Glen here...
...with a brief adjustment to (and elaboration regarding) my previous two Crusade reports (report number one available by clicking here, report #2 available by clicking here.
In both reports, I alluded to the actors on Crusade having been "released from their contracts." This is a slippery issue, and one that should be clarified herein - as the sweeping statement that the actors have been "released from their contracts" is not entirely accurate.
Here's where their situation stands: the actors on Crusade are not expected to hang around any longer. They are free to go off and do whatever they want to do. TECHNICALLY, however, they are still "under contract" to Crusade until sometime mid-summerish.
This scenario translates to: "ACTOR X" is free to take a role in another project, based on the fact that Crusade is no longer in active production, and is not presumed to be so anytime in the foreseeable future. HOWEVER: should some miracle fall upon the series...should Crusade somehow find absolution and be able to move forward with producing new episodes...said actor's primary responsibility (and obligation) is to Crusade, as it came first - and as their contract is still active until sometime in July, I believe.
After mid-July, the actors' contracts would have to be renewed or re-negotiated to secure their involvement.
So, the cast of the series will not been officially or formally "released" from their contractual obligations to Crusade until this summer. But they are able to go to work on anything they want to work on. None the less, they can still be drafted into duties on Crusade should the series somehow be re-activated before their contracts lapse. In many ways this is hair splitting, semantics, and minutia - but it is an important element in this story for the time being, and one I wanted to make as clear as possible. Don't read too much into this, I'm not attempting to imply anything cosmic by clarifying this. But I did want to correct a fact that was accidentally misrepresented.
I will adjust the wording of the previous articles to be more pointedly representative of the actor's actual disposition at this time. Sorry for any confusion, this is sometimes confusing stuff that even actors themselves don't always understand. As one Crusade alumni pointed out: "It is confusing - that's why they have agents!"
Finally, I thought I'd post another message from Crusade creator J. Michael Straczynski. Doesn't say much more than the message posted in Coaxial's previous report, but there are a few more details to be found (the disposition of the series' sets, for example).
Here's what he said:
JMS wrote:
Well, we took our best shot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it don't.
The SciFi Channel programming guys wanted the show; they wanted it a lot. They crunched numbers for almost two weeks trying to make it work. But at the end of the day, the problem was that they had already allocated or spent their budget for the year, and couldn't come up with the huge chunk of change necessary to get an entire season. Had this come up prior to January 1st, things would almost certainly have gone differently. But they have their budget, as we have ours, and it was already allocated.
So TNT will now air the full 13 produced, and that's the end of it for now. I say for now because WB has told us to fold and hold all the sets, rather than scrap them, because they believe strongly in the show, and feel that when the ratings come in we may well be able to pick up a second season. We'll see.
Meanwhile, I'm taking the day off, and deciding which of a number of offers from networks and studios, sitting on my desk since B5 finished, to pick up. I had declined to go that route so I could do Crusade and keep playing in this universe, but absent that, there's no reason not to go back to the networks and apply there some of what we've been able to do in B5 and Crusade.
My thanks to all those who wrote, and called, and emailed, and lent their support to the process. And I think that when you see the show, you'll be quite pleased by what we did. We're all very proud of it.
jms
