Sadly, nearly 20 years later, it doesn’t look like The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy 2 will ever happen. It’s not all bad news, however.
Sci-Fi Comedy
Few sci-fi comedies are as quirky and colourful as Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. With a history that includes multiple radio adaptations, a TV show, a text-based game, a feature film, and even an upcoming Hulu series, the franchise has become one of the UK’s most prominent sci-fi pieces of literature.
The misadventures of Arthur Dent and Trillian – and who could forget about Marvin, the Paranoid Android – have captivated the minds of countless fans all over the world. Yet, for how popular the series has become, it doesn’t quite generate all the online buzz one would expect from a usual sci-fi series. That might be because The Hitchhiker’s Guide is anything but usual.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy 2
After the 2005 feature film starring Martin Freeman and Zooey Deschanel became a modest box-office success, fans were expecting that The Restaurant at the End of the Universe couldn’t be too far behind. As it turns out, two years later, Freeman would confirm that director Garth Jennings had no plans to work on a sequel to The Hitchhiker’s Guide, leaving fans of the movie sorely disappointed – something that was made much worse by the film’s open-ended conclusion.
Twenty years after the release of the first movie, any hopes fans had for a proper sequel have all but vanished. Martin Freeman is still quite active in the acting world, and Zooey Deschanel would surely be up for a sequel to one of her most iconic roles, but things just wouldn’t be the same without Alan Rickman voicing Marvin.
“There isn’t [any possibility of a sequel] at this point,” Martin Freeman told MTV News in 2007. “I found that out from the horse’s mouth, [director] Garth Jennings. I had dinner with him, and he said [the first one] just didn’t do well enough.”
It seems like a sequel to the 2005 film is out of the cards at the moment, and it might be time for fans to set their eyes on the possibility of a reboot. The good news is that they might not need to wait for long.
A New TV Series
In 2019, Hulu announced that they were working on a new show based on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy without announcing a concrete release date. The lack of updates and even the reveal of a full cast might prove disappointing for some fans, but there has been no news about the show’s cancellation.
Considering the age of the original film, we might be about to see a reboot of the franchise, ignoring the continuity of the 2005 movie. In all honesty, The Hitchhiker’s Guide series seems to work much better in a serialized format than as a feature film. We now have shows that look just like films, with the benefit of having a much more extensive runtime to develop better characters and plot points – something that the 2005 film would have benefitted from.
If the Hulu show ends up being a reboot, there’s also a chance that fans might get to see a sequel to the story of The Hitchhiker’s Guide for the first time in decades. After all, Douglas Adams wrote five books in the series – six if we count And Another Thing… which was partially written by Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer.
There’s a good deal of quality materials for the creators of the show to use. In terms of quirkiness and overall scope, Hulu’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide has the potential to become the next Doctor Who – so long as the streaming platform plays its cards right. Not only would fans be getting a reboot of one of the most beloved British sci-fi series, but they would also be getting a new look at familiar characters and locations revisited for a new era of quality streaming TV, and, this time, we might get to see just what that Restaurant at the End of the Universe was all about.
Tell us, do you want The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy 2 or a new TV series? Other cool sci-fi sequels we would love to see: Equilibrium 2, Chronicle 2, and Cloverfield 2.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy |
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Mere seconds before the Earth is to be demolished by an alien construction crew, journeyman Arthur Dent is swept off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher penning a new edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." |
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| Studio: Touchstone Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment |
| Running Time: 1h 49m |
| Release Date: 29 April 2005 |
| Cast: Martin Freeman, Yasiin Bey, Sam Rockwell, Zooey Deschanel, Warwick Davis, Stephen Fry, Kelly Macdonald, Thomas Lennon, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren |
| Director: Garth Jennings |
| Writers: Douglas Adams, Karey Kirkpatrick |
| Genre: Adventure, Sci-Fi, Comedy |
| Box Office: $104.5 million |
Esperando con esperanza y con más ganas.
I agree on the reboot. Crazy, crazy, crazy fan of all the Douglas Adam’s universe. I have the original radio shows, as well as the 1981 BBC show that is now playing on Hulu. Owned & played the Infocom game, as well the game written by Adams “Bureaucracy”. Loved the American Dirk Gently with Elijah Wood, as well the British Dirk Gently. The sad part about both iterations of Dirk, was that neither followed any of the books. There were 2 books, but the 3rd was being written at the time of Douglas’ passing (that book would also need finished somehow, I have Starship Titanic, by Terry Jones (which I haven’t read, thinking he was attempting to try to sound too much like Douglas Adams).
They could make aa entire season out of each book, and follow exactly. Let the world get full blown Douglas Adams. It finally needs it, the books are masterpieces!
yes yes yes yes yes yes!!!!!! did I say yes???!!! because YES!!!!! lets get at least 12, 1 hour episodes for each book… each season should follow exactly the books, or at least the BBC radio program….
that would be most impressive and well liked.
we would all be hoopy froods with our towels in hand watching the series!
Reboot. The film was terrible. Let’s have a new series that’s closer to the books and radio series, with a voice actor for Marvin sounding more like the late, great Stephen Moore than the late, great Alan Rickman.
With no news on the project for so long I have to assume that the project is dead. Even news related to reboot seemed questionable as the story of “shooting has begun in Toronto” changed to Los Angeles. I’ve been a fan since the I first saw the series as a kid and have had books, audiobooks, radio series recordings and even the movie although it really missed the mark for me. Trillian after all is the girl Arthur “completely failed to get off with” not a love interest. A return to a two headed Zaphod (he only had two faces in the movie, not the some visual) and a sad looking Marvin would be a plus to me. You can’t just follow the books or radio show, some jokes don’t really land anymore (digital watches) but you can be true to them and build on Adam’s universe.