Who has the TV rights?

[SQW]

Okay, we all know Witcher 3 is getting a live action TV series and Warhammer 40k just got the go ahead for its own show. If an obscure Polish novel about magical beast hunter and 2nd nerdiest of all nerd board game IP can get their time on the small screen, I think it's time we start writing to the right people.

 

[Ken-Sw]

I am sure many of us would love to see a new Battletech / Mechwarrior TV show but I am not going to get my hopes up.

 

[Timaeus]

Pretty sure it's Disney. At least for animation. Otherwise, if Disney doesn't have live action, probably Topps.

 

[stjobe]

Pretty sure it's Disney. At least for animation. Otherwise, if Disney doesn't have live action, probably Topps.

Yep.

Basically, Topps own everything and licenses it out to others/markets it under a subsidiary:
Boardgame & novels: Topps -> Catalyst Game Labs
Metal miniatures: Topps -> Iron Wind Metals, Ral Partha Europe
Plastic miniatures: Topps -> Catalyst Game Labs

The exception is electronic games and animation:
Electronic games: Microsoft -> PGI, HBS
Animation: Disney

 

[Jamey]

Animation: Disney

It's interesting that Disney has the rights, as an Israeli company I've otherwise never heard of made the animated show back in the day.

Maybe we'll get lucky and Disney will decide the Battletech should be dusted off and made into a big TV/Movie franchise for their upcoming streaming service.

 

[MeiSooHaityu]

This makes me wonder...What kind of BattleTech TV show would be the better/more entertaining route?

Would a GoT style political drama (centered around the great houses of the Inner Sphere) be the best way to go, or would something more light hearted/adventurous a long the lines of a Firefly or Cowboy Beebop style show where we follow a ragtag group of mercenaries just trying to make a living in the IS, be a more entertaining route?

Hmm...

 

[Jamey]

This makes me wonder...What kind of BattleTech TV show would be the better/more entertaining route?

Would a GoT style political drama (centered around the great houses of the Inner Sphere) be the best way to go, or would something more light hearted/adventurous a long the lines of a Firefly or Cowboy Beebop style show where we follow a ragtag group of mercenaries just trying to make a living in the IS, be a more entertaining route?

Hmm...

I think that a light hearted adventure show would be the most likely to succeed.

The Battletech show I'd most want to see is a show akin to the Expanse.

 

[unclecid]

It's interesting that Disney has the rights, as an Israeli company I've otherwise never heard of made the animated show back in the day.

Maybe we'll get lucky and Disney will decide the Battletech should be dusted off and made into a big TV/Movie franchise for their upcoming streaming service.

Disney got the rights when they acquired Saban Entertainment.

interestingly....Saban Capital Group bought back some of their old IPs in the early-mid 2000s

 

[Rubidium]

This makes me wonder...What kind of BattleTech TV show would be the better/more entertaining route?

Would a GoT style political drama (centered around the great houses of the Inner Sphere) be the best way to go, or would something more light hearted/adventurous a long the lines of a Firefly or Cowboy Beebop style show where we follow a ragtag group of mercenaries just trying to make a living in the IS, be a more entertaining route?

Hmm...

I'd definitely see it more of a Firefly approach. The marketing "hook" for Battletech was and always is the "Giant Fighting Robots" side of things. That's the main differentiator from the zillions of other space opera settings out there. The political side of things (which, frankly, is not exactly the strong suit of the universe anyway) is taking away from that focus and shifting to the more generic side of things. You very easily risk "lots of talking heads and then maybe a battlemech showing up once a season" situation. Compare GoT, which for all that it was a fantasy world with dragons and zombies, intentionally focused on the political side of things and mostly kept the dragons/zombies in the background as looming menaces for the majority of the show/books.

By keeping things small scale, it also lets you focus on developing a smaller group of characters, and more self-contained stories. It also works better for bringing in new audiences (as it allows for more gradual world-building; note that even GoT basically focuses on the Stark and Lannister families + Daenerys at the beginning, before sprawling out to the wider world). It's actually somewhat similar to some of the reasons I suspect HBS chose to go the way they did with the main campaign: self-contained and on the periphery in an area with little established lore and only limited interactions with the Great Houses, requiring relatively little explanation for people new to the series (basically all you need to know for the campaign is "your country is a small fish, between bigger fish, everyone is at least semi-feudal, and battlemechs are the kings of the battlefield"), but offering a reasonable degree of freedom in story telling (and enough room to hint at a bigger scope to things as needed).

 

[Timaeus]

It's interesting that Disney has the rights, as an Israeli company I've otherwise never heard of made the animated show back in the day.

Maybe we'll get lucky and Disney will decide the Battletech should be dusted off and made into a big TV/Movie franchise for their upcoming streaming service.

Oh, you've heard of them even if you didn't realize it. They are the company the did Power Rangers. But Disney bought them (and I believe the animation house) so now they have the rights.

 

[Ganggreenkhan]

A BATTLETECH live action wouldn't make it past the bean counters. To expensive to have Mech battles. And really who wants to watch a BATTLETECH show with mechMbattles only at season premiere or finally?

 

[unclecid]

A BATTLETECH live action wouldn't make it past the bean counters. To expensive to have Mech battles. And really who wants to watch a BATTLETECH show with mechMbattles only at season premiere or finally?

It wouldn't be any more expensive then space battles in shows right now.
And they have greenlit ops with less exposure.

 

[Jamey]

It wouldn't be any more expensive then space battles in shows right now.
And they have greenlit ops with less exposure.

The bigger problem is that there is no exemplar show with mechs. Space ship shows have often done well, which makes them lower risk. Mech shows have been a niche market (effectively entirely imported anime, other than the old Battletech cartoon).

Don't get me wrong, I'd love for Disney to green light a Battletech show, but I understand why they haven't.

 

[starscream]

The bigger problem is that there is no exemplar show with mechs. Space ship shows have often done well, which makes them lower risk. Mech shows have been a niche market (effectively entirely imported anime, other than the old Battletech cartoon).

Don't get me wrong, I'd love for Disney to green light a Battletech show, but I understand why they haven't.

They is no way disney should be allowed near Battletech they would ruin it like they have done with other franchises star wars just to name one

Where I would love to see a battletech tv show only if done right and by some one who respects the history

 

[Jamey]

They is no way disney should be allowed near Battletech they would ruin it like they have done with other franchises star wars just to name one

Where I would love to see a battletech tv show only if done right and by some one who respects the history

They've done quite well with Marvel, and I've found the Star Wars movies hit and miss. I'd rather they took a swing at it (especially if they could get some people on board who are Battletech fans), because otherwise we'll never have a Battletech show.

 

[DarkSpade]

Are you sure Disney actually owns the TV rights? Just because they bought the company that made the cartoon doesn't mean they own anything more than that cartoon.

As I understood it, Topps never sold the Battletech rights to Catalyst because they felt there might be a potential for a lucrative movie at some point.

 

[Timaeus]

(effectively entirely imported anime, other than the old Battletech cartoon).

Exo Squad too.

 

[Timaeus]

Are you sure Disney actually owns the TV rights? Just because they bought the company that made the cartoon doesn't mean they own anything more than that cartoon.

As I understood it, Topps never sold the Battletech rights to Catalyst because they felt there might be a potential for a lucrative movie at some point.

Disney definitely has the rights for the animated show. I did some further searching and it appears, at least as of 2003 Electric Entertainment had the rights for MechWarrior based movies at one point (via WizKids), but was unable to get funding from Paramount (so less lucrative and more no money) probably causing the right to revert back to whichever entity owned the right to movies at the time. So Wizkids (Topps) there most likely; however, I believe when at one of the mechcons Jordan and Mitch have said before, and this is second hand, that Disney has the rights now, soo... *shrug*

Either way nothing is happening.

 

[MeiSooHaityu]

Exo Squad too.

The new Netflix Voltron is also a western created show as well (Dreamworks animation). The best part, it is a new mecha series that seemed to do very well. If there was a modern show that might help get something BattleTech off the ground, this might be it.

I also hate to say this...but...If the Robotech movie finally goes somewhere and does well in the theaters, that might help BattleTech as well.

All this is hard to say. Pacific Rim could have helped things along too, however I don't think it did as well as hoped (especially the sequel).

 

[Timaeus]

The new Netflix Voltron is also a western created show as well (Dreamworks animation). The best part, it is a new mecha series that seemed to do very well. If there was a modern show that might help get something BattleTech off the ground, this might be it.

I also hate to say this...but...If the Robotech movie finally goes somewhere and does well in the theaters, that might help BattleTech as well.

All this is hard to say. Pacific Rim could have helped things along too, however I don't think it did as well as hoped (especially the sequel).

western now, but was a import rewrite of Go Lion I believe.