Patton Oswalt is hitting on all cylinders lately, starting as a hilarious stand-up comedian who also appeared in multiple movie and TV comedies. He then went on to voice the culinarily inclined rodent Remy the rat in Disney/Pixar’s Ratatouille before showing off his dramatic chops in the upcoming Big Fan. Now, it’s being reported that Oswalt will add the science fiction genre to his resume, as the actor has joined the cast of Syfy’s Battlestar Galactica prequel series, Caprica.

Though this will be a whole new genre for Oswalt, his character will still be more fitted to his roots. The actor will play Baxter Sarno, who is a humorous talk show host on the planet Caprica. At some point in the show, Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz) and Amanda Graystone (Paula Malcomson) will appear on Baxter Sarno’s show — likely to talk about their daughter and the remarkable breakthrough that Graystone has had. No word on exactly how extensive the role will be, but we do know that it will be more than just one episode, which means we’ll probably see Mr. Oswalt on a lot of TVs and billboards in the background.

UPDATE: This news is being confirmed by Entertainment Weekly, who also confirm that Singer will in fact be directing as well as producing.

HitFix has the exclusive scoop that Universal is reaching out to Bryan Singer to develop and produce a new feature film based on Battlestar Galactica. There’s also the chance that Singer could direct the new film, under the right circumstances.

If you’re not aware, Singer was actually the one developing Galactica for Sci Fi back in 2001, even having concept work completed on the project (Image at right is a Cylon concept, click to go big). Then the September 11 attacks occurred, and given the nature of the show — particularly how it begins — everything was delayed, and eventually everyone moved on to other things until Ronald D. Moore and David Eick were brought in for another go of it.

As you’ll recall, it was announced a while back that Universal was developing a new movie based on the original 1978 TV show, with original show creator Glen A. Larson writing and producing the film. It seems pretty obvious that they aren’t making two separate movies here, so this must be the project that they’re bringing Bryan Singer in for. Kind of like everything coming around full-circle — quite fitting, if it does all work out.

Let’s lead off with my asking forgiveness. I saw this a while ago and meant to write something immediately, but floated off to outer space for a while. It actually took two viewings of the interview to even pick up on it, but that’s just how things work, right?

While doing an interview recently with Attack of the Show, Edward James Olmos spoke about multiple things, including the United Nations meeting and his upcoming Battlestar Galactica directorial effort, The Plan. The science fiction god-among-men — best known as the no B.S. Admiral William Adama on BSG — ended up telling a heated story about the U.N. which every fan should see. When time was running out, he squeezed in a quick-speaking push for all to be sure to watch The Plan, which is a sort of prequel, revisiting some of the crucial situations from the BSG mythology and telling them from the perspective of the Cylons. In this quick reminder, Olmos stated:

Click over for more, including the full interview where Olmos tells the story of how he stuck it to one of the United Nations representatives.

Those that own the entire Battlestar Galactica library of DVDs will soon get their money’s worth, or at least another viewing, according to Edward James Olmos‘ statement during the Caprica/BSG: The Plan panel at the San Diego Comic-Con.

“After you watch the very last scene of The Plan, you’re going to have to rewatch the entire season,” said Olmos, who directed the film, which will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 27 with a November premiere on the SyFy Network to follow.

The movie’s story is told from the perspective of the show’s protagonist, the Cylons and their plan to exterminate the human race, which presented a challenge for the writing team, according to head writer Jane Espenson. She compared the script to a puzzle since the movie uses preexisting footage from all five seasons of the show.

Caprica, the prequel spin-off series of Battlestar Galactica, will have its share of “Easter eggs” and nods to BSG along the way but will ultimately stand on its own, according to creators Ronald D. Moore and David Eick at a San Diego Comic-Con panel.

Some of these “Easter eggs” would be using some of the same scenes found in Battlestar, such as the Opera House that appeared in President Rosalin’s visions of the final five Cylons.

“We’re not trying to give you Battlestar. I think it would be a shot of pain to do that,” Moore said, adding that the show would have its own roots.

“It is like Battlestar in the sense that the answers are never what you expect them to be… but there is more potential for mass appeal because this is Rome before the fall,” said Eick. “It’s much more like our modern world.”