Cult sci-fi series ‘Blake’s 7’ reboot in the works, helmed by ‘The Last of Us’ director Peter Hoar

Hollywood trade publication Deadline reports that Peter Hoar, the Emmy-nominated director of “The Last of Us,” has launched a production company and is working on a reboot of cult British sci-fi drama “Blake’s 7.”

Along with executive producer Matthew Bouch (“A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder”) and West End producer Jason Haigh-Ellery, Hoar has launched “genre-based” indie studio Multitude Productions, and together the three of them have snapped up a host of IP, including “Blake’s 7,” which last aired on BBC One 45 years ago.

According to Deadline, Hoar plans to direct the reboot, which will go out to buyers soon. Bouch would “love it to go to the BBC” and will more than likely seek co-funding from American streamers and European networks alike. With long-running genre series struggling for momentum and budgets tightening across high-end scripted television, Hoar and Bouch say the moment is right to set up shop.

“The ‘Blake’s 7’ story is legendary because they were given the [70s UK police show] ‘Softly, Softly’ slot that was intended for police drama with a budget intended for one big set and a few location shoots,” Hoar said. “At the time, it felt like it meant something. Those shows got into my veins. I could tell they didn’t have money, but I was able to compartmentalize and enjoy the ride knowing that the sets wobbled.”

Set in deep space in the far future, the show first aired in January 1978 and was shown on BBC One. Created by Terry Nation, a prolific British television scriptwriter in the 70s and 80s and credited for bringing the Daleks into existence, “Blake’s 7” followed on from the success of shows like “Dr Who” and “Space: 1999” and took an interesting and much darker approach to science fiction storytelling.

It followed a band of resistance fighters led by a man called Roj Blake (Gareth Thomas) who escapes from incarceration after attempting to lead a rebellion against the totalitarian Terran Federation.

Along the way, Blake recruits five like-minded individuals and steals a mysterious alien starship of a design never-before-seen. Together with Kerr Avon (Paul Darrow), Vila Restal (Michael Keating), Jenna Stannis (Sally Knyvette), Olag Gan (David Jackson), Cally (Jan Chappell) and the ship’s onboard sentient computer Zen (voiced by Peter Tuddenham), they form the original seven.

Over the course of four seasons and a total of 52 episodes, some members of the original crew were killed off and replaced, a prototype portable super-computer called Orac (also voiced by Peter Tuddenham) is stolen and becomes an unofficial member of the crew, and the original alien ship, renamed the Liberator, is destroyed by Federation fighters.

The show was an attempt to embrace science fiction drama, and the performances of classically trained Darrow often made the show feel like a Shakespearean tragedy set in space. The ongoing love-hate chemistry between Avon and his character’s arch nemesis, the head of the Federation, Servalan (Jacqueline Pearce), was an undeniable highlight.

The show also launched the careers of Josette Simon — who later appeared in “Wonder Woman”, “Halo”, and “The Crow” — and Glynis Barber, who starred in “Dempsey and Makepeace”, “EastEnders”, and “Hollyoaks.”

According to Deadline, Hoar compares “Blake’s 7” to recent sci-fi success “Andor,” which he believes is a hit not because of its circa-$25M per hour budget, but rather “because of the integrity, wit and sophistication.” He described “Dr Who” as a cautionary tale, pointing to Disney+’s recent exit after two seasons from what had been one of the decade’s largest co-production deals.

Bouch said, “We look back at when we were young with a degree of nostalgia, but also thinking about the 70s and 80s as we were growing up and the amount of genre material that was available … We are looking to the international market and seeing if there is a way of dovetailing that British low-budget sensibility with international markets. We know in the US there’s a big contraction, and we all need to think about finding ways to make things more economical.”

Hoar and Bouch, who have worked with Britain’s biggest showrunners, including Russell T. Davies and Jack Thorne, are championing a multi-writer model to get scribes back to work.

Over the years, “Blake’s 7” has retained a dedicated fanbase, and several rumors have circulated regarding a reboot. There’s a surprisingly deep expanded universe, and while it’s fragmented and uneven, there are novels, audio dramas, and even a serialized weekly comic that ran alongside seasons one and two.