Wright: This Was The Right Time For 'Atlantis' Movies

"Once we realized that with the prospect of another series going forward ... and ['Stargate SG-1'] movies going forward, this was the right way for the partnership between MGM and us and [SciFi Channel] to go forward," Wright recently told GateWorld. "The show was doing well. But you don't wait until the show isn't doing well before you try to launch movies. If you are going to do movies when the show has still got life left in it, that's a good time."

The decision to end "Atlantis" after five seasons was one that was jointly decided between SciFi and MGM, Wright said. While he won't deny that ratings were sliding -- especially this year with the third casting change in the starring role of the series -- it was something that probably could've held out longer if it wasn't for the new "Stargate: Universe" series that is now in pre-production and at least one more "SG-1" telemovie planned.

GateWorld editor Darren Sumner shared similar sentiments within minutes of the announcement of "Atlantis'" cancellation on last week's SyFy Radio.

"Brad Wright did tell us in April that he personally did not want to go back to doing two shows simultaneously again," Sumner said. "They did 'SG-1' and 'Atlantis' simultaneously for three years. That's 40 hours of television each year, and he wasn't eager to going back to that knowing that [MGM] wanted to do more movies for 'SG-1.' Either 'Universe' would have to wait until 'Atlantis' was done, or 'Atlantis' would have to be done right now."

Not all fans are carrying the same sentiment. Two fan Web sites for "Atlantis" known as Save the Lost City and Save Our 'Stargate: Atlantis' have joined forces to create a more organized campaign in an effort to save the show. Through the site Save-TheLostCity.com the fans have mounted a new campaign to let both MGM and SciFi Channel know that they think cancelling "Atlantis" was a bad idea.

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