the Fox-Disney mergers. So, let’s think about Marvel. It took a year to two years for something new to come out of Disney. I think Lucasfilm, in one way, I would never say that MGM was Lucasfilm, but it does have a lot of parallels in the sense that there’s a lot of people who have very invested heart and soul in these franchises and storytelling on the MGM side. And I think if Amazon does what it’s promised on paper, which is that MGM will be its own standalone shingle underneath the Amazon Creative Studios, then there is a strong possibility, I won’t say probability, that this, again, blows open the creativity opportunity here, for MGM, for Stargate, for any of the franchises, for new content, for people to pitch new stories. I think that the cynicism could be strong. I won’t ignore that. I think that cynicism has a place right now in what’s going on.

David Read:
A healthy dose of it is.

Jenny Stiven:
Exactly.

David Read:
We can’t get diluted and “Oh, yay! Here we go!”

Jenny Stiven:
No. Honestly, I don’t think any Stargate fan is like that anymore.

David Read:
At this point, no.

Jenny Stiven:
We’ve been screwed so many times that I think we’re just at the point where it’s like, “Well, OK, we’ll see what happens.”

David Read:
Here comes the next bust.

Jenny Stiven:
I know, exactly. I’m fascinated to see, twofold, how this affects MGM’s existing content production, new content that I know is on the back burner, and then also how it affects the industry in general. I’m gonna hope for the best. I truly do believe that if we can blow these things open, these things meaning the monolith studios that had gotten, prior to 2016, very comfortable in their routine of how to do things. And Netflix and Amazon and Hulu basically disrupted, not to use a phrase that is overused, but they did disrupt that entire flow, from concept creation to distribution. How does this affect that? And I think the opportunities are huge. The Fox merger with Disney depressed me. I’ll be honest. That was really hard for me.

David Read:
It was like, “Really? I’m gonna take over the world!” I mean, that’s really what it felt like.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s what it felt like.

David Read:
“No, this is too much. This is too much!”

Jenny Stiven:
It just was not…and I knew from the start, from what I had talked with people internally, that Fox was gonna be sublimated, that it was just gonna be subsumed by Disney. You look at Searchlight. It’s its own shingle, but they just pushed Nancy Utley out, and it’s devastating. I don’t get the impression, and we got that impression with the Fox merger immediately, I don’t hear any of that with this. I’d like to say that that’s the direction we wanna be hopeful with. We know that Brad has a good relationship with Amazon. We know that Michael Wright, who is the head of scripted TV, has been very supportive of Stargate in the past. None of those people are going anywhere. All of these current people are gonna go over to the creative studios. So, we’ll see what happens. Here’s what I wanted to bring up about fandom. A year ago, during COVID, I was contacted by Amazon to apply for the head of fandom development for Lord of the Rings. Now, it didn’t work out. I interviewed twice, but they wanted somebody in LA, even during COVID. What was fascinating to me, and I think that this is pertinent to us, is Amazon is slowly becoming very aware of how crucial audience development and fandom development is. As far as I know, ’cause I know who got hired, they hired a full team to just focus on the fans of Lord of the Rings. They are spending $465 million on that series.

David Read:
Season One.

Jenny Stiven:
Exactly. They have an entire team that’s just dedicated to the fandom for that franchise. That bodes well. Now, maybe they just hire an MGM team that focuses on fandom, but it bodes well for how they wanna go forward treating franchise material that has a dedicated fandom. They’re listening, and it’s not just Lord of the Rings. It’s several other franchises. That again, gives me hope that they’re gonna do a good thing and use this opportunity to really move forward. The reimagining, I wouldn’t put too much weight on that. I think we need to be realistic that they could reboot it completely. But again, I go back to what they’re doing with Lord of the Rings is working with all the people who developed that particular universe. They didn’t dump the people who had developed the current universe.

David Read:
It sounds like what you’re saying is that in hiring a team of people to cultivate the fan base–because I know that they’ve said for Lord of the Rings they wanna make it a global success. It has to be for the amount of money that they’re pouring into it. For that show, it can’t just work in the West. It has to work everywhere, and I understand that. But it also suggests to me, what you’re saying with spending all this money on building a fandom team, is that they’re also interested in retention of the current fan base.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s exactly right.

David Read:
And for most of us, retention means respect for the existing continuity.

Jenny Stiven:
That is exactly it. I wouldn’t hang my hat on it, ’cause honestly, there’s too many questions. There’s too many variables.

David Read:
Correct.

Jenny Stiven:
But I was blown away by the interviews that I had and who I talked to over there about how they wanted to handle it, and it was honestly a dream job. They wanna do it the right way. Now, when you’re hired and it’s a dream job, and what the reality is, is often very different things. But I think that there are good relationships there with franchises who have strong fan bases, and I think that they are learning that this is the way to do it in baby steps. Not take over a franchise and tell a fandom. You go to the fandom. You talk to them, “What are you looking for?” And then you do it, and they did that with The Expanse to a certain degree too.

David Read:
I think that The Expanse, in my mind…and this is a show that I’ve not seen yet, I’m waiting for it to finish and then I’m gonna…

Jenny Stiven:
‘Cause then you’ll just binge.

David Read:
…mow it all down. I know. I’m bad that way. That’s not the way to sell a show. I’ll just wait for it all to be done and then I’ll watch it.

Jenny Stiven:
No, I get it though, especially with binging.

David Read:
But they took what had been done elsewhere extremely well. And they said, “OK. Let’s drive it home,” and that’s what they’re doing with this. And I think if any IP that has had success on Amazon can point now to, or Stargate can point to rather, it’s to The Expanse. I’m excited about that.

Jenny Stiven:
Absolutely. And I know it’s used in the meetings, in the pitch meetings. It’s used all the time. I think it is a fan-recognized but also a creator and showrunner recognized parallel. So, it works well.

David Read:
Darren Sumner over at GateWorld hammered out an amazing article, Amazon is Buying MGM: What Does This Mean for the Stargate Franchise? He published it two days ago. Man, this man can write. Jeez.

Jenny Stiven:
It was a great article.

David Read:
One of the things that he brings up, and I’ll address a couple of points on it, but one of the bigger ones that I think is exciting is that, “No more, ‘I’m in country X. I have to wait ’til X date before I can see the show because X place has gotten it first because of X, Y, Z.’” They’re talking about a global…

Jenny Stiven:
How many times did you and I have to deal with that? Honestly.

David Read:
Every single country, it’s like, “OK, so this country has those rules,” and it was one of those things with Stargate Command. It’s like, what? We had six, seven countries, and everyone else was like, “WTF, guys? Why can’t we get this?”

Jenny Stiven:
Rightly so.

David Read:
Now, it’s going to a place where it’s going to potentially have a global audience right out of the gate whenever the next thing comes out ’cause we know something will come, eventually. It’s just a matter of time.

Jenny Stiven:
One thing I will say, again, I loved your calibrating expectations. So, when Amazon does this, they have to abide by the existing contracts. Some contracts with distributors and streamers within territories will have to be abided by until they finish. That won’t happen across the board, but just so everybody has that balanced expectation, what’s gonna happen is Amazon takes all of MGM’s current contracts. Remember, one of the reasons they wanted to finish this deal was to be done before June 30th. Now, Amazon and MGM take a step back and there’s a massive review of all existing contracts with all vendors, all distributors, all subscribers, and all, we don’t call it syndication anymore, but just to use an old term, syndication contracts. So, that would mean anything that MGM had, and remember, Mark Burnett’s company is a whole separate…

David Read:
That’s a whole other thing.

Jenny Stiven:
… a 600-pound gorilla. But let’s just take Handmaid’s Tale. It’s distributed on Hulu currently, so there are current contracts that have to finish out before that would go to Amazon. I think what’s gonna happen if you get a new show, if we get a new Stargate, the initial would obviously stream in all territories. What would be different is what deals on the 370 hours from the previous seasons and the two movies, how are those deals going to be brokered and changed? It’s one of the reasons why we all complain about, “Well, why was that on Amazon and now it’s on Netflix and now it’s on Hulu and where is it? And it’s not in my country.”

David Read:
“Where do you find it?”

Jenny Stiven:
That’ll stop, and I think Darren brought up a great point about… it’s on a subscription service, and I get it, that is a huge issue for a lot of people. I’m hoping that what Amazon’s gonna be looking at as they do this is, can they look at an ad-supported model like Hulu? And I go back to what Bloomberg was saying, is that in absorbing MGM, it’s gonna force them to look at an ad-supported model because you cannot force especially South American countries, who are some of our biggest supporters, or Germany, or Japan, to do a subscription service for something that they don’t even allow in-country, in territory. So, you’re gonna be able to add in…

David Read:
Correct. They’re gonna have to think about it in another way.

Jenny Stiven:
Exactly, so it’ll be ads or maybe it’ll be something I don’t even know yet that they’ll come up with. But I’m hoping that what will happen is that that’s what they’ll shift to, which will allow an open gate…I didn’t mean to make that pun…to have it open to everybody immediately for the 370 hours catalog, but also whatever new show happens.

David Read:
Is there a possibility, remotely, that Amazon could air a new Stargate online and also on broadcast television in certain countries?

Jenny Stiven:
Sure. Because they can look, and again, I think that this is part of this new world order that’s happening, is that this is a tectonic shift in not just the entertainment industry, but tech industries, commerce. How do you become a distributor as well as creator of content when you are an e-commerce platform, for all intents and purposes?

David Read:
They sell soap and plush toys and TVs.

Jenny Stiven:
Obviously, they’ve been doing Prime Video for a while. And that became his third pillar. And creative studios is gonna be his fourth, Bezos’ fourth pillar. So, to do that, you can’t blow up the existing system. He doesn’t have the power to do that, as much as we all make fun of him… I loved somebody’s comment that he’s the new Bond villain but he’s actually saving Stargate in the YouTube comments. But I think he can’t blow up the existing distribution system. Broadcast networks exist for a reason still to this day. With all of the streaming and all of the subscription services, broadcast networks, in the United States, it’s anywhere from 38 to 44% of TV watching still getting it from free networks. They’re not gonna throw that out the window. And then worldwide, it’s even more. Especially in places like Mexico and others that are huge audiences. And one of the biggest players in that is Mark Burnett. There’s no way Bezos is gonna play with that. That is bread and butter money. Those reality programs, and of course, Burnett was aggressive also over the past two years during COVID very quietly. He absorbed a Spanish distribution channel. So, these guys have all been very quietly in the background doing the things that they know will make a difference for global franchises, in global distribution.

David Read:
OK. Now, one of the other points that Darren was bringing up and I wanted to harken back to, if I can find it here, is that with a lot of different franchises, there’s a lot of different levels of development happening. And I think one of the points, if they choose to take advantage of it, is that Brad Wright has been developing another Stargate idea for what? Two years now?

Jenny Stiven:
They were still there.

David Read:
They could choose to go back to the well. But if you want to fast-track something, why not go with Brad Wright’s idea?

Jenny Stiven:
I don’t think it’s a bad idea. And again, Brad’s got a good relationship with Amazon. I think everything hinges on two or three things. One, who comes over from MGM? So, if Michael Wright, who’s in charge of scripted television, comes over, my impression, and certainly what I’ve heard, is that he’s got a really good relationship with Amazon, and like I said, I know that he supported Stargate very strongly when he was at Epix. I don’t know how that’s gonna work, and that’s part of the problem, is that this is exciting. This is crazy news, and then we’re all on hold for 10 months. Or honestly, and I don’t mean to be unhelpful, but it could be in two months we hear, “Oh yeah, they’re fast-tracking it.” You just don’t know. I think that, not as a Stargate fan, I’m speaking as content producer. It makes the most sense from Amazon’s point of view, which is why I like Amazon as the buyer, to fast-track what Brad already has. They’ve got a great relationship with him. They trust him. They’re looking for new sci-fi, ’cause Expanse is gonna finish, and I forget what it was, the one that they tried last year with Katee Sackhoff, it didn’t do well. So, I think what they’re looking for is a good franchise, and there is, for Amazon, no better way to do it than to have something that has existing catalog. That is a cash cow for them. I don’t know, though, if they will prioritize Stargate, because regardless of how strong our fan base is, it’s still only around 350,000 to 500,000 active fans worldwide. Which is amazing for a 20-some-odd-year-old show.

David Read:
But it’s important to keep that perspective against something like Star Trek or Wars.

Jenny Stiven:
I’m not denigrating, because the fact that it’s 350 to 500,000 is insane. Now, and I think you’ll remember, when Kyla did the really in-depth worldwide research, I think she and Karen came up with 1 to 3 million fans that would actually be up for this, because we do have an entirely new generation. And that, as we know, and as everybody that we’ve met has told us, that is an active fan base that would love to have a new show, and I think it’s probably in many ways less picky about what that show is. But I don’t know where Amazon’s gonna put Stargate in the level of priority of what they’ve bought.

David Read:
That’s one of the bigger questions.

Jenny Stiven:
There’s a lot of active projects that are in development, that several of the people that we used to work with are currently working on. I think those may be a priority. However, they were talking with Brad. It was on the table. It could be considered an active project. I don’t know. I have no clue.

David Read:
Brad may already have, theoretically, some more information that we don’t on this, then.

Jenny Stiven:
And I’m not asking here, Joe, because I don’t want to put them in that position…

David Read:
No.

Jenny Stiven:
… ’cause that’s one of those things especially when you’re in the middle of a deal like this, they could know, they might not know, but to be honest, they couldn’t tell me regardless, or anybody, because…

David Read:
No. If you’re making a great meal, you don’t wanna turn the burner off.

Jenny Stiven:
Exactly.

David Read:
Keep doing your thing.

Jenny Stiven:
And we will sit at the table and try to wait patiently.

David Read:
“Eat me!”

Jenny Stiven:
And guess what’s gonna happen. What’s the meal? I think Darren’s point is spot on and again, not as a Stargate fan, but as a producer, if I was looking at what was in front of me, what I had for choices, knowing how sci-fi fans are, here’s the kicker: Amazon has an existing sci-fi fan base. So, I would probably prioritize it. And to be honest, I would prioritize it over Legally Blonde and some other things, because you’re looking at– This was the kicker for me, year over year, Prime Video had a 70% increase in subscribers through COVID.

David Read:
Ridiculous.

Jenny Stiven:
I’ve never seen that number in my life.

David Read:
This was unprecedented. We’re talking about an every-100-years situation.

Jenny Stiven:
Exactly. I talked about the attrition, but even with attrition after COVID, now we’re starting to get back into real life, and especially going into summer, those numbers are gonna drop. But they still only had about a 20% attrition. So, that means year over year they had a 50% plus subscriber rate that stayed. That’s insane. And Disney+ didn’t do as well. That news just came out on Monday, and I think if Amazon’s looking at, “Who do we already have a fan base that was really with us during COVID?” you’d look at Stargate and say, “This is low-hanging fruit. This is easy. We have somebody. It’s the Universe. He’s got something already. We have a sci-fi base that’s gonna want something new. One of our shows just failed, we need something to fill in there. This would be low-hanging fruit.” And here’s one really big thing from a Stargate fan point of view. Amazon will spend the money. The very thing that MGM couldn’t do for a variety of reasons, it’s a small studio, it wasn’t gonna be able to spend $7 to $10 million per episode. It just was never gonna be able to do that.

David Read:
They were ready for this after Chapter 11. You and I have been talking for years. This is what they’re planning for. They’re not gonna spend tens of millions on a Stargate Origins or something like that.

Jenny Stiven:
No.

David Read:
Not when they’re trying to fatten the thing up for an auction.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s right, exactly. And I give the people who were internally with us credit for trying to do that because they truly wanted to have that be its own standalone. The plan was that would’ve been a standalone separate from whatever sale happened. But I think what’s great about this is that Amazon, more even than Netflix, has deep pockets for spending on creative concepting and production. What I liked about Amazon is they’ve been very careful about where they’ve decided to spend that money. Netflix spent $7 billion last year. God love ’em.

David Read:
Write the check. Jeez.

Jenny Stiven:
I watch a lot of their shows, I love a lot of their stuff, but there was a lot of direct extra stuff that could’ve probably been bypassed.

David Read:
What Amazon and Apple are doing, they’re creating these genre programs. And they are being strategic about where they are sticking that money. And they’re sticking it in some really, really good spots.

Jenny Stiven:
Exactly. And I think that that’s encouraging from our point of view, as fans.

David Read:
Exactly. Are there any other points that you absolutely want to hit before I start bringing fans into the conversation?

Jenny Stiven:
OK, let me look at my notes, ’cause they’re crazy notes. No, wait. I have one more. OK. This is something I thought was huge. I was listening to Slashfilm’s daily podcast, and they had a whole podcast just about this, so, I wanna give credit to Ben Pearson over there. And he said that, “Let’s remember that Disney bought Fox not just for its catalog, but for its actual property value in Century City, for its studio lot.” There are plans for that to roll into Walt Disney Parks and Recreation. MGM is its own brand identity; they just had a rebranding done. Amazon Creative Studios does not have a brand right now. It does not have a brand identity, and I thought this was a great point, that one of the things that should be so encouraging for MGM fans of the film and television that was bought from ’86 on is that Amazon bought MGM not just as a commerce deal for its catalog, to shove off into some silo, but because it’s MGM UA. It has cache in the entertainment industry. It is an old-school film and television leader, titan. And when you hear MGM UA, you think creative, you think artists, you think talent. Regardless of what’s been going on for the past decade, that is what you always used to think. And Ben Pearson made this point: Amazon was not looking to buy something like Fox. In fact, Amazon was never at the table for Fox. Therefore, what they’re looking to do is buy a brand identity that helps establish this fourth pillar of a film/television silo. And I think that that bodes well for all of us as fans.

David Read:
Thank you for your analysis. This is tremendous, and it’s given us a lot.

Jenny Stiven:
Are you kidding? I love this stuff. I love it.

David Read:
That’s why I have you on.

Jenny Stiven:
This is why I’m in this business. I absolutely think that this is the Wild West. I didn’t think in my career, after having gotten to go through the internet Wild West frontier and be a part of it, that I’d get to see another one, and I get to see two in my career, in my lifetime?

David Read:
That’s pretty legit.

Jenny Stiven:
Sweet.

David Read:
OK. So, let me see here. Just a second. Tracy, are you there? Can you hear me?

Tracy:
Yeah, I can hear you.

David Read:
Do you wanna go through and ask some of these to Jenny, or do you want me to?

Tracy:
I can ask a couple, if you like.

David Read:
Yes, please. And be sure to mention who’s submitted them.

Tracy:
I will. There are many questions.

David Read:
Moderator Tracy, everyone.

Tracy:
Claire Cowan and William Arons would like to know…

David Read:
Hi, Claire.

Tracy:
… your thoughts on whether or not the new franchise would be filmed in Canada or the United States? That’s a great question. When we were working at MGM, it was more likely to be in Canada because of the tax film credits and tax TV credits. So, there’s a massive credit still for filming in Vancouver. I think it depends on who they go with. If they go with Brad or Joe as a showrunner, then I think, quite frankly, that they would film in Canada. If they decide to go with a showrunner that’s down here, they might try to keep it more close to home. Amazon has shot pretty much globally wherever the showrunner was.

David Read:
So, the showrunner is typically where…

Jenny Stiven:
And where you get the best credits, the tax credits, that’s gonna mean a lot, especially post-COVID.

David Read:
Everything’s about to change.

Jenny Stiven:
And territories around the world are offering massive tax credits. New Mexico is offering an enormous tax credit to people to shoot there. I think it just depends.

Tracy:
OK. Jeremy would like to know, “Since MGM is gonna be bought by Amazon, will that affect the upcoming Stargate game that was just announced?”

Jenny Stiven:
Yeah, it won’t. What’s gonna happen is that Amazon buys the current contracts out. The contract they have will be finished to finish this game.

David Read:
Along with their debt. All of MGM’s debt.

Jenny Stiven:
Honestly, it’s a small but active video game division, and they are very passionate. The guys who are running it are amazing, and I love them. They are Stargate fans, number one. They are passionate and experienced in the video game area of development that are internal at MGM. So, I’m hoping that that just rolls over. Part of the problem is the next six to 10 months, we don’t know who they’re gonna take of the MGM execs and absorb into Amazon Studios. But contracts are contracts. So, as they finish out that contract, does it roll over? That would be the thing.

David Read:
Does it get renewed or…?

Jenny Stiven:
Yeah.

David Read:
You and I have been talking with our friends internally at MGM. They’re all rightfully scared. “What’s gonna happen next? Am I gonna get my walking papers at a certain point? Is there a place for me in this new monolith?”

Jenny Stiven:
And redundancy is the worst word ever and unfortunately…

David Read:
Synergy is the worst word ever, but go ahead.

Jenny Stiven:
No, that’s true. But I think for a lot of our friends, some of them were saying, “So, things are burning down around me, and I will be talking to you in a week.” Nobody knows, unfortunately.

David Read:
From the soup line. We’ll see what happens.

Tracy:
OK. Teresa MC, “How much merchandising will be involved with Amazon in charge?” Do you have any thoughts on that?

Jenny Stiven:
That’s a key question. Licensing and merchandising was taken over by an amazing guy who was at Fox for years, and he took over in, was it 2018, 2017? I can’t remember. There’s some amazing people in MGM’s licensing and merchandising. However, what is most likely is that the creative studios will create, if it hasn’t already, I actually didn’t look this up, its own licensing and merchandising division. It is unlikely that the Amazon Commerce marketplace will run it because that just doesn’t make sense. What you usually want is you want your licensing and merchandising division and silo to have its own division, to have its own P&L basically, profit and loss. I think what’s more likely is they absorb more franchises like MGM’s and create their own. For instance, the Lord of the Rings one, that is a massively complicated deal with Warner Brothers about merchandising. I think it’s gonna come out of creative studios. What most likely is they’ll have their own L&M division that are specifically for TV and film and video game franchises. But who knows? It can all go under commerce for all I know.

David Read:
Good.

Tracy:
How about one from Marcia Middleton? She’s here. “How limiting as far as worldwide audience is the fee-based Amazon streaming platform?”

Jenny Stiven:
It’s interesting, we worked directly with some people in the Amazon UK division, and it used to be much more limiting. They’ve blown it out, and they legitimately spent a lot of COVID restructuring the subscription service. I think what’s gonna happen is that there’s gonna be some real sit-downs about whether or not the ad-supported base is going to be a way to go for them. I think what’s most likely gonna happen, from what I’ve heard, is that Amazon will offer tiers. And this is something that MGM had wanted to do for years and just couldn’t do. You will have, like Hulu does, a full Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Subscription Service. The middle of the road where you can pick and choose, currently you can pick and choose what channels you want. It may be that they start having an MGM channel that has the catalog on it. I don’t know how they’re going to organize it, but I think they’re going to tier it out. They’re going to have, I get everything, I can pick and choose my own packages, or I’ll just go with ad-supported. Now, they don’t currently do a lot of ad-supported in territories, and one of the things that Amazon does really well that both Darren and David mentioned earlier is that they have global contracts in place that they worked very hard during 2020 to clean up, to make more consistent across all territories. But that fee-based structure is going to be a problem in some territories who don’t…Like Australia’s got very strict regulations about fee-based structures for streaming services. And so does Germany. I think what’s gonna happen is you’re going to see the divvy up to what’s called the 12 big territories, which is the EU, Australia, Japan, LATAM, Latin American, and then you have Mexico. Brazil is separate, and I think what’s gonna happen is that Amazon’s gonna do what it currently does, which is: it has what’s considered a global parent structure for the territories, and then those individual countries will negotiate within that parent contract. What we hope will happen is that there’ll be those tiers where you can have just ad-supported, you get whatever you want, but you have to watch a lot of ads; you’ve got your pick-and-choose package; and then you have full, I get everything packaged. That’s what I’m hearing people would like to have, and what Bloomberg was talking about is that they see this being an ad-supported opportunity for Amazon immediately.

David Read:
You can select your own experience. How do you want to give back to continuing to make the show work?

Jenny Stiven:
That’s right, and that’s what they currently have to a certain degree. If you want BritBox or Hallmark Channel, you can even… what Amazon wants to do, ultimately, is be an aggregator. They are your one-stop shop instead of your cable provider, your DirecTV provider. Amazon provides your CBS, your Peacock, your Discovery+, your Disney. No, Disney will never do it, but that’s what they want to do, and then you can put together the package of what you want the way you want it. That’s currently how they offer it of the channels they’ve got. I think that’s gonna continue worldwide.

Tracy:
This is a really popular question for both you and David. “Do you think fan fiction, like the campaign to save The Expanse, to get Amazon’s attention, is needed, and is it necessary? And what do you recommend that we can all do to effectively raise our voices?” This comes from Scotty0709, Marcia Middleton, GateDev Redux. Everybody wants to know.

David Read:
Thanks, guys.

Jenny Stiven:
Thanks, guys.

David Read:
I noticed a change.org petition already existing for Amazon to recognize the existing canon. I myself reached out to one of the producers of the TV series, and I said, “OK, what do you think about this tweet storm idea?” And they responded, “Let’s hang on. Let’s get the lay of the land first and go forward from there.” But that was his take. What’s yours?

Jenny Stiven:
I would agree. Number one, I think it’s needed. Number two, the timing of it is gonna be important, and I think right now they’re distracted with the business of the deal. Amazon isn’t really… Even the creative studios guys are not gonna really pay attention to that, and it wouldn’t have the impact. It would be shouting into a void right now. What you wanna do is watch and see when the shift happens, and what you wanna do is read the Wrap, Deadline Hollywood, Bloomberg News. What you wanna be looking for is the entertainment industry news about when that shift happens from the promissory note paperwork to, “OK, we’re now shifting people over from MGM to Amazon Studios.” That point, when those decisions start to be made. For instance, the upfronts have already happened for ’21, ’22, so forget it. Digital upfronts have happened. Streaming upfronts have happened. Honestly, 2022 is probably not going to happen, or if it does, it’ll be just something that starts in that year. First of all, take some direction from Brad and Joe, because they are connected. They are talking to MGM. They are talking to people at Amazon, so I would definitely take direction from them. Secondly, there is no question in my mind that it’s needed. Absolutely, 100%, a fan-led campaign is important. It’s crucial. What I would recommend is that you do something with a consortium, because we have an enormous amount of influence when several of the fan organizations come together. If it’s GateWorld, Stargate Now!, Stargate Now! EU, we can ask The Companion App to help. What you should do is have an entire consortium of these fans come together. You’ll be more powerful to show it all at once. I don’t know if there’s someone who can do that, because obviously these are all volunteer fandoms. But it might be something where, David, you and I and Darren could put together something to help people put a whole campaign together.

David Read:
Joseph Mallozzi, things like that.

Jenny Stiven:
Exactly.

David Read:
He’s got an enormous fan base.

Jenny Stiven:
I think that’s going to be huge. Do not have one-offs, because what that’s gonna show is that you don’t have a consolidated base. We need to show that there’s a consolidated base, which there is. Gatecon, Will Ross and David Limberg, pull all of these together into one consortium, quote-unquote.

David Read:
Those are the Cal Mah guys, by the way.

Jenny Stiven:
Exactly. Sorry. The Cal Mah guys. That’s probably the best bet. And there’s several ways you can do it. Online is good, but also, San Diego Comic-Con is gonna be live and LA Comic-Con is gonna be live. And I realize this is California-centric, so I apologize. In November or December of this year. Maybe this is something that we go to Legion M and propose something to work with them on. That’s where you need to try to give it structure, a consolidated structure. But to answer the baseline, not right now. Keep an eye on the news. What you wanna do is look for when Joe and Brad start to make noise about, “Hey guys, we’re having talks,” or when you hear Michael Wright, who’s head of scripted development, is now ensconced over at Amazon Studios. That’s where they will be able to focus and start to spend time on what are the shows that they wanna put on their plate.

David Read:
I think that this is probably the most clippable moment from this entire discussion right here. If anyone wants to take that specific time code where we have the start of that conversation and click that YouTube link and send it over to the various fan sites, this cannot be understated. Right now, if you are shouting out for Amazon to bring Stargate back the way that most fans want it, you really are shouting into a void. We have to consolidate and make sure that when the time is right, when they’re paying attention for this, that we execute it then.

Jenny Stiven:
I will say, it could be a month from now, it could be a year from now. I have no clue, and I will be sure to be keeping an eye on it myself, obviously, just because I’m vested professionally and personally with Stargate. But I wouldn’t wanna see people make an effort that’s lost. And I say that with personal experience. Sorry about that in the background.

David Read:
“Hello!”

Jenny Stiven:
Sorry. It’s gonna run. Sorry, I have to hold for one second.

David Read:
Sure. It’s all right. Tracy, you doing good?

Tracy:
I am.

David Read:
Perfect. I appreciate you doing this.

Tracy:
Your questions are awesome.

David Read:
Absolutely. And thanks so much to everyone who submitted…We started off with 75 and we’re now nearly at 350 concurrent viewers. Jenny, we need to have you on more often because A, we love you, but B…

Jenny Stiven:
Gosh. Thank you.

David Read:
…you make a very nebulous abstract thing make so much more sense.

Jenny Stiven:
Thank you. I appreciate it. Sorry, I was just letting them know I was still on. Thank you. I love it. Obviously, I love the industry. I love what I do. I’m very, very blessed to have that. But this is near and dear to my heart. This is not just personal; this is professionally near and dear to my heart.

Tracy:
OK. So, if we’re ready for another question…

Jenny Stiven:
Yes.

Tracy:
…Pete Jarvis would like to know what your thoughts are, “Is there a higher chance that this is going to be a reboot or an extension of the established franchise?”

Jenny Stiven:
I gotta say, honestly, I have no clue, because the decision makers at Amazon have been very open to existing franchises, and very open, at Creative Studios, to what that means to the fandom and the audience development. I think MGM, certainly the people, Steve Stark and Michael Wright, that are in the scripted development, were very open to staying within the universe. But like I said earlier, I have high hopes, but I need to have pragmatic expectations that I think if there is a franchise that has the best option, it is Stargate. Amazon’s looking for sci-fi. They aren’t stupid. They have a desperate need to fill their pipeline with existing content. And what better way to do that than to have 370 hours that leads into a new show. I absolutely think that Amazon was the best suitor at the table, if we had to be sold. But it doesn’t mean that you can’t have people that have to make a bottom-line decision that they can’t spend that much per episode on something new right now. So, I don’t know.

Tracy:
OK. Awesome. Here’s a great one for you, Jenny. Star Gap Stargate would like to know, “if there’s any intentions to bring back Stargate Command?”

Jenny Stiven:
I think that’s Gary, so hi, Gary. No, unfortunately there’s not. So, there’s two reasons. The Stargate Command platform was an amazing experiment that was done by a very specific group of people internally at MGM, who were trying to use Stargate as the springboard to create a streaming service. And it was with some people actually over at Epix that helped build it. But unfortunately, because MGM as a studio was just not strong enough to be able to support something like that, ’cause you look at the effort that Peacock, Discovery, and Disney have to go through just to get theirs, MGM wasn’t big enough to do that. It was an amazing experience, and I was literally the luckiest person in the world to be asked to be part of that team. But unfortunately, no, there are no plans. I think that ship has sailed. Now, how Amazon handles this, it is possible, and I know that this was a conversation at one time with Amazon UK, that they would do a Stargate channel specifically within Amazon. That would be something that would be, I think, amazing, ’cause I don’t know how many of you guys know this, but there’s 370 broadcast hours, but then there is 500 separate hours of extra feature rent material.

David Read:
Thank you, Ivan Bartok for the bulk of that.

Jenny Stiven:
David has benefited personally. I don’t know where that’s gonna end up. Hats off and shout-out to Kyla as well. Because she was keeper of that library and very, very protectively stood in front of it when people were gonna do things with it. But I don’t know where that’s gonna go.

David Read:
Commentaries and all kinds of … Amazon does have the infrastructure for separate audio tracks and things like that, doesn’t it?

Jenny Stiven:
It does.

David Read:
And annotations during episodes. That’s what I would love to see.

Jenny Stiven:
I think that would be great, but one of the biggest parts of this tectonic shift I was talking about earlier is what used to be called home entertainment, or post-broadcast window. It’s completely off the table. That’s not how it’s described anymore. So, what do you do with that library of content and how do you use it? Now, Amazon, again, I think was the best suitor to come to the table for this. Disney+ has sort of done it with Mandalorian, to use that as an example, or The Bad Batch, but they really haven’t done what they could. For instance, if you’re watching the original Star Wars, the first three movies, they don’t have the extras done like you would have if you had bought the DVD or the Blu-ray. I think there’s missed opportunities here that having spent 10 years in that business, I wish that they would do this. Amazon is very well-poised to be that one to do that. So, Gary, to your question, was that Gary’s question about Stargate Command? I think what might happen is that Amazon would create a Stargate channel because there were talks about that, and that would have this deep dive of content. And interviews and all of that.

David Read:
You have to go to YouTube to find some of these special features. I loved being able to go onto DVD menus and be able to access the special features in one spot. I’ve migrated long ago into a digital space for all of my content, where I’ve ripped all of my personal content onto a private software and have siloed all of the special features into a specific folder for each show, so that while I’m watching I can go and reference this material. They have to create some kind of an infrastructure like that.

Jenny Stiven:
And what’s interesting is, we used to call this … That was a bug, not me… losing my head. It used to be called Second Screen, for those of us that used to create that. So, when streaming was first starting, or digital content was first starting, we called it Second Screen content. We went from DVD, Blu-ray content, special features, featurettes, to Second Screen content. Which means, for instance, for Sons of Anarchy and Glee, I created in excess of 100 and some odd hours for both of those. And those aren’t on … first of all, those shows aren’t on anyway ’cause I don’t know what Disney’s doing, but all of that extra content is not available.

David Read:
It’s inaccessible.

Jenny Stiven:
What’s gonna happen to that? I think that there’s an amazing opportunity there. And honestly, if someone was gonna do it, Amazon has the wherewithal and the resources behind the scenes in terms of teams ’cause let’s be honest, as David knows personally, that is a massive undertaking to go through those. Because you have to not just digitize it, but let’s remember, we would love to have a lot of this up-res’d or at least in 4K, and I think they’ve got the pockets to do what MGM couldn’t do.

David Read:
It’s not just a factor of that, but it’s also annotating all of this content with spreadsheets and what goes where and how each…

Jenny Stiven:
Amazon, you need to hire David ’cause he knows all of this.

David Read:
Amazon, you need to hire Jenny.

Jenny Stiven:
He’s got a spreadsheet of it.

David Read:
Spreadsheets. Jeez.

Jenny Stiven:
God, that was such an undertaking. You didn’t even get to the whole second part…

David Read:
No.

Jenny Stiven:
… third part.

David Read:
No.

Jenny Stiven:
The opportunity there to have that deep dive channel would be amazing.

David Read:
There is a mine there if they want it. Absolutely. Darren Sumner, are you there, sir?

Darren Sumner:
Hello?

David Read:
Hey.

Jenny Stiven:
Hi.

Darren Sumner:
Hi, friends.

David Read:
Hello, friend.

Jenny Stiven:
Hi.

Darren Sumner:
My ears were burning…

Jenny Stiven:
How are you?

Darren Sumner:
… I heard you talking about me.

David Read:
Yes.

Darren Sumner:
Thought I needed to come on.

Jenny Stiven:
Your ears were burning?

Darren Sumner:
Yes.

David Read:
So, fantastic article, man.

Darren Sumner:
Thank you.

David Read:
Very, very well done. You spit these things out like candy. I don’t know how he does it.

Darren Sumner:
It took half a day. I was sort of anticipating after all the reporting between Friday and over the weekend that this might actually get announced this week. I was lucky that I had a half a day to spend processing it from the point of view of a Stargate fan who knows a little bit about the industry. Not as much as Jenny knows about the industry, obviously. I’ve had a ton of fun listening to the live stream. I came here with 10 questions and I think nine of them have been answered so far.

David Read:
What’s the tenth?

Darren Sumner:
My question, Jenny, is trying to take your temperature of Amazon and its attitude towards fandom and fan sites. How does this play out?

David Read:
Legitimate point.

Darren Sumner:
Are they gonna come along and start wagging their finger at what sites like GateWorld have been doing?

David Read:
Dial the Gate.

Jenny Stiven:
OK, I think in general, Amazon has a healthy respect for it. It is certainly the impression that I’ve gotten from friends of ours that work there that used to be at Fox, and it’s certainly the impression I got from interviewing and talking with them about that Lord of the Rings head of fandom. I think the fact that they even have that and I don’t know anybody else at their level that has that division. And that’s just for Lord of the Rings. I think they’ve got an enormous respect for it based on what they did with The Expanse. They didn’t shut down any of The Expanse fandoms. In fact, they worked directly with them, which was, I think, highly unusual and not expected.

David Read:
That’s a good omen.

Jenny Stiven:
My gut is that based on the people I know that are working there at the studio, who are my age or younger, and therefore come from fandoms themselves, plus what I’ve seen them do with Lord of the Rings and what they did with The Expanse, I feel pretty positive that they would not be a 500-pound gorilla about it, but instead actually reach out to work and partner with you guys, with all of them. And on that note, I hate to do this, but I do have to go.

David Read:
Absolutely. I understand.

Jenny Stiven:
A little bit of an emergency I gotta go take care of, so I apologize.

David Read:
Absolutely. I appreciate it.

Jenny Stiven:
I’m so sorry.

David Read:
No, it’s all good. Thank you, Jenny, so much. I’ll continue with Darren and Tracy here for a minute. We’ll do it.

Jenny Stiven:
Hello to everybody. Thank you so much, and thank you for having me on, ’cause I love talking about this, so thank you.

David Read:
This is fantastic. You have been so informative. You go do your thing.

Jenny Stiven:
All right. Bye, guys.

David Read:
Bye now. Darren?

Darren Sumner:
Yes, sir.

David Read:
You still there? All right, very good. This is a ridiculous situation that we’ve been placed into. I mean, you and I just recorded, what, last week, the 12 Things that We’d Like to See in the New Stargate, and boy…

Darren Sumner:
On the eve of the announcement.

David Read:
Man, that was not on purpose. That’s gonna go up on Sunday. It’s just absolutely crazy that this happened when it did. But also, one of the things that we’ve been talking about in the past hour is that this is gonna take some time now to finalize, and this could easily take, like your article stated, someone reported that, through potentially the end of the year.

Darren Sumner:
We gotta remember how these things work. There’s regulatory approvals. There’s a whole process. Reports in the trades are that this is gonna go through. People are gonna squawk about Amazon owning everything in Congress and the likes, but it’s gonna go through. It’s probably gonna be the end of 2021. I don’t know if you and Jenny talked about this before I got here, but one of my questions was also, can Amazon and MGM do anything before the regulatory approval? Before the deal is officially final, can they at least start to make plans and grease the wheels? Was that something that came up?

David Read:
The intent is to make sure that everyone is on the same sheet music at the same time, so that when we do go for this, everyone, especially fandom, is speaking in one clear voice. And we did address what you put up, that Brad’s pitch has been in development for, what, a couple of years now? There are certain things that if they choose to take advantage of rather than go back to the well and start from square one, or maybe several paces behind square one, they have the opportunity to do that. The question is, will they?

Darren Sumner:
And I also speculated in the article that if Brad’s pitch really is this far along, then for all we know, he may have pitched it to Amazon already. It might be something that they’re familiar with.
That could shave some time off of getting things up and running.
David Read:
Correct:

Darren Sumner:
The next thing that I want to hear about, well, I’m not going to hear about it. The next logical step is that Brad has a meeting and pitches it to Amazon.

David Read:
He may have already had one. Who knows?

Darren Sumner:
I don’t know if that’s gonna happen in May or June, or if it’s not gonna happen until the deal is done at the end of the year.

David Read:
We’ll have to wait and see. Tracy, anything else? Any other points that Darren and I can address that fans have asked, or that you wanna bring up?

Tracy:
There are a couple of more really interesting questions. “What are your thoughts on Amazon making movies rather than sticking with the TV show?” That came from Yuki@Home and Teresa MC.

David Read:
Interesting. The movie approach, Darren, you may disagree, but if they were gonna go with that, it would probably be more of a hard reboot than continuing the Brad Wright universe, wouldn’t you say?

Darren Sumner:
I think we just have to give Amazon enough time to find their way into the Stargate world and see the status of it. Obviously, we’ve had… The show’s streaming on Prime for a long time, off and on. They’ve got their own internal numbers as to how well Stargate does for them on reruns. I was really interested when the news was announced on Wednesday that the Amazon programming chief who made the announcement listed Stargate, but he listed it, as you guys touched on, with the movies in MGM’s library. Stargate’s on their radar, but I’m not sure how much SG-1 and the TV universe is on their radar just yet, but they’re certainly gonna get there. They’re certainly gonna look through all the numbers and look at the fandom and figure out what’s what.

David Read:
To be perfectly frank, I wouldn’t blame them for going movies first, in terms of “If we’re gonna focus on movies or television first, and in terms of the announcement, what’s the bigger push here?” We’re talking about multibillion-dollar film franchises, so it would make sense to start from that, especially in terms of announcements with the trades and everything else, and then as this thing develops, begin to filter down into some of the less-known or established properties.

Darren Sumner:
Feature film is something that I perceive Amazon to be lacking. That’s a big thing that they get from this deal. Netflix is winning awards for feature films. In a space that Amazon is much newer to. So, it doesn’t surprise me. The headlines are gonna be James Bond and Rocky and Creed, at this point.

David Read:
Those are kitchen-table names.

Darren Sumner:
In terms of Stargate though, if they were to do a Stargate movie before a Stargate TV show, I’d be really surprised if they went that way.

David Read:
Me too.

Darren Sumner:
Because again, once they look at everything and see the state of that brand, it would be a decision to make a clean cut and start rowing in the other direction.

David Read:
Tracy?

Tracy:
A lot of the other questions have pretty much been covered throughout these conversations. So, you guys have done excellent.

David Read:
Thank you, Tracy, for coming aboard. And thank you, Darren, for saving my bacon at the end there with Jenny. I was gonna be swinging in the wind. That’s perfect how that happened, that tradeoff. Again, we want to make sure that we’re all speaking in one clear voice when Amazon has its collective heads off of all the documents and is paying attention to what’s on the web and the fandoms and everything else for us to be able to then say, “OK, we’re here. Please listen to what we have to say before you make any major call.”

Darren Sumner:
I’m really encouraged, to be honest. In the show that’s airing on Sunday, we talk off and on a bit about The Expanse. If you wanna see how Amazon handles acquired science fiction, an existing sci-fi property, Expanse is stellar. It’s really excellent. I don’t see any indication that they’re futzing around with it, as I said in the article.

David Read:
But that’s also a situation where we’re talking about an active show with standing sets and a production team that’s already still together.

Darren Sumner:
Right. It is a different animal in that regard. But I’m excited about the possibilities. It brings a great deal of uncertainty. Which you and Jenny have helped us sort through quite a good deal over the last hour and a half. There’s a lot of uncertainties about Stargate being sold and what a new company is gonna wanna do with it. But it also opens up some really exciting new possibilities. I’m nervous, but I’m also really excited to see what the next few years are gonna have in store for all of us.

David Read:
A common thought process among fans is, “We’ve gone through all this. We’ve examined it from every direction, including supine, they can’t surprise us.” And I would suggest, let yourselves be open to surprise. Maybe they’ll think of something that we haven’t thought of yet. Maybe they’ll do holographic Stargate next. Maybe they’ll go in and do a true, from-the-ground-up restoration of SG-1. Anything is on the table.

Darren Sumner:
All those things that we’ve hemmed and hawed and complained that MGM hasn’t done and hasn’t pulled the trigger or spent the money, something like a Blu-ray restoration of SG-1, all those things are back on the table with a new granddaddy with deep pockets.

David Read:
That’s what I’ve got. Thank you so much, Tracy, for helping out.

Tracy:
Thank you. This has been great.

David Read:
And the whole mod team that’s out there. Sommer is back, Keith, Jeremy, Reese, Antony, Linda “GateGabber” Furey, Jennifer Kirby. Darren, any final thoughts before we let you go?

Darren Sumner:
No, keep watching. Keep your eyes open. It’s gonna take a while. I’ve seen this week a lot of the comments have been, “Does this mean there’s a new Stargate show? OK, is this it? Is this happening now?” Because as the whole Amazon deal has been developing, we are also continuing to report on what Brad is doing. And that Brad is talking with Michael and with Amanda and now with Ben Browder about the script that he has written with their characters in it. We’re gonna keep reporting on that. Dial the Gate is gonna keep talking about it every single week.

David Read:
Every week.

Darren Sumner:
We’ve got really exciting conversations coming up with Stargate cast and crew. That’s where we’re at right now with fandom. We’re still in a holding pattern, waiting for a new show to be announced. But I think we’ve turned the page. It’s a new chapter.

David Read:
That’s great. Thank you, Darren, for coming on at the end. And thank you Tracy so much, both of you. I really appreciate your time. I guess they’re out. All right. If you enjoyed this discussion, if you want more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal if you click that like button. It really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will definitely help the show grow its audience. And, please consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. Let’s get the word out there of some of the discussion points today and drive some of this home. And, if you wanna get notified about future episodes, click the subscribe icon. And giving the bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last-minute guest changes. This is key if you plan on watching live. My tremendous thanks to Jenny Stiven of Clio Consulting for coming in and driving the in-depth analysis and what’s going to come next. I hope that you will be walking away with a little bit of a clearer focus on what is coming up next for Stargate and what this means for this particular franchise. That was certainly the intent of this and why we rushed this episode into production so quickly. And that’s what we’ve got going on. Sunday, we have “12 things We Want from the Next Stargate,” which Darren and I recorded last week. So, this is gonna be very apt now. It’s just two fans sitting down and spit balling 12 ideas and five or six honorable mentions. Take it for what it is, not “We must have this next.” But these are what ifs. So, that is on May the 30th at 12 PM Pacific Time. And then at 2 PM Pacific Time, May the 30th, Robert Cooper Part Four, an in-depth analysis of Stargate Atlantis from start to finish, with a focus on his particular episodes, like “Sateda,” like “Vegas,” like “Doppelganger.” That’s a fascinating discussion. Robert is always amazing to have on. His thoughts are always cultivated and insightful. And it’s just wonderful to have him. That’s what we have for you here. First weekday show. And a lot to think about. My thanks again to Jenny, to Darren, to Tracy, to Sommer, Keith, Jeremy, Reese, Antony, Linda “Gate Gabber” Furey, Jennifer Kirby. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. We’ll see you on the other side.