Insider Jenny Stiven: Amazon's Brief for the New Stargate Series Is "No Hard Reboot" — and Netflix Offered for the IP After the Cancellation

October 15, 2026 SGU Rewind News

Jenny Stiven, who spent years working on Stargate including MGM's Stargate Command fan hub, says Amazon's creative brief for Jac Schaeffer's newly announced Stargate series rules out a hard reboot and requires the show to stay within the television universe's canon. Speaking on Dial the Gate's "State of the Gate, October 2026" special with host David Read and GateWorld's Darren Sumner (uploaded October 13), Stiven said: "Safe House Pictures was given a creative brief that there is to be no hard reboot. Period. End of subject." She stressed that she no longer works on Stargate or for Amazon, but said she had heard the same thing "through two sources, one of whom does work with Amazon." Her remarks were reported by Cosmic Book News on October 14.

According to Stiven, the no-reboot instruction is not new: it is the standing rule for the franchise, and Martin Gero's cancelled series was developed under the same brief, as were The Expanse writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby when they pitched a couple of years ago. She also said Schaeffer was approached by Amazon rather than pitching a Stargate idea herself, is in pre-development writing a pilot script, and that last Friday's news came via a Safe House media alert rather than an official Amazon announcement. "I don't want everybody to panic," she said of the "soft reboot" talk. "What that just means is that it's within the universe. It does not go outside the universe, but it may tell new stories with new characters." Asked by Read whether the #SaveStargate campaign contributed to the mandate, Stiven answered: "Yes. That's all I can say."

Stiven also claimed that Netflix made an approach after the cancellation: "I do know that Netflix offered for it immediately. I don't know if it was serious or not or if they were just stirring Amazon's pot." She said Amazon "doesn't want to license the IP, let alone sell it" and plans to keep Stargate for a while, adding: "This particular fandom and this particular IP has had a lot of nine lives and I don't think it's over."

These are Stiven's own accounts from a public interview; neither Amazon nor Netflix has commented publicly on a creative brief or an offer. For the official record, Variety first reported on October 9 that Schaeffer is developing the series under her overall deal with Amazon MGM Studios, and Deadline added that Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell will executive produce alongside her and that a writers room has opened in New York.

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