LOST IN SPACE ORIGINAL SERIES

In the early 2000s, they pitched NBC an ambitious project. And so, they decided to do something radical. “We were able to secure the rights after that experience because Irwin Allen’s widow, Sheila Allen, was not happy with the movie, was not happy with how dark and morbid and dysfunctional the family appeared to be,” Burns says. After the 1998 film was critically savaged, Irwin Allen’s widow gave the pair the keys to the Jupiter 2.

Instead, it’s stealing its best stuff from a surprising source: the original intention of Irwin Allen’s classic show.īefore achieving escape velocity with the contemporary Netflix Lost in Space, producers Kevin Burns and Jon Jashni - who hold the copyrights to several Irwin Allen properties - dreamt of doing a Lost in Space remake that wasn’t a remake at all, but instead, a sequel. “It’s not an easy nut to crack.”Īs it turns out, Lost in Space didn’t come back from the dead by reinventing itself exactly. “The perception of Lost in Space was a bit schizophrenic before we did this series,” says executive producer Kevin Burns. So, the challenge facing a new version of the Robinsons’ epic adventure was clear: How could the public at large take this wayward outer space family seriously? Like some of the Alpha Centauri colonists who failed to dodge the death-ray from a robot, both failed spectacularly.

LOST IN SPACE ORIGINAL SERIES

Prior to the Netflix version, there were two reboots: one you’ve forgotten and another you’ve likely never seen-the underwhelming 1998 Lost in Space film from New Line Cinema and an unaired 2004 series directed by John Woo called The Robinsons. You can find more infomation on the issue here.īefore the Netflix reimagining premiered in April 2018, the idea that any new version of Lost in Space would be decent-much less excellent-seemed unlikely, if not outright impossible. Editor’s note: This story appears in our latest Den of Geek special edition magazine presented in parternship with Netflix.

Lost in space original