J. Michael Straczynski Announces He Is Fleeing The United States And Attempting To Break Into British TV At 70 Years Old

After years of working in Hollywood, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski has announced he’s leaving the USA and moving to the United Kingdom to write for British television.

He posted to Facebook:

For followers of my work, I have some very exciting news, both personally and professionally. A new challenge. A new beginning.

I'm going back up on the high wire, to see what happens next.

I’ve always believed in the necessity of risk. When I started writing for the first time; when I moved from San Diego to Los Angeles to pursue a career in journalism; when I walked away from my journalism career with no waiting options; reinvented myself as an animation writer; left animation to write live action; changed course again to start writing comics; then jumped to features with Changeling…it’s all about looking for the next personal and creative challenge, about taking the next chance and accepting the next risk.

For the last six months, I have been in the process of pursuing another seismic shift in my work, my career and my life. In many ways it’s the biggest shift since the aforementioned trek to Los Angeles with no contacts, no resources, and barely enough money to survive for two months. A change that will turn my life upside down in a dozen ways. The few friends I discussed this with said I’m nuts, concerned because there’s no guarantee that any of this will work out.

But honestly, there never was.

And there never is.

Which brings me to the present moment.

For as long as I’ve been writing, I’ve made no secret of my love of British television. That began as a kid, when I embraced Planet Patrol (better known in the UK as Space Patrol) and as many of the Gerry Anderson Supermarionation series as I could find. I matured from adolescence into adulthood by way of shows like The Avengers, Blake’s 7, UFO, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Danger Man, The Prisoner, The Saint, Dr. Who, and I, Claudius.

When videos and streaming became a thing I chased down Sapphire and Steel, The Champions, the early Quatermass programs, At Last the 1948 Show, The War of the Worlds, The Triffids, Yes Minister, The Vicar of Dibly, Mr. Bean, Absolutely Fabulous, The Crown, Sherlock and a ton of others.

Those British TV series shaped my growth as a writer at least as much as American shows.

So it should come as no surprise that every year, when my agent and I have our “what goals should we set for the coming year” discussion, I’ve asked one question every time: “Is there any way I can produce a series in the UK and live there for a while?”

The answer, alas, has always been no, for the obvious reason that I’m not a British citizen or resident with a visa that would allow me to work in the UK. The closest I came was when we shot a big chunk of Sense8 in London. Rather than satisfy my desire to live and work in the UK, the experience only reinforced it.

Well, I finally decided to do something about it. Because that’s what dreams are for.

Anyone who’s emigrated knows there are all kinds of visas. Getting a visa to let you live in another country can be difficult enough; getting a visa that will let you live there for an indefinite period of time, or a visa that will let you work in that country for domestic businesses (as opposed to digital nomads working remotely) is even more difficult.

The most challenging of all is a very specific and ridiculously-hard-to-get-approved visa that would let me live in the UK for an open-ended period of time, have a shot at citizenship, and would allow me to work in the UK film and television business.

With the help of a highly-recommended immigration law firm in London, I began the slow, agonizing process of filling out tons of paperwork, providing financial information, referrals, lists of awards, documentation about the scope of my work, and gathering letters of support from both sides of the Atlantic, all of which would subsequently be evaluated by one of the main governmental councils overseeing this sort of visa for the Home Office to determine worthiness.

Even though the outcome was far from certain, I made the decision to sell the house that has been my home for 25 years as a way of saying I’m committing to the path. Gave away or donated a ton of clothes and other stuff. If the visa went through, I wanted a fresh start, so I used much of what was left after selling the house to pay off debt accumulated during one pandemic, two strikes, and four yeas of paralysis in the film/TV business.

The rest, with the help of my Patrons, was sufficient to secure what I hoped would be just a transitional apartment, and rolled the dice again to secure a second apartment just outside London with a view of the Thames and a home office with enough wall space to put up posters and memorabilia. I then put all my worldly belongings into storage so I could take it with me to London if everything worked out.

But what if it didn’t? That was my biggest worry as the process dragged on. There were no guarantees to any of this. The visa could be turned down for any number of reasons, and I would have done all of this for nothing.

Finally, everything was filed, and we waited for what seemed like forever to hear a decision.

Well, that decision has now been made.

As of today, I am officially a Resident of the United Kingdom. I can stay on indefinitely, can apply for full citizenship in three years, and finally, at long last, I am free to work for any studio, producer or network in the UK, from ITV to Channel 4, Britbox, Acorn…BBC.

But just because I can work for those outlets doesn’t mean I will have the opportunity and to work for them; it only means that there are no longer any impediments to that process. There are no guarantees. It’s still a risk.

And I’m totally okay with that.

So what does this mean for the future of my work, my life and my career? No idea. It may be glorious. It’s equally possible that this will turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes in the history of big mistakes.

But sometimes the only way to achieve anything is to risk everything. Living and working in London has been the dream of a lifetime. If I don’t do this now, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.

All of that being said, I’m not just leaving the US behind. My plan is to divide my time between both countries. In addition to looking after the Ellison Estate, there’s my ongoing comics work, several US-based projects that require my attention, and the possibility of more in the future, I want to launch some US/UK film and television co-productions, create series that can be shot in both places, and perhaps join arms with UK studios and networks already working to bring homegrown characters from comics and past TV series to an international audience.

But there’s that old joke: Q: How do you make God laugh? A: Tell Him your plans.

And I will be bringing my Patrons along for that journey, through the ups and downs, the great hopes and the false starts. It should be quite a ride, so anyone looking on is welcome to join up to support this effort and have a first-row seat to whatever the hell is about to happen.

If you look at all the stories I’ve written from age seventeen until right-now-this-very-moment, nearly all of them have been in some way about hope, transformation, and taking chances, because I honestly believe in the power of such things. I consistently bring that message to convention appearances in the hope of encouraging the next generation of dreamers to take chances, to reinvent and reimagine themselves, even when the odds are against them. Especially then.

But if you’re gonna tell someone else to do something, sometimes you gotta put your money where your mouth is, and do it yourself.

The next chapter of my life begins today.

This should be interesting.

J. Michael Straczynski

While he spins this as a positive way of increasing opportunity, one can’t help but notice he started the process for the paperwork soon after the election of Donald Trump, signifying that this move may be political in nature.

Straczynski is well-known for his Trump derangement and anti-Conservative, anti-Christian stances that may have led to this decision, as at 70 years old, it’s unlikely that he truly wants to start over to take risks with his life as he says in his Facebook post.

It also comes soon after a report from the Tachyon Pulse Podcast that a Babylon 5 reboot project has stalled, and Warner Bros. is considering building a potential reboot of the show without Stracyznski’s involvement. That news, if true, could be a sign of Straczynski getting fed up wit hthe Hollywood system, in tandem with US politics, giving up on Babylon 5 ever making it back to the screen.

What do you think of J. Michael’s Straczynski’s announcement of fleeing the US and moving to the UK? Is it just for film’s sake or is there more to it? Leave a comment and let us know.

For a great alternative to mainstream science fiction, with spy thriller action, read The Stars Entwined on Amazon!

NEXT: Babylon 5 Creator J. Michael Straczynski Mocks The Gospels Of Christ And Blasphemes While Offering To Rewrite John