Galaxy Quest producer Mark Johnson
Production
Development
The original spec script by David Howard was titled Captain Starshine. Howard stated he got the idea while at an IMAX presentation, where one of the trailers for an upcoming "Americans in Space" film was narrated by Leonard Nimoy, a leading actor from Star Trek. The trailer got Howard thinking about how the other Star Trek actors had become pigeonholed in these roles since the cancellation of Star Trek, and he then came up with the idea of what if there were real aliens involved. From there, he considered that the rest of his script, "in a lot of ways, just wrote itself, because it just seemed so self-evident once the idea was there".Producer Mark Johnson, who had a first-look deal with DreamWorks, did not like Howard's script but was still fascinated with its concept of space aliens who misconstrue old episodes of a television series as reality. Johnson purchased the script and had Bob Gordon use the concept to create Galaxy Quest. A fan of Star Trek, Gordon was hesitant, believing Galaxy Quest "could be a great idea or it could be a terrible idea" and initially turned it down. Gordon, who did not read Captain Starshine until after the film was completed, started from the premise of washed-up actors from a sci-fi series involved with real extraterrestrials. Gordon's initial drafts added elements of humor to Howard's script, such as the Protector scraping the walls of the space dock when Laredo pilots the real ship for the first time. Gordon became more confident in his script when he completed the scene where Nesmith confesses to the Thermians, which he felt he nailed. He submitted his first draft to DreamWorks in 1998, and it was immediately green-lit.Mark Johnson wanted Dean Parisot to direct; Parisot had directed another film Johnson produced, Home Fries. However, DreamWorks favored Harold Ramis because of his prior experience and hired him in November 1998. Ramis wanted Alec Baldwin for the lead role, but Baldwin turned it down. Steve Martin and Kevin Kline were also considered, but Kline turned it down for family reasons. Ramis did not agree with the casting of Tim Allen as Jason Nesmith and left the project in February 1999. Parisot took over as director within three weeks. Allen said that the version of the film pitched to him by Ramis and Katzenberg felt more like Spaceballs, and that they wanted an action star to do comedy rather than a comedian to do an action film. Sigourney Weaver, who had previously worked with Ramis on Ghostbusters, said that he also wanted actors who had not appeared in science-fiction roles before, a choice she thought odd since veterans of the genre would know what was humorous. After seeing the film, Ramis said he was ultimately impressed with Allen's performance. Johnson named the main villain after film critic Andrew Sarris, while admitting he also considered 'Haskell' after Sarris's wife Molly Haskell. Once Sarris discovered, he mocked "This guy wants to insult me? Oh, boohoo. As long as they spelled my name right, I’m okay."
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