An Open Letter to Amazon MGM: The Fanbase Is Not the Ceiling for Stargate’s Success—It Is the Floor

Dear Amazon MGM Studios Leadership,

I am writing as a lifelong fan of the Stargate franchise and as a consumer who believes Amazon MGM is undervaluing one of the most important assets it acquired: an established and fiercely loyal audience.

What concerns me most is the belief that a revival centered on the existing fanbase would somehow limit the franchise’s broader appeal. Respectfully, I believe that reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes a long-running franchise valuable in the first place.

Amazon did not acquire MGM to build every franchise from scratch. It acquired one of the deepest libraries in entertainment history, including intellectual properties that have already demonstrated their ability to cultivate passionate, multigenerational audiences. That existing goodwill is not a liability to overcome—it is one of the acquisition’s most valuable assets.

Every successful franchise is built on trust. For nearly thirty years, Stargate has cultivated one of the most loyal communities in science fiction. Those fans are not an obstacle to growth—they are the foundation upon which growth is built. They generate excitement, recommend the series to new viewers, drive online discussion, purchase merchandise, attend conventions, and return to rewatch the franchise for decades. Their enthusiasm is free marketing that no advertising budget can replicate.

The entertainment industry has repeatedly made the same strategic mistake: viewing passionate fans as a niche to move beyond rather than as advocates to empower. Yet history shows that every enduring franchise—from Marvel to Star Wars to Star Trek—expanded not by abandoning its foundation, but by building upon it. The audience that has sustained a franchise for decades is not evidence of limited appeal; it is evidence of extraordinary staying power.

Every franchise begins with a niche audience. The path to mainstream success has never been to abandon that audience, but to create something so authentic that its existing fans enthusiastically invite others to join them. New audiences do not appear because a franchise distances itself from its identity—they appear because passionate fans create excitement around a product worthy of sharing.

Recent Star Trek projects illustrate this principle perfectly. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has been successful because it respects the existing fanbase while remaining highly accessible to newcomers. It embraces the optimism, exploration, and character-driven storytelling that longtime fans love while serving as an easy entry point for viewers unfamiliar with decades of continuity. Rather than treating its legacy as baggage, it uses that legacy as a competitive advantage.

By contrast, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy demonstrates the risks of pursuing a hypothetical broader audience at the expense of the established one. Instead of delivering the era and style of storytelling many longtime fans had hoped to revisit, it shifted toward a teen drama format that many compared to “Beverly Hills 90210 in space.” Despite carrying one of the most recognizable names in science fiction, the series failed to generate significant audience momentum, did not break into the Nielsen Top 10 streaming rankings, was cancelled after only two seasons, and its production sets were dismantled. The lesson is not that new ideas should be avoided, but that a franchise’s greatest asset is the audience that has already proven its willingness to invest emotionally in its universe.

More broadly, when studios attempt to reinvent established franchises for an imagined future audience while sidelining the audience that already exists, the result is often a product that satisfies neither group. Existing fans feel disconnected from the property they helped build, while new viewers have no emotional investment in the brand and countless alternatives competing for their attention. A recognizable title alone cannot create loyalty. Authenticity can.

Fans do not expect every creative decision to align perfectly with their preferences. What they do expect is that the people entrusted with stewarding a franchise understand why they loved it in the first place. Respecting the core identity of a franchise is not the same as pandering to nostalgia—it is preserving the qualities that made the property valuable enough to revive.

No marketing campaign is more effective than millions of passionate fans enthusiastically recommending a show to their friends, families, coworkers, and online communities. A loyal fanbase creates organic promotion that cannot be purchased. Alienating that audience means losing your most effective marketing department.

From a business perspective, continuing an established franchise represents substantially less risk than launching an entirely original property. The audience already exists, the mythology is established, and the brand recognition has been earned over decades rather than purchased through marketing. Few studios would willingly discard such an advantage.

Unlike disposable streaming content, legacy franchises generate recurring value through repeat viewing, subscriber retention, merchandising, licensing, conventions, games, physical media, future spin-offs, and long-term library engagement. Their value compounds over time because audiences return to them again and again. The lifetime value of an enduring franchise often exceeds the value of its initial release.

Amazon is uniquely positioned to benefit from this model. Success on a streaming platform should not be measured solely by opening-week headlines or the pursuit of the broadest possible demographic. A beloved franchise that subscribers revisit for decades strengthens retention and engagement in ways that disposable content rarely can. Stargate has already demonstrated this extraordinary longevity.

The fanbase is not the ceiling for Stargate’s success.
It is the floor.

Every successful revival begins by earning the enthusiasm of the audience that kept the franchise alive during years of dormancy. Those fans become ambassadors who introduce friends, family, and an entirely new generation of viewers to the universe they love. Ignoring that audience in pursuit of a hypothetical larger one is not expansion—it is abandoning the very foundation upon which future success must be built.

Like hundreds of thousands of fans around the world, I have signed the global petition supporting this revival. The continued passion surrounding Stargate nearly twenty years after its last television series is itself evidence that this franchise retains extraordinary untapped potential. Communities this dedicated cannot be manufactured—they are earned.

The question facing Amazon MGM is not whether Stargate can attract new viewers. It has done so for nearly three decades. The question is whether the studio will trust the audience that has already demonstrated its loyalty or chase a hypothetical audience at the expense of the real one. History consistently suggests that the former builds enduring franchises, while the latter too often diminishes them.

The existing fanbase is not a limitation to overcome. It is one of the most valuable assets Amazon inherited when it acquired MGM. A successful Stargate revival will not happen despite its fans—it will happen because of them. Respect that audience, and they will build the next generation of Stargate viewers for you. Ignore them, and you risk squandering one of science fiction’s most enduring and valuable legacies.

Please reconsider this decision and allow Martin Gero the opportunity to build the future of Stargate. The franchise does not need to be reinvented to become successful again. It needs to be understood.

Thank you for your time and for considering the voices of the audience that has kept Stargate alive for nearly three decades.