We are still in shock. Again. We know you are, too. Please join Jenny, Darren and David as we attempt to parse through the decision that was made, reflect on what was about to be, and discuss our [constructive] approach moving forward.

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TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read:
Welcome to another simulcast of Dial the Gate: The Stargate Oral History Project, and GateWorld.net, your complete guide to Stargate. My name is David Read, and I am privileged — I should sit a little bit taller — to be back with Jenny Stiven of Clio Consulting, and Darren Sumner, my partner-in-crime of 25 years, from GateWorld. How are you guys doing tonight? Today? The morning for you, tonight for me.

Jenny Stiven:
Yeah, exactly. I’m doing great.

Darren Sumner:
I’m doing great. I just got up, we’re on the West Coast.

Jenny Stiven:
I know, I just finished breakfast.

Darren Sumner:
Where on Earth are you?

David Read:
Where indeed? Where does it appear I am?

Jenny Stiven:
What is behind you? It’s pretty cool.

David Read:
I am in my friend Stefan’s house in Switzerland, and I am sitting in the Antarctic chair…

Jenny Stiven:
Sweet.

David Read:
… Atlantis control chair from the series.

Jenny Stiven:
Then I picked the right T-shirt. I got all my Atlantis ships on.

David Read:
How are you guys doing?

Jenny Stiven:
Cynically, OK. That’s the best I can say.

Darren Sumner:
It’s been a heck of a week. How about that? But I’ve been busy with the news coverage for all of this after Variety broke the news a couple of days ago that Martin’s show is canceled, which is the reason we’re all gathered here today, in addition to talking about fandom. What do we do as a fandom? Where do we go next? But I’ve been losing sleep like you. Gutted and devastated and personally recovering, and then in the midst of all of it, trying to figure out how to cover this, and how to give fans a rallying point. Somebody on GateWorld’s Discord put it, I think, perfectly yesterday, which is, I did a two-hour livestream by myself when the news broke…

David Read:
I know.

Darren Sumner:
… talking with fans.

Jenny Stiven:
That was crazy.

Darren Sumner:
The way that somebody on GateWorld Discord put it was, “Darren’s livestream was like a wake, and David’s video was like the eulogy.”

David Read:
Oh, God.

Jenny Stiven:
Shit. Sorry.

David Read:
No way. Seriously?

Darren Sumner:
But we’re moving forward now. You put it best right before we went live, “This is not a sad podcast. This is not the funeral podcast.”

Jenny Stiven:
Not happening.

David Read:
Ian, my buddy Ian, put it interesting the other day. He feels like the dog that caught the car.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s a great way to put it.

David Read:
And he’s like, “Well, there is a little bit of truth to that for sure.” But we’re here to be with everyone out there. We’re thrilled to have you here. I put in the stream, and I will reiterate here, “Your thoughtful comments and passionate feedback from the announcement are welcome. Harassment, abuse, and excessive cursing will result in removal. Thank you for showing the best of this fandom.” And I say that because I know that we are the best fandom out there in terms of how we are tempered in our response compared to a Star Trek or a Star Wars. We’re pretty thoughtful and even keeled. Doesn’t mean everyone is. Doesn’t mean everyone has to be. And that’s okay. But a lot of us have military background. I think that that says a lot of it. And we know how to roll with a punch. This fandom certainly does, and the three of us have been thinking about all of you these past 36 hours, 48 hours. It’s not easy, but if you’ve been a part of fandom for a little while now, this is not our first rodeo. We’re glad that you’re here. So, very glad that you’re here. Jenny, or Darren, do you want to… You have been covering this far more thoroughly than I am, which is one of the reasons I was surprised that we were gonna share this ’cause you’ve really got the in-and-out. I’ve only just touched the surface of what’s been happening. Can you please recap beyond the Variety news story? Because you had a nugget in today’s livestream that I wasn’t aware of, or today’s recording. I’m grasping here trying to figure out what it was. There was an additional piece of information, not just the, “It doesn’t necessarily fit the vision moving forward.” There was something else, and I think it may have had to do with strategy. Am I getting anywhere close?

Darren Sumner:
You are. The full picture, if you’ve read the Variety news story, which broke this, again, on Tuesday afternoon, you’re only getting a little sliver of the picture. GateWorld did some reporting with our sources and confirmed that the news is true, Martin’s show has been canceled at Amazon. But then shortly thereafter, Deadline also posted an article, and Deadline’s piece digs a little deeper into some of the executive machinations at Amazon, some information about who has been involved in the project and who’s there and who’s not there anymore. I would encourage everybody who is looking at that. I tried to summarize it in the news story at gateworld.net, but the piece is at deadline.com. And the short of it is, Variety gives us this piece. Variety says what their sources told them is that this cancellation happened because Amazon decided… Amazon, we’re talking about an entity. Amazon is actually a lot of different people making decisions. But Amazon decided that Martin’s show was not going to reach far enough beyond the existing fan base, something to that effect. Deadline then, and we all called BS, because we know that Martin and Joe and Brad are working on a show very deliberately to honor the legacy of what’s come before, but also be very accessible to new fans and casual viewers. So it didn’t sit quite right. Deadline adds this piece that there’s been some executive turnover, some of the executives, specifically they name Nick Pepper and Matt King inside Amazon MGM Studios, who were working with Martin to develop the show over a long period of time. The show was greenlit… Correct me if I’m wrong about any of this, Jenny, but their boss, Peter Friedlander, he started in October. And Stargate was one of the first things that he greenlit. So Stargate got the green light in November. And then by the early part of the year, by February or so, Matt King was gone, Nick Pepper was gone, and one of them was replaced by Blair Fetter, who is now Amazon MGM Studios’ head of… It’s this funny job title. Head of Worldbuilding and Genre sort of thing.

Jenny Stiven:
I wanna say one thing. It’ll help everybody. Amazon Creative Studios is its own shingle within Amazon. It has its own profit and loss, it has its own decisions. So, when anybody’s reporting Amazon, it’s not Jeff Bezos, it’s not the e-commerce side, it is Amazon Creative Studios, which does have autonomy to make these decisions without any input, like any studio. The silos that they’ve got, which were very smart, was that Amazon Creative Studios created… I don’t remember now but it was just post-COVID, sci-fi/fantasy, family, mystery filler, thriller, and they actually created thematic areas where different departments focused on the scripts, the incoming shows, the incoming movies, and the fandom. It was very specifically created to focus on fandom. Somewhere between last year and now, the fandom aspect of those silos became less important. It was not an official statement, it was not something that Mike Hopkins or Peter Friedlander sent out, but it became less of the directive of those silos, unfortunately.

Darren Sumner:
So, I wanna get the language right as to what Deadline has added.

David Read:
Please.

Darren Sumner:
In terms of strategy, let’s see, where’s the key line here? “The decision to pull the plug came late in the process.” So, we know that the writer’s room had more or less wrapped up, and everybody was…

David Read:
Scripts are–

Darren Sumner:
… working on their scripts. We know that Martin told us when we did our live stream in March that they had actually started some preliminary casting, they had started looking at some places. So, we were anticipating summer casting, fall start for filming. Deadline says, quote, “It was explained with the new series vision and creative direction, which allegedly no longer aligned with Amazon’s programming strategy.” And what I said in my video that I posted yesterday is that speaks volumes to me. “No longer aligned” suggests that at one point it did align. The show was greenlit in November. It fit with Amazon’s strategy.

David Read:
Then.

Darren Sumner:
And then there’s a bit of executive musical chairs, and now, bada bing bada boom, it no longer fits with the strategy. That means that this is not about Martin’s show. It’s about the fact that the strategy inside Amazon has changed.

Jenny Stiven:
Which happens a lot, unfortunately, in this industry. And the other thing is, I highly recommend that everybody read the IGN article that quotes Joe Mallozzi, who was creative consultant for the writer’s room. There’s a lot of misinformation right now, so I want to be incredibly careful, and we’ll have to loop back when we get better sources internally. I was hoping, Darren I told you, I was hoping to talk to a source of mine who was directly working on the campaign, but she’s on set for another show right now. There’s a lot of rumors, even within Amazon, about what’s going on. As you can imagine, there are other shows that are potentially on the block, and so there isn’t a lot of clear information about the whys and the wherefores. Except that Variety was very clearly what’s called MarCom, or corporate communications. That was a distinctly directed media release by Amazon that went to Variety. Everything else in Deadline and IGN has been their own reporting, which I would rely on more, quite frankly. Also, TheWrap had a couple of good articles, so for anyone who wants to do a deeper dive, there’s some really good information from their sources that they have internally at Amazon. It’s not gonna make anybody feel better, but it’s just getting the right information.

David Read:
I know a lot of you are asking questions. Please hold them until I give the word go. Darren, will you be taking questions in a little bit in your side of the chat?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, we’ll be taking questions. I’m gonna have a hard time keeping track of them if folks post questions now in the GateWorld chat, so again, hold your horses until we’re ready to start taking questions.

David Read:
We wanna get them covered– we wanna get a chance to see them.

Darren Sumner:
We wanna get the right information out there. We wanna share Jenny’s expert insider analysis, but also, I think it’s proper to sort of take our temperature, how we’re feeling about this. Is this… It’s devastating, I’ll start there, but is this a lost cause? Is this a done deal?

Jenny Stiven:
Personally, I’m gonna say, you can’t ever say never. As I tweeted out, and David and Darren have been with me through four of these, this will be my fifth cycle of greenlit, canceled, greenlit, canceled.

David Read:
For Stargate.

Jenny Stiven:
And David–

Darren Sumner:
For Stargate.

David Read:
Stargate.

Jenny Stiven:
Just for Stargate. And David, that doesn’t even count the game…

David Read:
Two of those, at least.

Jenny Stiven:
At least. And I do wanna reassure a couple people that Stargate is unique in many, many ways, the number of seasons, the persistence and determination of the fandom over 20-some-odd years. But it is not unique in the sense that what this just went through is slightly different than norm. You don’t usually get to pre-production like that. They were in pre-production in London doing location scouting and canceled, but it does happen. So, this is not necessarily a lost cause, because this is not an outlier. If this was an outlier, I’d be worried, because if this was something where I didn’t see a pattern or I didn’t see something that a norm in this industry, I’d be concerned, because that would mean it was something personal or something about Stargate in particular. To Deadline’s article and IGN’s article: this definitely was an executive management swap-out, different programming strategy. Whether we agree with it or not, that leaves open the door for things to change again, depending upon executives, depending upon what can happen. I do wanna be clear to the fans, ’cause I am sure that, and in fact, I’ve seen this a lot. Unfortunately, this is not an IP that can be purchased. Martin cannot shop this somewhere else. In the sale from MGM to Amazon, and I was there, and I’ve seen a lot of it, and I confirmed this this week so I could be very clear, the IP in particular… the intellectual property of Stargate, in addition with Legally Blonde, Robocop, and a couple of others, is fully owned by Amazon and cannot be purchased. It could be licensed, but as we’ve talked about multiple times in the past, Stargate has very complicated international contracts. So, at this point in time, it has to stay with Amazon unless there is a loophole or something that I don’t know about since I worked there. But that was very clearly, and I did confirm that this week with two internal sources legally, that it cannot be shopped around outside of Amazon at this point.

David Read:
So Apple, you’re saying, couldn’t come along and say, “We like Martin Gero and are interested in pursuing this idea. Could we license–”

Jenny Stiven:
They could.

David Read:
They could.

Jenny Stiven:
They could do that. They could do that.

David Read:
They could do that.

Jenny Stiven:
It is unlikely.

David Read:
But the ownership would stay with…

Jenny Stiven:
Yeah.

David Read:
… Amazon. And you think, at this point it’s unlikely that that would happen?

Jenny Stiven:
Mainly because, not that it couldn’t happen, and that’s why I always wanna leave a door open that this is not a lost cause… but if Amazon made this decision specifically about a couple of shows, and by the way, it’s not just Stargate, there are a couple of other ones, then they do have a change in programming strategy. That’s infuriating, it’s a gut punch, but it doesn’t mean they’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater. They’re not shutting down the IP. I think, for most of us, if this had happened two years ago before Martin started this process, and we knew that this was a possibility, that it could be Martin, and it could be Brad involved and Joe involved, and every single solitary person from the previous three shows was contacted by Martin personally, I don’t think we would be as devastated, obviously. If Amazon had come forward two years ago with Nick Pepper and said, “Hey, we’re gonna go in a different direction,” we might have been pissed. We might have been frustrated. But we wouldn’t have known any different. We would’ve thought…

David Read:
It’s a good point.

Jenny Stiven:
… “Oh, OK, it’s gonna happen.” The gut punch for all of us right now is we were led down a garden path.

David Read:
It’s true.

Jenny Stiven:
And so was Martin, for that matter. I still work in the industry, so I have to be a little careful right now not to back myself in a corner career-wise. I think that it is absolutely 100% legitimate to put together as many campaigns as possible because, as I’ve said multiple times, Amazon does listen to fandom. I don’t know what this switch in management… I don’t know if this switch in management changes that ability to pay attention to fandom. I am concerned about that.

Darren Sumner:
We believe that fans used to matter, at least it used to be a part of the equation. Is that still the case? As a fan, I sure feel betrayed because, again, they’ve led us down the garden path. They announced a show. And let’s be clear here. They announced a show after many years of different projects surfacing, trying to figure out what they were gonna do with the IP. We know that they took pitches from different parties at one point. We know that Brad had his own pilot script for a fourth show when the MGM acquisition went through that Amazon passed on. So, the decision to finally give us a green light with Martin’s project in November was the end of the road of a very long process of ups and downs and maybe we’ll go this way, and no, maybe we’ll go this way, and this executive’s getting behind this project, and it’ll be a movie, and no, we’re gonna go do the show instead. Is it gonna be on MGM+? The fact that we eventually got here was a minor miracle that we had a show that was announced.

Jenny Stiven:
And announced in the canon that we wanted it to be. I have to say that I’m gonna praise Nick Pepper again. I think the reason it got as far as it did was 100% because of Nick Pepper and Matt. And I cannot speak to the internal decisions ’cause I have not been part of it, I wasn’t asked to be part of this new rotation. What I can speak to is that this is not unusual. David, you and I went through it at Fox three times. You get new execs in and suddenly something you thought was gonna happen doesn’t happen. Just like any sports team that doesn’t wanna use the same…

David Read:
That’s it.

Jenny Stiven:
… coaching staff and the same plays, they wanna do something different.

David Read:
I have no problem with that. I have a problem with letting the horses out of the gate and then shooting the horses, you know what I mean?

Jenny Stiven:
It is absolutely right.

David Read:
Is this…

Jenny Stiven:
You’re absolutely right.

David Read:
… because we are now talking about companies that don’t have an entertainment background that are now in this space that are willing to…

Jenny Stiven:
That’s not the case.

David Read:
… terminate stuff after the move ahead? Because there is development. They have announced.

Jenny Stiven:
No, I would agree with you, except Blair has an enormous amount of entertainment background. I think I absolutely agree with you. There are other cases that I could pull up for shows that friends of mine have worked on, shows that I’ve worked on, that were killed because the tech industry that has taken over some of the streaming and creative production didn’t understand. That’s not the case. Creative Studios is its own, it has almost no input from Bezos or any of the e-commerce side at all, frankly. It’s one of the few. Meta and what they wanna do has an enormous amount of input from the tech side. Netflix, Ted Sarandos is an entertainment veteran, but he does get a lot of input from the tech side. In this case, my understanding from what I read in the Deadline article is that Blair Fetter is the one who made the decision. He has an entertainment background. It has nothing to do with tech. It has everything to do with not understanding sci-fi. And that was what I was tweeting out, is that I am just gobsmacked that I am– And by the way, this is not the only time I’ve had the argument in the past month with a studio exec. That sci-fi and sci-fi/fantasy are not old news. They are not past their prime. And by the way, these are quotes. “It is not a genre or a fandom that has been played out.” Another quote. I find the entire perception of sci-fi/fantasy, I liken it to how romance was ignored, where 25 to 45-year-old women with very deep pockets were ignored for years. And vertical dramas right now tapped into that and it’s a $150 billion market because they were smart enough to do it. The last report that I got, which was actually from Luminate and from Fanthropology on sci-fi/fantasy, it is the second fastest growing purchasing power fandom behind romance.

David Read:
Look at Project Hail Mary. Amazon MGM, that was the thing that really shocked me. This thing has been a huge success. At one point, second highest-performing theatrical box office. Or third this year. Amazon MGM has 95% of the flavor of Stargate. It’s all about the importance of friendship and self-sacrifice, which, if you look at the tentpole episodes like “Lost City,” like “Heroes,” is what those things are about. I don’t know, Darren, I’ve seen the movie six times, that’s really what blindsided me, to be perfectly honest. Was it the same thing for you at all, Darren?

Darren Sumner:
You mean Project Hail Mary?

David Read:
Yeah.

Darren Sumner:
I haven’t seen it yet, and I’m in the boat where it’s so big around here that my daughter has seen it before me.

Jenny Stiven:
I’ve seen it three times. Honestly, it is insanely appropriate as a parallel, the fact that it was Amazon Creative Studios and MGM. Now, there are some parallels here that could be brought up. So, there is the issue of movies versus streaming television. So, I don’t know if there– and this, by the way, everything I’m saying now is guessing, is extrapolating– is there an argument between the film and the streaming, which there was before at Amazon? Is there an argument between MGM+ and the– I’m gonna call it linear but that’s not appropriate anymore– but between MGM+ and the regular Amazon Creative Studios? I don’t know. I do know that it’s not lip service that the Amazon execs that I do know and trust feel that Stargate is, and I’m gonna repeat the same thing they’ve said to me for years, a jewel in the crown. I hate to say it, I think the problem is that Nick Pepper isn’t there to guide the ship anymore. That is my opinion, that’s what tanked it.

Darren Sumner:
And this is my question, which you can tap dance around or deflect as much as you want. Because we know people change jobs. People are in positions of some power inside a TV studio, and they have a certain remit that covers certain genres or platforms, and TV shows just take a long time to get made. Two years of development before it was even greenlit, and then another two years, Martin told us, before it was gonna be ready to stream. When you’re in a position where your job is to give a green light to a show, help to develop it and shepherd it, but then somebody moves on, how do… I’m thinking, I’m trying to figure out how I, as a boss, who’s the one who sticks around, who is the Peter Friedlander, or above him, who’s the Mike Hopkins, who’s over all of Amazon television, how do you allow such a profound change in strategy from the new guy when the decision’s already been made?

Jenny Stiven:
Somewhere in that changeover was a meeting that was a strategy meeting, and there were probably several strategy meetings. First of all, when Nick and Matt left, they didn’t leave and then there was a strategy meeting. There’s a shift in approach regardless, which is why the timing of this is odd and why I wanna get more sources to find out what’s going on. Because when someone leaves, normally the conversation has happened before. David, you and I were there at MGM when Eric Doctorow and Michael Brown, and there was a huge shift in management, and on Ana Kono, and everything was put on hold, and then when Michael and Simon came back in, we were brought back in. But those conversations about how they were gonna reapproach the strategy happened before Ana and Eric left. So, I think something here isn’t tracking for me in terms of what were the discussions with Peter Friedlander when he came on board, which was last October, I think?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah.

Jenny Stiven:
What was Mike Hopkins giving Peter as a directive, ’cause Jen Salke had left, and Peter Friedlander is, by the way, a really big geek. So I’m not really sure. Again, there’s some disconnect here. And when he came in, he gave some new directions to some people. That’s Eric Kripke finishing out The Boys, which he wanted to. That wasn’t him being forced out. How are we gonna shift? What’s gonna happen next? Those are the conversations that happened in the fourth quarter. Normally, they happen in third quarter, but Peter came on in October. So at that point, when Nick and Matt leave in January or February, there was a decision prior to them leaving. I would imagine that Martin had conversations or was having conversations, because that would be normal, where the new execs come in and say, “OK, I’m new. I know Nick brought you in. I know that these shows are on the dock. I know you’re so far down the road. Fill me in on what’s happening. What’s your vision? What’s going on?” And then that exec would say, “OK. Here’s the strategy that Peter and Mike have asked me to shift to.” And that’s a normal conversation. Where the disconnect here is, why, if Peter was so far, so much behind the whole show in October that he greenlit it, what shifted so drastically in January and February that Nick and Matt leave and this strategy is now radically different, 180 degrees? And again, I wanna repeat, Stargate is not the only victim. There are a couple of things that I’m gonna bring up that I’m gonna be very careful about. Doing some digging, and Darren and I talked to you about this a week ago, three animated AI projects were greenlit at Amazon, and they were greenlit within the same silos that Stargate and a couple of other shows that got pushed. I think that whatever this programming strategy is, and again, I’m guessing, I’m gonna go find out from my sources if my extrapolation is true or not, is that programming strategy shifted, unfortunately, to a quick buck in cheaper AI production. That is my conclusion. It’s not a good one, but…

David Read:
It’s not a total surprise.

Jenny Stiven:
I can’t see any other reason to have such a radical change that you’re so far down in pre-production and the money spent. If it was in any manner, shape, or form failing, I’ve been there, I’ve been on a show with Kurt Sutter, Sons of Anarchy, where we got all the way down and even he was like, “OK, this isn’t working. We gotta pull the plug. It’s better to cut bait, let’s not spend any more money.” But that’s not this case. I’ve also been on a show where we were all the way to location scouting and the execs changed over in a radical way and the show got canceled, not because of programming strategy. It got canceled because they couldn’t afford to do it at the rate that needed to be done for a sci-fi show. This is not what’s being quoted to me. It is not about cost, unless we’re talking about AI production, and it’s very clearly been stated to me, exactly what you heard and read, Darren, is that it’s a programming strategy shift, which lays pretty much the responsibility at the feet of the people who made this decision in an executive suite, in a C-suite at Amazon Creative Studios.

Darren Sumner:
This is a good time for a comment from GateWorld’s chat. OFFICIALSirensCry says, “‘No longer aligned with Amazon’s programming strategy,’ is not a reason. It’s the absence of a reason wearing the costume of one.” It sounds like it’s a little bit more dressed up than creative differences. “We greenlit this show and, because it fit and now it doesn’t fit,” so again, the strategy has changed, but frankly, it’s embarrassing for Amazon to do this. It’s embarrassing for these executives who greenlit this thing and worked on it. I have to wonder, if Stargate is so important, if they recognize it’s important…

Jenny Stiven:
It is.

Darren Sumner:
… and if they recognize that treating its fan base right is a valuable thing, that the fan base is, in some sense, a commodity. For whatever they do, in whatever shape or form, eventually when it comes around, the built-in fan base is some sort of asset to them. Then all they’ve done here is…

Jenny Stiven:
It’s not. I think that what’s very clear, Darren, I’m so sorry.

Darren Sumner:
… massively damaged this relationship.

Jenny Stiven:
I don’t mean to interrupt. I think part of my cynicism today is because I just came out of meetings this week where fandom, and the community of fandom, were ignored and dismissed again. And I genuinely think that a huge part of this gap, and to the commenter’s point, programming strategy is a reason that’s not a reason. It’s empty. It is literally empty calories.

Darren Sumner:
It’s vacuous.

Jenny Stiven:
It’s vacuous. I think there’s several different layers here. I think the first layer is what I’ve described. There’s no question that when someone new comes in that the strategy changes. That’s just par for the course. Like I said, the analogy for sports is exactly the same. You want your own coaching staff. You wanna bring in the people that you trust. The problem with that is for everything in an entertainment studio that was already on deck, most of the time those execs try to absorb or figure out how to shift the programming strategy to meet or to have that show meet their strategy. It is unusual to do what this has done. It’s not an outlier, like I said, it’s happened before. The gap is the blatant disregard and dismissal of the fans, and to use that as an excuse, not just about programming strategy, but that what Martin and the writer’s room was doing, and remember, Joe was a creative consultant, so there’s no question that the canon was being woven into these scripts. But Martin was very clear from the outset that you can’t do a new show, whatever you wanna call it, without attracting new fans, period. That’s just the name of the game. And if you’re going to commodify fans, then you have to be able to convince the core hub and then do those concentric circles out. The three of us have done this for decades in this business, where you go for the core fan base and then you start to go and find the next concentric circle out, whatever that is, wherever those fans are, and you go to where they are. Who’s your audience? Where are they? The fact that both of those things have been dismissed egregiously is concerning, to say the least. I think that there is a contradiction in terms. We want all the fans, but we want the fans our way.

Darren Sumner:
And they’ll show up, and they’ll open their wallets, and they’ll pay for what we give them.

Jenny Stiven:
It is a conversation I had with a Warner Brothers exec two years ago, and David knows this story. I was working with them on a potential pitch for all of the DC Universe and a presentation, and I was heavily talking about the fandom, and they had just done their Fandemonium, whatever it was for the DC Universe that they did just post-COVID. And the proposal was to link the whole DC Universe, the TV universe, the movies, within a fandom community so we could have a DC Universe conversation, forum, community, the whole bit, and have original content. A very cool pitch, it was done by an amazing creative agency here in town, and the exec blatantly said, laughingly, “Jen, why do I have to worry about this? If we build it, they will come. It’s 65 million fans, why do I care?” And that was the quote. And I was blown, and I said, “Because you want a relationship.” You look at any other industry in the world, customer relationship management is literally an MBA doctorate you can get. Why would you not do the same for fandom? Why would you not build a relationship? If you want to commodify, to use your word, the fandom, to get them to pay more money, to come back and pay more money, to buy the merch, to do what you wanna do, you look at Disney. Disney, with, let’s be honest, ups and downs recently, certainly knew how to build a relationship with fans. And Warner Brothers was 100% about, “Nope, if we build it, they’ll come. I’m not worried,” and that’s what this strikes me. Amazon Creative Studios currently, in my opinion, doesn’t care about whether or not it fits TV canon or the movie canon or the fandom. Whoever’s making these decisions, in my opinion, from what I’ve read and from what I’ve heard, all they care about is leveraging the IP, ’cause that’s the quote I got.

David Read:
So, brass tacks here, we’re talking about more than likely starting blank slate so that they can reach a larger audience from the get-go, and have less cones to have to push outta the way of this semi-truck that they’re gonna reintroduce everything with.

Jenny Stiven:
Yep. And I’m not sure, again, as soon as I get more sources I will come back to you guys and I will let you know for sure. But considering the meetings I’ve had in the past couple of weeks where that has been a theme, I don’t think I’m that far off. The reasoning may be different, but obviously, we know the gap is there because they were quoted as saying it. They were quoted as saying that they didn’t think that this existing fan base was enough, and that Martin was, and this is the part that kills me, in essence writing a show that was fan service. What the hell? It could not have been farther from the truth, and that I know for a fact. Everything that he was writing, all of the episodes, the arcs, the story arc, was based on a foundation of the TV universe, and then expanded in a really cool way beyond that. So, the excuse, the lip service, is puzzling to me, and that’s where I wanna get to, OK, what’s the real reason? Because then that helps us as fans and execs in this industry to say, “No, no, no, we do want this. Please don’t go down this road. Listen to us, we do know what we’re talking about.” Until I know where that gap, the why, why it feels so off, I don’t know necessarily what the answer is for fans, other than doing exactly what’s happening right now, exactly the right thing, the petitions, the calling them out, the boycotting. It works. More than anybody else, it works with Amazon. Netflix, I gotta be honest, you pull this with Netflix, it’s below their interest. Amazon does pay attention to this, ironically, somewhat hypocritically right now, they do pay attention to it. I think that the opportunity to, and I normally don’t say this, scream loudly that this is not right, that this is not the conclusion, that the fan base beyond that core is there, has to be proven. It can’t just be us that are signing petitions. We need to get other sci-fi fans to say, “I’m a huge Boys fan. I’m a huge Invincible fan. This sounded fascinating to me.” I already saw several, Darren and David, on your tweets, who said, “I’ve never even watched it, but this fan base popped up in my feed on Threads and Twitter. I’m fascinated by this.” We need to get more people like that to sign the petition.

Darren Sumner:
There are so many folks that I have been exposed to, I’m sure Darren is the same, that we’re finally like, “You know, I’ve been a sci-fi fan all my life. I’ve not taken time for this one. I’m gonna take time for this one now because this one’s on its way, and I wanna be ready.” I’ve lost count of the number of folks who cover entertainment, media, and… Robert Meyer Burnett is the one that I’m thinking of, off the top of my head. And he’s ready to rock and roll on this.

Jenny Stiven:
And it’s IGN, I think. I think Den of Geek’s gonna write an article too ’cause I reached out to them, and I know Comics Beat is gonna write an article. I think IGN’s article was probably the one that made me laugh the hardest because what they were doing was, in essence, taking a shot across the bow, and it was pretty ballsy. And I appreciated that they did it. Obviously, the guy was a fan. I think that it’s really important for us to re-emphasize that what Martin was writing was not gonna require people to go watch 17 seasons. Or 385 episodes, whatever it is. I should know that by heart by now. And three movies. What was required was for us, as a fan base, to motivate others that are friends of ours that watch other sci-fi, whether it was The Expanse or The Boys or whatever it was, to come and watch this. And that was happening, as is evidenced by the people that have come on and said, “Geez, I didn’t even know this. Oh my gosh.” That’s what I think was missing, and here’s where I’m gonna go back to whatever happened to the focus in these silos at Amazon Creative Studios to focus on the fandom? They lost their way, because that’s your audience, and audience development is just the base. I feel like I’m preaching to the choir, but audience development is how you get people to watch your show.

Darren Sumner:
This is what you do for a living. You’re a pro when it comes to fan engagement and…

Jenny Stiven:
And I don’t get it.

Darren Sumner:
… audience development. I just wanna make the point that this is new. For years, we’ve been told Amazon has been, by and large, pro-fan. That they’ve been interested in, “How do we…” We got a show like The Boys or Invincible. “How do we find the right people, take it to the fans, speak their language, meet them where they’re at, listen to them?” That seems to have changed.

Jenny Stiven:
I agree, and that seems to have changed in fourth quarter, first quarter this year, although I will say a friend of mine did get laid off in the sci-fi/fantasy silo who was in charge of all fandom last year. So, I don’t know if this was part of that strategy turn. I think, again, I’m extrapolating, but what comes across is the commodification took a leap forward where it’s leaving the actual fan relationship and fan engagement behind, and it’s just going to be, “If we build it, they will come, and then we’re gonna leverage the hell out of them, and we’re gonna squeeze every dime we can.” And I’m a bit shocked by that because that’s not Peter Friedlander. That’s certainly not how he’s done shows in the past. So, I’m hoping that what can happen here is that there’s enough of a fandom outcry that it reaches Peter’s ears, Mike Hopkins’ ears, and it is, “Oh, wait a minute. OK. We might be changing our strategy, but this was not the right direction.”

Darren Sumner:
That’s my hope, and I–

Jenny Stiven:
It’s not too late. It definitely is not too late.

Darren Sumner:
And it can only be achieved through a sincere, measured approach if you want a positive change. If you go at this, folks, with a scorched earth mindset, stick and carrot, guys. Come on.

Jenny Stiven:
It won’t work.

David Read:
It won’t work.

Jenny Stiven:
They don’t care because then all they do is they say, “Oh, it’s a toxic fandom.” And unfortunately–

David Read:
I wouldn’t wanna create content for that person either.

Jenny Stiven:
And it proves their point right now. So, again, the goal here is get friends of yours who you’ve probably already talked to about this and how excited we were, get them, who are sci-fi fans, who are fans of other Amazon shows, get them. That’s what I’m gonna be doing. What I’m gonna be doing over the next week is working with a really good friend of mine, David from… who used to be at Think Jam, Lou, and see if we can’t put together a bit of a viral campaign that reaches fans of Amazon shows who would have supported this. I’ll try to put that together this week. I don’t know. In the middle of the regular job. But I think, to your point, David, you can be upset. Everybody deserves to be angry. It is a horrible gut punch. I can’t even imagine how…

David Read:
I’m not saying not to be upset.

Jenny Stiven:
… Martin feels. But to your point, we can’t come at it with scorched earth and pitchforks ’cause then unfortunately, like I said, it just proves their point.

David Read:
I wanna bring in the event that happened this weekend and how that may play a part in what might happen next. Darren, should we open the gates to questions first or should I bring that up first? What are your thoughts?

Darren Sumner:
Let’s talk about what you guys were doing this past weekend and where that might go.

Jenny Stiven:
‘Cause it’s super positive.

Darren Sumner:
I’m excited to share this with people who haven’t seen it yet. You had an amazing time. I’m so glad that you were there and that you’ve been able to lend support to the Children of MacGyver the way that you have.

David Read:
Wonderful.

Darren Sumner:
I wanna keep us between the guardrails of positive fandom and what can we do next.

David Read:
Constructive. That’s it. Let me pull up the image here so that folks can see for themselves. Everyone’s gonna have to forgive me because I’m operating on a little bitty laptop here. Everything is kind of backward. This is EMG. This is the team that created a 1:1 scale artisan-level Milky Way Stargate replica.

Darren Sumner:
Woo-hoo.

David Read:
It is accurate down to the nonsymmetrical pyramid and sun rising above it. The gate symbol glyph on the original Stargate itself, which I did not realize, but they proved it to me at the event, is not symmetrical.

Darren Sumner:
I love it.

David Read:
It’s got some angle problems on its feet. That is how accurate this thing is.

Darren Sumner:
That’s amazing.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s awesome.

David Read:
Richard Dean Anderson himself came over twice and acknowledged the fandom.

Jenny Stiven:
That’s so cool.

David Read:
So cool of Rick. My buddy, Ian, was one of the people who chiefly made this particular event possible. He wanted this one to happen. Quentin is the president of the club. He has been working on this Stargate and variations on it for over 12 to 13 years now.

Jenny Stiven:
12 years, right? At least.

David Read:
It comes together and apart like Legos. It’s Swiss, so that makes sense. It’s like a carnival ride. And next, they’re gonna make it spin.

Jenny Stiven:
It’s so cool.

David Read:
It’s nuts. Who does that?

Jenny Stiven:
It’s so amazing. And he’s–

David Read:
That’s up there with the bridge in Ticonderoga, the TOS bridge. I can’t think of anything.

Jenny Stiven:
These guys have been doing this… Talk about persistence and determination. These guys have been working on this since I was working on Stargate. So it’s crazy to me. It’s amazing.

Darren Sumner:
It’s so phenomenal. I’m just blown away. I’m glad you’re able to be there in person.

David Read:
I’m thrilled to be here for them. MJoAngeli wrote, “MacGyver’s Children made in France?” No, no, no. But it’s Swiss.

Darren Sumner:
So it’ll… occasionally breaks down but it keeps perfect time.

David Read:
They’ve 3D printed half the stuff in it. These parts that they’ve custom created. Now that it is ready to be presented, I think that we are in a position to leverage this thing. I think that what we should do, and I’m already in a preliminary conversation with Q about this to see if he would be interested in bringing it. It costs 12, 13 grand to put this thing up. I think we should take it to Paris, where there’s a huge number of Stargate fans. The number of folks at this particular event who came from Paris to Metz for this event was enormous. And Amazon has a Prime center there. I think that we could show them, I sincerely believe, how positive and joyous this fan base is, and how much we are still prepared to support them if they can just move forward with something that will recognize us.

Jenny Stiven:
And reaches other fans. Because by doing this, you are in essence creating, in a very difficult way, a viral campaign that reaches other fans. And I think if we did an outreach to other sci-fi fans who are in the area in Paris, of which there are a ton in France and Germany.

David Read:
And their offices are just a couple of kilometers from the Eiffel Tower. This is true. In my chat and in Darren’s chat, if you guys would be interested in financially assisting with making this happen in the near future, could you please put a one if yes and a zero if no? Even in a small way, if this is remotely of interest to you. It may be a flash in the pan. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this thing is done now. And regardless, I’m not expecting this thing to move a needle. But I do want us to have a true north that we can center ourselves on with something that is constructive and positive that still shows that we are a united fandom…. that shows that we have something that we want to contribute to the larger sci-fi community that is a positive thing because we need that now more than ever. This probably sucks sometimes, but I think we can really make a positive impact.

Jenny Stiven:
And again, the reason why we’re friends is that as clichéd as it is, I have best friends in the Stargate family that are 100% because of Stargate. And not just because I worked on it, but because I was a fan of it. So, I think–

David Read:
And lead very different kinds of lives.

Jenny Stiven:
Oh, lord. I mean, we’re all over the place. That’s the best part. There was a Stargate fan who I had not met, and she’s younger, who I just followed on Twitter. I think it’s Emerald May, but she wrote a very eloquent, very short essay on Twitter about why Stargate works, and she’s probably in her 20s. And it’s about the world that it opens up literally and figuratively for everybody, and it doesn’t matter what walk of life you’re from, what your beliefs are, who you are.

David Read:
No, we’re human.

Jenny Stiven:
If you love Stargate, that’s it. You’re into it. And that is also what they were writing about, and that was what Martin was going to expand on. That was a very, very human theme of, “We’re all together. We’re human. We’re all on one Earth. Come on, guys. We should be together on this.” That would’ve been something I think is needed desperately right now, and that is probably one of the biggest reasons why I’m gut-punched, is if there’s a show that we needed, this is it right now.

David Read:
Yeah. Darren, you’re not watching Project Hail Mary without me. Go ahead.

Darren Sumner:
Joshuaalexander in GateWorld chat says “Reach out to Dragon Con,” which seems like a good event for the Stargate to be at, but the Stargate’s in Europe right now…

David Read:
It’s unfortunate.

Darren Sumner:
… I imagine it’s a lot more than $12,000.

David Read:
It would be considerably more with the waves and all.

Jenny Stiven:
It would. David, what about your friend that we had at Chicago in 2019 that you bought the top of the Stargate from?

David Read:
The top of the Stargate? You mean a segment of the Stargate?

Jenny Stiven:
A segment of the Stargate.

David Read:
They’re loaded it if that’s what you mean.

Jenny Stiven:
What if we got them to Dragon Con? I can call up some of the programmers there.

David Read:
To have them pay for the Stargate to be brought out? It’s certainly doable. Once the gate’s over there, they’re probably gonna wanna keep it there for a while. I know that Q and his team wanna do at some point an American tour of it. I don’t know…

Darren Sumner:
That’d be amazing.

David Read:
… if August is gonna be it though.

Jenny Stiven:
That makes sense, but there’s gotta be people that we know that are doing or have done something that could be brought to Dragon Con. Definitely I’ll look into that. Kelly and I can look into that for sure.

David Read:
But I don’t wanna skip over the idea of leveraging the Parisians and the French– I have said this before, I’ll say it again, I don’t know what’s in the water over there, over here, but they love themselves some paramilitary American sci-fi. You cannot underestimate this particular chunk of the fandom.

Jenny Stiven:
I’m gonna go back to what the three of us worked on for years and years and years, and why I know that there are certain fans that are probably on right now that are gonna laugh at this. The international global market is bigger than the domestic one.

David Read:
That’s correct.

Jenny Stiven:
Period. Amazon will pay a lot of attention to a global petition. This is why I asked the guys that started the petition to make sure that it’s a global petition, because they’re gonna pay a lot more attention if we have a lot of global, to your point, David, outreach, viral campaigns, noise from those fans, because this was one of these few times where Amazon was gonna get it right, and MGM unfortunately never got this right. This was gonna open in territories simultaneously to domestic, and for those of you who were with us when we were working on Stargate Command, that was the biggest problem, is that we could never get it to the territories it should get to. While domestic is important, the international audience is weighted more heavily on that scale by Amazon.

David Read:
OK. Darren, are there any particular campaigns that you think I should be putting on the screen here? Jenny, can you… There we go.

Jenny Stiven:
Sorry.

David Read:
That’s all good. Darren, is there anything in particular? I believe there’s savestargate.com. Should I bring it up?

Darren Sumner:
Let me see here. I’ve seen a lot of things, of course, out and about over the last couple of days. Fans are amazing about jumping straight into it with launching petitions and campaigns, and the idea of sending tissue boxes in the vein of “Children of the Gods” has come up again. That’s been a campaign many times in the history of Stargate. Somebody has a GoFundMe going to fly a Save Stargate banner over Amazon headquarters. And then I’ve seen at least four petitions in the last two days. So, what I want us to do here is first of all, Jenny, what’s gonna be effective? And how do we focus on one thing? Instead of four petitions, how do we figure out one petition? What’s worth it? Is it writing physical letters these days? I’m always wary about online petitions because I feel like they’re ineffective. They’re a dime a dozen, people don’t pay attention. Studios don’t pay attention. But maybe that’s wrong. And then I’m also always a little wary of something that is raising money, that’s asking people to donate to something or purchase something.

Jenny Stiven:
Look, I love the guy’s idea about flying the banner, and good on him. Just from a career standpoint, I can’t advocate for that because I can’t, in the business that I’m in, advocate for fans to donate money to something. But I will say, I think that idea is hilarious. Petitions work and they work with studios dependent upon how fractured or not fractured they are. I’m gonna repeat what I said on Twitter. I wish that I could be the person to coordinate this and pull this together. I can’t. If it’s the two of you, there needs to be one global petition. The four that have started need to communicate with each other, get together. Pride needs to be put aside. If you were the first one or the one with the most signatures, I gotta be honest, that’s just not important. What’s important is that there’s one global petition. The second thing that’s incredibly important is writing letters, whether it’s emails or physical letters, and addressing the specific execs who are making these decisions is crucial. However, you need to go above their head. You need to be addressing this to Peter Friedlander. Whatever you’re doing, he’s the decision maker, he’s the one– Mike Hopkins is his boss at Amazon Creative Studios, but Mike would defer to his division chiefs. Peter Friedlander is the decision maker.

David Read:
Not Blair then? ‘Cause Michael Shanks was sending out a post about Blair.

Darren Sumner:
It sounds like it’s time to go over Blair’s head.

Jenny Stiven:
I’m saying go over Blair’s head. Michael’s not wrong at all. But you gotta go over his head, and it’s gotta be done smart. Again, David and Darren, to both of your points, this can’t be, “I hate Amazon,” or “You guys suck.” Trust me, I wish I could write that, but that is not gonna make any kind of impact. This has to be an argument that disproves not only the MarCom, corporate communications, which was that it was only gonna appeal to the fan base, but that it also disproves the fact that this was gonna have a limited expanded audience. You need to disprove those two facts, and that’s very easily done in your petitions, in the letters, in the phone calls, whatever you want to do. All four of those work because imagine if you’re Peter Friedlander and you’re getting bombarded by your social media team, which he has one in his division, saying, “Oh my God, it just grew by another 5,000 people online.” Then you have a petition that’s being called out. Then you’re getting phone calls. Then you’re getting emails. And there’s a certain point at which the exec just says, “OK, enough. I gotta figure out what’s going on.”

Darren Sumner:
That’s helpful.

Jenny Stiven:
It is worth it for that reason. And it has to be in a way where, if I’m that exec and I’m being bombarded and the biggest number that I’m being bombarded by is approximately 10,000, it’s the same 10,000 over and over again, and they’re just saying… Sorry, the call keeps coming in. Sorry about that. All I’m hearing is, “This is wrong, I hate Amazon,” that’s not gonna convince me.

David Read:
No. It’s just noise.

Jenny Stiven:
In fact, that’s just gonna make me say, “Yeah, that’s why I made this decision. You guys were it. That’s great, and I appreciate your passion, but it doesn’t change my mind.” We have to change the perception. What I’m gonna try to find out is what consumer insights led them to believe that this was not gonna appeal beyond the core fan base. I’m gonna try to find out from the industry side what was the research that was presented, ’cause I guarantee you there was data that was presented. So, there has to be a discounted argument of why that’s not true. The other part of it is that we need to get other creatives to back up Martin. So, we need to have others who trust Martin, not just Joe and Brad. As great as they are, unfortunately, that just proves the point again. You need execs from other shows. If I could get Eric Kripke to come to Martin’s defense, that makes a difference because is he gonna bring his Boys audience to this?

David Read:
Or someone like Ronald D. Moore.

Jenny Stiven:
Exactly. Anybody that you guys know that are IGN, Den of Geek, press. This is the last step. When you can get press to go interview like-minded creatives in the sci-fi space to say, “I would have watched this show,” that makes a difference. They pay attention.

David Read:
Darren, I think we’ve got our work cut out for us, then, in terms of strategizing and bringing everyone in.

Darren Sumner:
It sounds like we gotta get a little more information, we gotta get clear on the messaging, and then I’m ready to throw GateWorld behind a focused, concentrated effort. Let’s figure out one petition, let’s figure out a letter-writing campaign. If it’s phone calls, again, social media, all these different pieces are important.

Jenny Stiven:
Do what you can. Honestly, not everybody has the time. We’ve all got jobs, we’ve all got things we have to pay attention to, so pick one thing. The three of us can do more than one thing, but talking to the audience, pick one thing that you know you can spend time on and do it. If you’ve got an account, I’m calling out Nicole. If you have an account that has thousands of followers. Focus on that. Use your account as leverage. Pull in other influencers. That’s what I’m saying, is that it has to be focused, and it has to be an argument that they’ll hear. If you have even a small following, but that following is not diehard Stargate fans, bring forward the argument that your account was gonna lift up Stargate for people that had never heard of it, thereby proving that this was expansion beyond the core fan base.

Darren Sumner:
David, we have a couple of fan sites that have already popped up, savestargate.com and savethegate.com. We’re in contact with one or both of those organizers, so hopefully we can get everybody rowing in the same direction…

Jenny Stiven:
There’s some substantial…

Darren Sumner:
… in terms of messaging and strategy.

Jenny Stiven:
… podcasts that we all know, and obviously we’ll reach out to them.

Darren Sumner:
I’ve already heard from lots of folks. But the people who are doing the GoFundMe, who are signing petitions, creating new petitions. The Get in the Gate guys are looking at doing some kind of let’s draw attention to this project on YouTube. There’s lots of energy right now. It’s time to strike while the iron’s hot.

Jenny Stiven:
Get in the Gate guys, SciTrek, all those guys, interview people outside this fandom. Interview other creatives. You guys have been interviewing people in other sci-fi shows. Bring those guys, women, people in to say, “Oh, I was gonna watch it. I love Martin’s shows. I love Martin’s writing.” These guys all know each other. So some of them won’t commit because it could shoot themselves in the foot with Amazon, and I get that. But you might get some execs who are of other shows who will support it and say, “I was gonna watch it. I was gonna try to bring my fan base to this.” That will resonate with Amazon. And it has to be to Peter Friedlander. It can’t be to Blair. Blair’s made his decision, and he will, as many execs, dig in his heels to prove that his decision was the right one. I get that. But we have to prove otherwise.

Darren Sumner:
He’s not gonna change his mind, I think. It’s more likely that his boss is gonna understand that this was not the right call.

Jenny Stiven:
And I’m sure Blair made the decision based on some data, and that’s what I have to go find, is what was that data?

Darren Sumner:
What was that data? But folks are bringing up in the chat other creators like Ron Moore are also currently developing shows for Amazon, like the God of War show for Prime Video.

Jenny Stiven:
It’s gonna be problematic.

Darren Sumner:
So, that’s gotta motivate those other fandoms. If you’re excited about God of War, if you’re excited about this new project, if you’re a Battlestar fan and are excited about Ron Moore’s next show, this oughta matter to you. ‘Cause working under these conditions in sci-fi and fantasy is a risky place to be.

Jenny Stiven:
And it shouldn’t be. I hate to say it, but if there’s any questions, I gotta hop in about 10 minutes.

David Read:
OK, guys. If you have a question that Jenny or the two of us can play with, go ahead and drop them in the chats now, and we’ll go ahead and–

Jenny Stiven:
I would stay forever and talk with you guys, but I-

David Read:
No, of course. Got 10 minutes. We got it. Got the gift.

Jenny Stiven:
Sorry.

Darren Sumner:
Until David has to go to bed, we can keep going for a little bit after you have to hop off.

Jenny Stiven:
Poor David. He falls asleep on air.

Darren Sumner:
I wanna pull this in first, if I can, David. Marc-v2u8e asks us, “Have you guys talked to Martin, or could he be open to a stream where he gives more details if he can? Is there any rumor/confirmation of a new showrunner or a reboot?” What can we say about where Martin is at right now and his ability to someday answer questions?

David Read:
He’s under NDA?

Jenny Stiven:
Yeah, from what I know, he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. He’s under NDA, which that’s standard. That was not unusual. He also has a standing deal with Amazon.

Darren Sumner:
To develop new stuff.

Jenny Stiven:
I think he’s in a really tough place. I would say we don’t bug Martin because if I were him, and I know a lot of showrunners who have been through this, there needs to be a decompression and a step-back-and-reassess period of time. It hasn’t even been a week for him since he found out.

David Read:
It’s gotta be so raw.

Jenny Stiven:
It’s gotta be so raw. I don’t know what it was, but either he was on his way in a couple of weeks or months to London, days, I don’t know. So there’s all kinds of decompression that has to happen there. There are no rumors. This I do know for a fact. There are no rumors of a new showrunner or even what the new direction would be. There are absolutely rampant rumors about what do they want it to be, and when I say they, Blair or whomever was making these decisions. But they’re all rumors. There are zero backup facts on anything that’s going out there. So if you guys hear something, even if it’s through… I was at an event yesterday. There was a CAA guy there. I don’t care who you hear the rumors from, none of it is validated, and you cannot depend on any of it. Even if it’s something that we think is in our favor, it’s been less than a week. So today’s Thursday. It’s still been less than a week. So, not just that they made the announcement, but internally it was made on last Friday. I would say, let us do some homework on that and see who we can find. There’s other podcast journalists who have access to good sources internally. Let’s find out what is being discussed. I think that there’s gonna be a bit of a scramble. At least that’s what I’m hearing internally seeing the blowback from this, so I would say don’t count on any rumors that you hear.

David Read:
OK. All right. Let’s see here.

Darren Sumner:
David, what questions are you seeing over on Dial the Gate?

David Read:
I didn’t have things set up for my guys. Guys, I’m in 449, so go ahead, and if you want to, go ahead and put them in there now. Let me have a look here. Matthall1934: “David, Darren, Jenny, I just want to thank you all for your service to the fandom. Love from a rainy London.”

Jenny Stiven:
Aw. You bet.

David Read:
There’s talk about Momoa and Flanigan’s influence. I know that they were wanting to do something, but they weren’t really wanting to take it in a specific direction.

Jenny Stiven:
And again, it could be cool, but it doesn’t matter if Amazon isn’t gonna allow licensing of the IP. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t go to them for a variety of reasons.

David Read:
The petition website, Robert92607 is asking, that’s savethegate.com. I tried savestargate.com and it didn’t go anywhere. Savethegate.com was working for me.

Jenny Stiven:
And there’s a change.org petition, but again, we need to combine these because it’s very hard to tell where we have overlap or if those are unique. I doubt they’re unique. I think we have overlap. I think we could say there’s approximately 10,000 total that are unique, which is a good number, but we need to get above 50,000 for them to pay attention.

David Read:
OK, noted. That’s the magic number then. I think we’ve got that. The number of large YouTube channels that I wasn’t even aware that these folks were Stargate fans, that started to post about this when the announcement was made that it was canceled– they didn’t say anything when it was announced, and they were anticipating, and then it got pulled out from under them, and now they’re pissed– has been really staggering.

Jenny Stiven:
Which I love.

David Read:
Some of them have 1.5 mil in subs.

Jenny Stiven:
Exactly. I don’t think there’s any reason we can’t reach… Honestly, if we can reach over 100,000, that would be prime.

David Read:
IBREC: “Could Devlin and Emmerich use the US 35-year copyright termination right, 17 USC Subsection 203, to reclaim Stargate film rights and pressure Amazon into continuing Martin’s project?”

Jenny Stiven:
No, it’s a great question. I’ve been through that, jumped through those hoops with MGM and Lionsgate before. There’s two issues going on there. It is different canon, that being the primary issue. The secondary is that that was separated years ago. When Amazon bought MGM, different versions of Roland and Dean were brought back in in 2017 when David and I were working over there. They were brought back in in 2012. There’s lots of versions of this. But when Amazon bought MGM, that, to all intents and purposes, severed that connection regardless of the copyright. The copyright now refers only to the movie rights, and even that is complicated. Roland and Dean could certainly come back in and do something for or with the movie maybe. I think they own the majority of the IP, but the distribution rights and the production rights are a bit of a legal mess, and Amazon won’t touch that with a 10-foot pole. But what I think you’re asking is would they do something separately since they do own the IP? Unfortunately, legally, I don’t think they can, because they still have to work within the Amazon distribution structure, but I can look it up. I’ll get back to you guys about it, ’cause I’d be interested. I reached out to Dean, so I’ll get back to you guys and see if I can’t get a more specific interpretation, ’cause that’s just my interpretation of when the contracts were signed in 2020, or 2021. But I will try to find out more information on that.

David Read:
Thank you.

Darren Sumner:
Dean has also commented on this on Frakes and Spiner’s podcast recently. And the impression that I got from that conversation was that if it was recent or a few years ago, Amazon’s effectively bought them out of that sort of 35-year copyright lapse.

Jenny Stiven:
That was my understanding, but I do wanna double-check that, because the legal audit that happened in 2020 for that was insane, and Lionsgate held onto some distribution and then Roland held onto some percentage, so it’s very complicated. I know that Amazon did buy out the distribution, Darren, the 35 years, but I’m not sure they bought the IP, because Roland and Devin and Dean came back a year ago. So there’s some loophole, so I will go find out what that is and get back to you guys on it.

David Read:
Ilurvemv: “Question for Jenny. I’m a watcher of other Amazon shows, and I feel like they’re trying really heavily to get away from genre TV and instead really leaning into YA, young adult romance shows. Do you see that happening as well?”

Jenny Stiven:
I do.

David Read:
I feel you already touched on it a little bit.

Jenny Stiven:
I don’t think that that is unusual across the board, frankly. I think it depends on what the algorithm is serving you on your Prime menu. In terms of what the creative studios are developing, like I said earlier, there is this weird perception that sci-fi/fantasy has passed its prime, or is, the other quote, “played out,” like I said earlier. But everything goes in cycles, and there’s nothing that an executive will change faster than their mind if a fandom proves that they’re there to spend money on something they thought had been played out. So, you’re not wrong. It is definitely a push. And let’s be honest, there is a baton handing off to younger Millennials and Gen Z right now, rightly so. I think this gets in a bigger conversation, and we should talk about this again, because I think– I didn’t get into this because it is a very deep hole– that the industry as a whole, the studio system, of which Amazon is… Amazon would love to consider that it is a rebel. It’s not. It’s part of the studio system. It is traditional media now. They are in a tailspin. So, the studio system in general is, and I’m gonna use a very old term, freaking out about how to reach Gen Z audiences, and the main argument right now is, do they wanna be in theaters? Do they wanna be on their phone? Do they wanna be watching at home? And there are very legitimate reports that are saying where that audience is that is being ignored by the studio system, because they’re panicked. So, I think, to your question, it makes sense to prove to them again, we’re here. There is still a sci-fi/fantasy audience. We are not played out. Both things can be true. We can be interested in YA romance. We can be interested in YA horror. Look at Backrooms and Obsession. It proves there’s a bigger audience there. We have the largest…

David Read:
Obsession was extraordinary.

Jenny Stiven:
We’ve had the largest audience population-wise, domestically and internationally, ever. Are you telling me that there’s not a big sci-fi/fantasy group there? That would be a really shoot-yourself-in-the-foot decision. I don’t… Again, I gotta go find out what data was proving this to them because that’s certainly not what I’m reading, and both those things can be true. We’ve got enough people to cover both, or, hey, here’s a concept: I’m a woman. I like both. I play video games. I like sci-fi/fantasy. I like romance.

Darren Sumner:
And you spend money on it.

Jenny Stiven:
And I spend a lot of money on it. Too much money, probably.

David Read:
Don’t tell too much.

Darren Sumner:
Before we lose you… a couple more questions. Reilly_sharky_reese wants to know, “How does Jenny feel about mailing campaigns with tissue boxes or Froot Loops referencing the pilot and ‘Window of Opportunity?’”

Jenny Stiven:
I think they’re great, honestly. I still think old-school works.

Darren Sumner:
That still gets attention?

Jenny Stiven:
It gets attention. Look, anything that’s gonna get attention… Let’s say it doesn’t make it to the exec. It only makes it to the Amazon mailroom. Funnily enough, there is still such a thing. It will get a viral campaign. It’ll get a journalist interested. It’ll get somebody paying attention. It’ll get another exec at Amazon going, “What is going on? Why are there… Why is there a bag of tissue and Froot Loops by this guy’s desk?” If no other reason, it may not change the mind or move the needle of the execs that made this decision, but it would get a journalist interested. And that’s worth it. Or an influencer. Honestly, guys, I cannot, I cannot emphasize enough, getting influencers within sci-fi/fantasy interested in this. Talk to them. Reach out to them. If you follow an influencer, and you’re a fan, and you feel like you can get in their DMs and talk to them about it, do it. They’re gonna have far, far, far more impact than anything else.

David Read:
OK. Jenny, thank you, as always.

Jenny Stiven:
You bet. Absolutely. Don’t despair, guys.

David Read:
Don’t despair.

Jenny Stiven:
There is always hope. There’s always hope. And a decision made by one guy that is counter to what the decision was for two years, it indicates to me that there is an opportunity to switch that back.

David Read:
We’ll get to work.

Darren Sumner:
I hope so.

Jenny Stiven:
Love you guys. Bye, everybody. Thank you for having me, and as always, keep the gate open. Love you guys.

David Read:
Make good ripples.

Jenny Stiven:
Make good ripples.

David Read:
Darren, you here with me for a little bit? Few minutes, at least?

Darren Sumner:
I am. I’m just fighting my cough.

David Read:
Let me reconfigure this thing here. Give me just a second. Ugh. Hang on, guys. Let me reconfigure my screen. Appreciate everyone’s patience here while he hacks up another lung. Yeesh. Don’t know what that is, but I don’t want some. All right, here, just a second. That was Jenny Stiven of Clio Consulting. That was really exceptional, and she is the one that I go to for a lot of this. Darren and I have been with Jenny for a while now, doing these State of the Gates. People keep on asking me… They didn’t come in at the beginning: What is this in the background? I’m at my buddy Stefan’s house in Sweden, and he owns a quarter of what was at Bridge Studios. So, yes, it’s all real. No, it’s not a fake screen. Darren, I have a couple of questions that you and I can answer. Goodness. And he’ll huff, and he’ll… Let’s just let him blow his house down. The thing that blows me away is, like Jenny said with the 20-year-old who wrote what sounded like basically an op-ed, there is a huge interest from young fans in new sci-fi content. I’m gonna go back again to Project Hail Mary, and I really hope my friend, Hannah, does not mind me sharing this. But I have some friends and they have a four-year-old named Wes, and he was mesmerized by Rocky. And the first thing that we showed him was the scene where Grace explains to Rocky what happened to his girlfriend, and now she’s with Mark. And Wes went and made a Rocky hate Mark picture. Then he went back the next day with his dad and watched the entire movie, two and a half hours. This is a kid that can’t get off his device. He was mesmerized. It shows that this stuff does work. Darren, are you OK?

Darren Sumner:
We’re getting there.

David Read:
OK. All right.

Darren Sumner:
I apologize.

David Read:
No, it’s all right. Let me go ahead and see here, DanBen07, “How is Stargate doing on other platforms like Pluto TV and Sky? It’s being watched, shouldn’t that affect things?” My understanding is that, Amazon collates all of that data, and obviously something happened where it was just like, we need more. We need to try and get a little bit of a broader appeal, I’m guessing.

Darren Sumner:
I think that’s the case. They’re gonna get those metrics, they’re gonna get that data, but it’s also a different silo inside Amazon. Licensing the show out to Netflix, to Pluto TV, everywhere that it is internationally, a different part of Amazon does that work. But then I think the people who are looking at the franchise as a whole and what do we do with it, they’re gonna get that data, so keep watching Stargate, keep streaming it. It does matter, and I think part of the calculation for greenlighting a new show was that there was some degree of demonstration that people were watching it. People were watching the classic stuff, that this fan base is still here and is still active.

David Read:
Yeah, that can’t be ignored. There’s so many layers to this that we’re just beginning to grasp the edges of as we move forward here. MatthewHTexas, “David, you mentioned possible RDA interview in future episodes. Do you know if he is aware of the current situation and has an opinion?” So, before Marco Maldini did the video of Rick’s panel at Metz’Torii, Rick had mentioned to me that he had spoken with Brad and that they were really moving in another direction away from the old cast, as we already knew, but that he basically confirmed at that point, recorded at the panel. And then, Darren, you picked up that that he wasn’t planning on appearing, if there was a cameo, he probably hadn’t even been approached about that yet. Is that what you gathered?

Darren Sumner:
Yeah, that’s what I gathered from Rick’s comments on stage in France last weekend, was that he hadn’t been approached to do anything with it yet. A cameo is always a possibility down the road, but the guy’s 76, he’s retired.

David Read:
He’s retired.

Darren Sumner:
He’s not gonna be a guest star in an episode. Cameo, maybe.

David Read:
That’s it. I think that the signs are good that you can expect Rick on an upcoming Dial the Gate episode, he was very kind to me in some of his words.

Darren Sumner:
Very good. I’m super excited about that.

David Read:
I’ll take the win where I can. Jenny Stiven, everyone, says, “Hey, one of the commenters was saying that sci-fi/fantasy is not the same as sci-fi. I get it, but we need to make sure that you guys say in response to that, because other fans are seeing that, that is how Amazon defines it. So, when we’re talking to Amazon about Stargate, it needs to be that it can fit that silo that they have created internally.” So, sci-fi/fantasy is that silo.

Darren Sumner:
When they hire an executive like Blair Fetter to do Worldbuilding and Genre, they’re talking about a big silo, they’re talking about science fiction and fantasy at large. Worldbuilding franchise, that sort of thing.

David Read:
OK, understood. Do you have anything on your side that you want to call out specifically?

Darren Sumner:
Our friend Marton Szokor asked earlier, “Is there any official statement by Amazon MGM?” And I think the answer is no. Although Jenny said that the Variety piece, she thinks their source was probably pretty official or semi-official. So there’s no press release, I don’t know if there’s gonna be any sort of public statement from Amazon’s execs on this. It remains to be seen, but so far I haven’t seen anything.

David Read:
Cosmiikirin “Would Martin’s work have been put in ice for possible future use or just thrown in the bin?” I suspect the former. If they’re adjusting their strategy, it makes more sense to do that. Because later on down the road, they’re not necessarily gonna go, “OK, this guy had this thing, this one point here,” because Martin’s gonna be on doing something else, and they’re gonna wanna make sure that that content is as fresh and topical as possible, as you should with most science fiction because things change in our world all the time. We’re not the same society we were five years ago.

Darren Sumner:
You’re gonna hire a series creator… who’s got a pitch, who’s got a fleshed-out idea, who knows what Season One looks like. And if that’s not Martin’s idea, then Martin’s idea is gone if they hire somebody else. Somebody else is not gonna wanna do his idea. They’re gonna get the job because they pitched their own idea and are gonna shepherd it from start to finish.

David Read:
That’s it. It’s heavy stuff, man.

Darren Sumner:
Lots of practical questions over here. “What’s the consensus on who to email at Amazon?” That’s from Lizvrs. SJHorton1184, “Can you guys publish the list of people to contact? How, and what to say?” Bonnie Arbuthnot, Bonnie, good to see you. The Circle president.

David Read:
Good to see you… in an alternate take. I hope you brought your checkbook.

Darren Sumner:
If we wanna volunteer, Bonnie asks, “Or have something to offer, who do we contact?” We’re gonna have to sort all this out as we figure out: which website are we gonna use for a campaign? Which petition are we gonna use? What language should that look like? Other fans are already off and running. I don’t mean to take this over, but we can, I think, bring an audience to it once those questions are all sorted out. In the meantime, who to email at Amazon? You can start with the bottom customer feedback…

David Read:
That’s it.

Darren Sumner:
… and know that your email is not gonna get forwarded to Peter Friedlander, but part of customer service’s job is to collate everything.

David Read:
That’s right.

Darren Sumner:
They’re gonna collate, and it’s gonna go into a bucket…

David Read:
A data center.

Darren Sumner:
… and the bucket is gonna be the Stargate fans are giving us this feedback.

David Read:
That’s it. And Bonnie, email me please, [email protected]. I want to talk to you. OK. What else? RDA interview, Frederick asked, “The fact the fan base is less important now at Amazon, could it be related to how the Trek fan base tore Starfleet Academy a new one, like it scared off Amazon MGM?” I don’t think so. Peter DeLuise and I have been on the phone a lot for the past couple of days. He has my ear and has talked me off of a couple of ledges a couple of times here recently. He mentioned this as well. He wondered if Starfleet Academy had something to do with it. But it’s certainly possible. What do you think?

Darren Sumner:
I suspect, based on what Jenny was saying earlier, that if the internal decision at Amazon was, “Sci-fi’s played out. It doesn’t matter anymore. You don’t have to make fans happy because it’s sort of played out, and we’re gonna do other things.” If that’s the calculation, then it wouldn’t surprise me if part of that calculation was looking at, Disney’s been struggling with Star Wars lately. Star Trek has been struggling. There’s no new Star Trek series currently in production for the first time in 11 years. They might look around and say, “OK, I guess the genre’s on the downswing. This is the wrong time to do it, especially to do a fan-friendly version of it.” I think that’s absolutely the wrong decision to reach.

David Read:
But it’s a possible conclusion based on–

Darren Sumner:
It’s how a TV exec might look at the field, and make a decision.

David Read:
All right. That’s basically what I have here. Anything else on your side? What did you talk about for two and a half hours the other night? I haven’t had a chance to watch it. What did you go on about for two and a half hours?

Darren Sumner:
I killed my voice. I talked with chat and recapped the news every few minutes, as people were discovering it. It was up on GateWorld and trades, but I know the YouTube audience is different. And I didn’t want three, four, or five days to go by before our YouTube audiences even noticed that the show had been canceled.

David Read:
That’s right.

Darren Sumner:
I’m excited-

David Read:
Jenny says, “You can bombard LinkedIn.”

Darren Sumner:
I’m seeing in chat here and all over social media the last two days that people are mad, but they’re also energized, and they’re ready to get practical and do something about it, whether that’s writing a letter, or an email, or signing a petition, or contributing to some sort of campaign. So, guys, what I would suggest in response to all these questions… “Is it time for another tweet storm?” All these questions is, do what feels right to you right now in terms of GateWorld and Dial the Gate helping to coordinate some sort of unified effort and then promote that. Give us a couple of days. Jenny told us that she wants to dig out some information, to learn a little bit more about why this decision came down the way that it did. In the meantime, let’s look at the petitions that are out there and see how they’re doing, see who’s involved… hopefully those guys can reach out to [email protected] and [email protected]. And we’re already in touch with other fans, other content creators, podcasters, et cetera. So, I think there’s a team that is forming, but it’s gonna take a few days.

David Read:
I am out of town until next Thursday, so my communication is spotty.

Darren Sumner:
You’re out of the continent.

David Read:
At the same token, we don’t wanna wait too long. So, this is gonna be a bit of a thing to pull off. But I really do believe that Jenny’s right in terms of a unified front on this one. I don’t think it should just be taking the gate to Paris, and only people who can either be in Paris or can financially contribute to that, is the key. I think that we should do something that everyone can really participate in. Let’s work at noodling that because my first thought is, along with you, Darren, it’s not something that you should put money to specifically. We can do something like that, but there really should be something that everyone can do, whether it be a tweet storm or something similar that we can all grasp together.

Darren Sumner:
The mod team over on the GateWorld Discord has already set up a Save Stargate channel. For folks who use Discord, if that’s a good place to sort of share ideas and rally, that already exists and is up and running.

David Read:
All right. Anything else that we need to cover here? Anyone that you need to thank?

Darren Sumner:
Thanks everybody for being here today. Thanks to those of you who tuned in with me on a live stream on Tuesday that did feel like a bit of a wake. It felt to me… I wish we had more people that I coulda brought on and talked to in person, but it felt like when we’ve done funerals, when we’ve done online… ceremonies of mourning for Stargate actors who have passed, because we were mourning the show. But I appreciate you. I appreciate everybody who turned out for that and for this on both channels. You’re here right now, or you’re watching later, and it matters. You’re part of this fandom.

David Read:
It does.

Darren Sumner:
Even if you’re not super active, you’re part of this fandom, and it matters.

David Read:
Please comment in our feeds… under each of these videos. We’re simulcasting this right now. Commenting moves numbers.

Darren Sumner:
It moves the needle.

David Read:
It’s engagement. If you watch most of this thing, that’s absolutely one thing. But if you are passionate enough about applying your thoughts in relation to the video and in relation to what you saw and giving feedback, Amazon does, again, collate that data. And it makes a difference. The more constructive and thoughtful, the better. If you want these people to create a show for you, speak to them in such a way that they would want to create a show for you. Don’t make it so that, “No, I really don’t want this person anywhere near me.” It’s the Golden Rule.

Darren Sumner:
Don’t be toxic.

David Read:
Treat others the way you wanna be treated.

Darren Sumner:
Don’t be evil. As you said, make good ripples.

David Read:
Make good ripples.

Darren Sumner:
But I’m encouraged two days into this news. I’m encouraged by this chat with Jenny.

David Read:
I am too.

Darren Sumner:
I’m encouraged by the fact that we don’t have to take this lying down. This is ultimately– I don’t know if this gets reversed. I don’t know if it’s possible to save Martin’s show. But we’re in a skinny little window right now where it seems like if this was just an executive making a decision, and there’s a possibility for that decision to be reversed with more information and with fandom being active and engaged, now’s the time. As I think Michael Shanks said on Twitter the other day, now’s the time. If you want the existing TV canon to continue in some way, shape, or form, this is it. This is the time to write letters and make noise and be positive, ’cause if this one goes down, I don’t know that the next one is gonna have anything to do with what they created 20 years ago.

David Read:
That’s it. I think a lot of the damage has already been done, but I think that the next move is ours as well in this short period. We can’t reverse the decision that was made most recently. I don’t necessarily even believe that we can get Martin’s show going again. But I do think it’s very important that we illustrate to them just how big a thud the fandom can make when it all gets together…

Darren Sumner:
And what a bad decision this was.

David Read:
… and reaches out as one and says, “Hey, we’re here.” “We’re not going anywhere, and we’re gonna let you know.”

Darren Sumner:
Even if Martin’s show doesn’t come back, it’s important to let Amazon know that this is not OK. We see what they did. We know that it’s because they’re discounting us, and it’s not OK. And it’s gonna hurt their business in the long term.

David Read:
Yup, that’s it. That’s it. Thanks for coming, man. Thanks for pulling this one off with me.

Darren Sumner:
Yup. I appreciate you being willing to find a home base. I didn’t know that you were gonna find a home base that was filled with, I don’t know, maybe more Stargate toys than you have in your background.

David Read:
I haven’t even looked around in this room yet, but it is–

Darren Sumner:
I’m looking at that Wraith stunner and a TER…

David Read:
It is–

Darren Sumner:
… and a Facehugger.

David Read:
That’s better. This is Stargate heaven. So, we’re gonna explore this in a future episode of the show ’cause I’m here, and therefore, we are gonna film it. Thanks again to Stefan for helping me pull this particular episode off. This is one room of many. But we’ll be back with more content. Darren, you’re not going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere. We’re here for the long haul, and we’re gonna make this work, ’cause we love…

Darren Sumner:
If anything, it’s…

David Read:
… we love that thing.

Darren Sumner:
… it’s time to get busy.

David Read:
That’s it.

Darren Sumner:
If anything.

David Read:
That’s it.

Darren Sumner:
Thanks to everybody for being here. Thanks to the mods in both of our chats, to Raj Luthra, Jeff at Suns and Shadows podcast, Hell Cats, everybody else who’s been here, Anthony Rawlings here. We appreciate you guys so much, appreciate you. I appreciate this fandom. I’ve said it a thousand times. We’ll keep saying it again, I appreciate this fandom, and how cool we are, and how much of a family we are.

David Read:
That’s it. Yes, big, big thanks to Ken, to Antony, to Marsha, to Raj, to Enigma. Big thanks to my Patreons. You guys are continuing to make this possible, so we’ll be in touch, all right?

Darren Sumner:
All right, more to come.

David Read:
More to come. We’ll see you guys on the other side. Keep the faith. Make good ripples. Bye.