During an interview withScreen Rant’s Joe Deckelmeier at San Diego Comic-Con 2025, the creators ofFor All Mankinddiscussed what fans can expect from the Star City spinoff and revealed whether a crossover could happen. The Apple TV+ showFor All Mankindhas been a major hit, leading to aconfirmed spinoff calledStar City.
While the original show focuses on the United States side of the space race,Star Citywill explore the story from the perspective of the Soviet Union.Screen Rantcaught up with Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert, and Ben Nedivi atComic-Con(the latter two in a separate interview from the former). They revealed interesting information about the inspiration for the show, sharing that they’reusing real-life information about the Star City cosmonaut training base as inspiration for the story. Fans will also be overjoyed to know that crossovers will happen with characters from the original show.
Here is what Ronald D. Moore had to say about the upcoming show:
ScreenRant: I want to talk about Star City because I am really excited for this show. Talk to me about where this show starts. Are we using the same type of format that we’re used to For All Mankind?
Ronald D. Moore: It’s a similar format. I won’t go into exactly how similar it is and where it varies, but it’s not exactly the same show. We’re definitely telling a version of the same story, but from the point of view of the Soviets and the cosmonauts in Star City, which is essentially their Houston and where their mission control was. And it’s a very different world because the Soviets operated on a totalitarian system. The KGB was very involved in the program. And all this is drawn from real history, so a lot of the tensions within their program had much more devastating consequences. You don’t want to get a bullet in the back of your head. [That’s] not really a problem in Houston, but it is kind of a problem in Star City.
ScreenRant: Will we see any characters cross over from For All Mankind to Star City?
Ronald D. Moore: Nothing definite, but possibly.
ScreenRant: I want to talk about Margo for a second because, spoiler alert, she defects. Are we going to be dealing with that at all once we get there in Star City?
Ronald D. Moore: Perhaps.
ScreenRant: What else can you tease about Star City that fans don’t know yet? Because it’s a big mystery to me too.
Ronald D. Moore: It’s a big mystery. I can tell you that a lot of it is–like we talked about with Mankind–actually drawn from plans and detailed operational ideas that the Russian program had but did not execute. Even in For All Mankind, their actual attempt to go to the moon was drawn from things they really did. They built that rocket. They built the lander. They built all this stuff–they just didn’t pull it off, but they had other plans to do other things that were not necessarily about the moon that also we’re going to be playing with in Star City.
ScreenRant: When you’re finding some of these things that you didn’t know from the cosmonaut perspective, does that surprise you, as a space nerd–some of these little gems that we’re going to be seeing in the show?
Ronald D. Moore: It does. I knew a lot about the American program, but, for instance, I didn’t even know they made a serious attempt to go to the moon until I started doing research on Mankind, because it’s just not a story that’s commonly told. And, for a long time, the archives were closed and they were very, very secretive about the program. So as we’ve dug more deeply into what they actually did and what their operations were like, it’s been fascinating.
They were really brave. They were courageous. They would get up in those spaceships where some of the bolt heads are sticking out. The technology is below NASA in a lot of ways, and they just took a lot of risks. They lost some dudes, too. They lost people in space that they didn’t publicize at the time, that we became aware of as the years went on. But they were really courageous and they really just made the best out of the technology they had, and they were willing to push the envelope in a way that is just kind of astonishing.
While Moore was more coy about the possibility of crossovers, Ben Nedivi confirmed that crossovers would definitely happen, and viewers might get to meet some of the ancestors of characters from the original show. However, he also emphasized thatthe shows would feel, look, and sound very different from one another, despite existing within the same story. Here’s what Nedivi said:
ScreenRant: Should we expect characters or a crossover event between For All Mankind and Star City or you guys treating that as a completely standalone separate timelines going on?
Ben Nedivi: No, there are actually crossovers and really interesting ones that I don’t want to necessarily reveal, but I do think fans of For All Mankind will really notice a lot of the similarities of our characters, or maybe even the ancestors of characters, in For All Mankind. But at the same time, Star City is a very different show. It looks different, it feels different, it sounds different. It’s very much the Soviet Union of the 1970s, so it’s got a totally different vibe. So I think what’s nice is people who watch FAM, or people who don’t, will really dive into it and see something that will surprise them. I think if they’re expecting For All Mankind, I think they’ll be surprised how different it is, but yet they’ll see those little Easter eggs throughout.
ScreenRant: Now, one of the things that we deal with in For All Mankind is the character Margot. If people don’t know, watch the show, but she defects, will we be seeing elements of that at all in Star City, from the Soviet perspective,?
Ben Nedivi: Unfortunately, no, because I love that storyline, but because we’re starting in 1970, we won’t be able to do that. But I think if you follow that closely, there are things in that storyline that you’ll track from Star City. So, I will say while we won’t see the Margot perspective yet, I think there are things in that story from season 4 of FAM that will be hinted at, kind of, in Star City. So that’s the kind of thing I was saying earlier. There are all these characters, or variations, and earlier versions of characters that you’ll see in Star City. You see them how they are in season 4, and maybe seeing how they started at a place. It’s so cool. So, it’s really more, in a certain way, a prequel to those characters, to that perspective.
Filming began for the show in February 2025, and Anna Maxwell Martin (A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder&Becoming Jane) is set to lead Star City opposite Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill&The Amazing Spider-Man). While Star City still doesn’t have a release date yet, it’s expected to premiere in 2026.
What The Statements About Star City Mean
Star City Will Be More Tense Than For All Mankind
WhenStar Citywas first announced, fans wondered whether Margot would appear in the show, given that she had defected from the Soviets. However, the interviews from San Diego Comic-Con squash that idea once and for all. It simply won’t work with the setting of the show. However, there could still be some connecting threads, setting up aspects of her story.
On top of confirming crossovers and clarifying Margot’s role, the creators' statements establish that there will be more darkness and tension in Star City, given the KGB’s involvement in the cosmonaut program. The characters will inherently have a different experience since their lives are on the line.
Our Take On For All Mankind’s Spinoff Show
The Sci-Fi Show Could Spark An Interest In The Cosmonauts
For All Mankindhas reimagined the Space Race in exciting wayswhile still managing to maintain a groundedness that comes from using real science and facts as the foundation. I’m thrilled to learn that they’re going to approachStar Cityin the same way, using actual documents and details as the basis of the story. What’s more, I’m hopeful that the spinoff show could spark an interest in viewers to go and learn about the real history of the cosmonauts.
