There is an updated Season to Date list up on the web site. An
updated Upcoming Schedule List will be sent out in the next couple
of days. This email is a couple of special items in regards to the
fan campaign to impress upon Warner Bros. that Babylon 5 fans do not
want to see the Babylon 5 characters recast in the upcoming movie.

First is a press release we've put together and second is a message
directed to fans from Joseph DeMartino.

Apologies for any duplication since I'm sending this to both the
schedule and news lists:


January 10, 2005

The `Buck' stops at Warner Brothers

Vigilant fans today unveiled the second phase of their effort to
convince Warner Brothers to cast the original actors from the
popular five-year television series, "Babylon 5," in the upcoming
franchise-based film "The Memory of Shadows." After leaks in
December indicated that familiar roles were to be recast with new
actors (akin to recasting someone else as Captain Kirk in "Star
Trek: The Motion Picture"), fans of the highly-regarded science
fiction series created by J. Michael Straczynski burned up the
internet with their displeasure. One particular message board
registered more than 11,000 messages in a thread dedicated to
complaints about the proposed recasting.

Original cast members of "Babylon 5" include Bruce Boxleitner (long
known to tv fans from "Scarecrow and Mrs. King"), Mira Furlan
(currently featured in ABC's runaway hit, "Lost"), Andreas Katsulas
(most famously the one-armed man in 1993's "The Fugitive" with
Harrison Ford), Peter Jurasik (beloved as Sid the Snitch on "Hill
Street Blues"), Tracy Scoggins (the sultry-voiced, athletic beauty
remembered from "The Colbys" and "Dynasty"), and Peter Woodward
(well known to fans of ancient weaponry from his History Channel
program, "Conquest").

In this second-wave effort, fans designed "Babylon 5 Bucks" - funny
money intended for printing and sending to Warner Bros. as a
reminder and veiled warning about the potential income the fanbase
can generate for - or keep from - them. Warner Bros. rushed out the
DVD boxsets of the last four years of the 1993-1998 television show
in a series of rapid releases after what were reported
as "staggering" sales of the first season set. Clearly, the
potential income in the hands of the fans is indeed significant, and
the studio has shown that this particular audience is on their radar.

The "Babylon 5 Bucks," and instructions for letter writing, can be
found at the main bastion of the campaign, the KeepB5Alive website
(www.keepb5alive.com). One such buck is a fanciful, futuristic
design of a credit chit that might have been used on the station
itself, containing a promise to Warner Bros. that the bearer will
buy "at least one ticket" to see the new film; the other is a set of
five phony million-dollar bills featuring actors from the original
series and the motto, "In Support of the Original Actors."

Fans all over the vast reaches of the internet community are being
urged to send in their "Babylon 5 Bucks" and a letter to Warner
Bros. right away, in order to display graphically to the studio
execs returning to work after their holiday break that the fans
of "Babylon 5" are willing, and eager, to put their money where
their mouths are.

Contacts:
Amy Guskin, 610-647-7768, muse@...
Mark Jones (8 AM - 5 PM ET, only), 561-758-9448

###

From: Joseph DeMartino <jdemarti@...>

A Call to Arms

Some of you may have heard the recent rumors about the upcoming B5
feature film, "The Memory of Shadows" – how the money people are
talking about recasting many of the roles from the original series
with "name" actors,

I am here to tell you that this rumor is true and that unless the
powers that be are convinced that tinkering with the cast will hurt
them in the pocketbook, they will do what they want to do, without
regard to JMS's wish or ours. The only people in a position to
convince them that there's money on the line are US.

WE are the ones who watched the show in great enough numbers to keep
it on the air for 5 years. WE are the ones who made the reruns and
B5 S5 such a success on TNT that they spent millions of dollars on
two extra TV movies and a half season of Crusade before they pulled
the plug on that show for reasons of network politics as much as
anything else. WE are the ones who lobbied and wheedled and
threatened until a very skeptical Warner Bros. finally released the
series, the movies and ultimately Crusade on DVD – and then bought
the DVDs in such numbers that the studio decided to make this
feature film in the first place.

WE are the ones who will provide the all-important opening weekend
opening box office and the initial word-of-mouth. It is perfectly
true that a feature film like this can't succeed if only the
hardcore fans go to see it. It will have to attract non-fans, folks
who have never even heard of the series. But if WE don't make sure
the film "opens" it won't stay in theaters long enough for non-fans
to discover the film. If WE don't provide the positive word-of-mouth
the film won't succeed.

I've heard that some fans don't believe the rumor, that recasting
the roles seems so obviously stupid and counter-productive that they
don't think Warner Bros. would ever do such a thing. I was skeptical
myself when I first plugged into the `net after an absence of
several month (hurricanes are such a bother) But I've since checked
with a few individuals whom I trust implicitly and who are in a
position to know about such things. They assure me the rumors are
true. The studio is pressing for this, and since they write the
checks, there isn't a lot the production office can do about it.

I've also heard that other fans are so upset about the reported
story line or indications that a given actor or character may not be
in the film that they're not interested in the project at all. Big
mistake. Some have even suggested that the story line and the cast
changes are part and parcel of the same thing – that the studio
dictated a story that prominently featured new characters and
reduced the old ones to cameos that could be cast with "name" actors
as part of some deep, dark plot to remake B5 in some new image of
their choosing.

Wrong

I don't know the story line for the new film. But I DO know that it
is the story that JMS chose to pitch to the studio for the first B5
film.

Did I just say "First B5 film"?

Yes, I did.

Everybody wants this film to succeed. If it succeeds, WB will want a
sequel, the studios always do. If they do a sequel JMS can do a
story that uses the original characters more. Everybody signing up
to do the sequel to a successful movie will get a bigger payday than
they did on the first. Maybe it makes more sense to do something
that ties up some of the threads from Crusade and Rangers in movie
#1, with the original cast in supporting roles. Then do the Teep War
or some other story in movie #2. But this only works if the original
cast plays the original characters in movie #1.

And that's where you all come in. We need you to write letters –
real, snail-mail, printed and hand-signed letters, to get the
attention of the folks holding the purse strings. We need to remind
them that ultimately we, too, hold the purse strings. We buy the
tickets at the box office.

An ad hoc committee of fans has been working on ways to get the
studio's attention, including press releases and getting stories
into the mainstream press. You can help by participating in a letter
writing campaign with a bit of a gimmick to help it stand out from
similar campaigns. Go to www.keepb5alive.com. Download one of
the "B5 Bucks" designs on the site. Print them out, cut them out,
and include them with your letter. We've also provided form letters
that you can hand-write your own address and comments on, but I have
to tell you – the studios pay a lot more attention to individuals
who took the time to compose a letter of their own than those who
merely signed a form letter that somebody else wrote. Just don't
forget to include the " B5 Bucks" whichever you do.

This may seem like a silly gimmick. So were the Budweiser frogs.
Silly gimmicks are memorable, they get attention. They WORK. So can
this if Warner Bros. gets socked with thousands and thousands of
letters containing these novelty items. And that's the key – make
them realize that this isn't an issue that concerns only a few
fanatical fans of particular actors but something the vast majority
of the fan community cares deeply about and that we will have to
consider whether or not the B5 movie WB eventually puts in theaters
is really B5 or some pale imitation that we, as loyal fans, can and
will rightly ignore. Go to the site, download the materials, join
the fight. The casting decisions are being made right now The
countdown to the start of shooting has begun. The window during
which we can make our voices heard is closing, but it hasn't closed
yet. Don't let it close until you've added your voice to the chorus.

Print out a letter, preferably one you've written yourself, today.
Sign it, add a hand-written note and your address if necessary.
Print out an envelope, stuff it, with some B5 Bucks, seal it, put it
on the counter with your car keys. Make sure you mail it tomorrow.

We've been here before folks. Our backs against the wall, no chance
in hell of getting what we want. We've been here every single
season, we were here at the end of S4 most of all. We were here
trying to get the show released on some form of home video and
ultimately on DVD. We were here trying to get a feature film off the
ground at all. We've always tried to do the impossible and we've
always been told that we never could. (One SF entertainment news web
site won't run a story on this controversy because they haven't seen
an official announcement of the film from WB and they don't believe
that anybody is ever going to make a feature film based on
a "little" cult show like B5)

We've always succeeded in the long run.

Faith manages.

Start writing.

Joe