“The Many Worlds of Jonas Moore” Coming to the Small Screen

MGM Domestic Television Distribution, the franchise holder of all the “Stargate” programming is ready to continue making a splash on the small screen by bringing the U.K.-based online graphic Howard Webster novel “The Many Worlds of Jonas Moore” to television as a weekly series.

The studio has had great success on TV in the past with the “Stargate” franchise, but with their biggest and longest running U.S. SF show, “Stargate SG-1,” now in retirement, the lion has been looking at the next project that would put them back into the game on a serious level, and they think they have found it with the “Jonas” action-adventure idea.

“The Many Worlds of Jonas Moore” tells the story of a fugitive vidgame player living in a futuristic world where the British empire still reigns supreme and America is just one of thousands of virtual worlds in a global game network.

MGM is currently eyeing their old haunts at the SCI FI Channel as a possible outlet for the series, “It’s more likely to be a cable series here in the U.S.,” Chris Ottinger, exec VP of worldwide TV for MGM said. “But it has a real shot to be on terrestrial TV in the U.K.”

Ottinger is looking at 2009 as a possible launch for the new series.

“We’re really trying to restart our television business, and we’re looking for hot properties that we can turn into hourlong dramas,” he said.

For the current online 3-D animation, live-action combo version of the game-series, British actor Colin Salmon does the work for the game’s lead character. No word yet on if Ottinger and the rest of the production crew have Salmon in mind for the lead in the television series.