Direct to DVD? Oh dear.
Bab 5 has made a ridiculous sum of money in DVD (estimates as high as $500 mil), that's what convinced Warner to do some more stuff. But there were some conflicts about what to do, one of the big things is that Warner wanted a new cast of younger bigger names playing the original characters if they were going to fork over big budget money, JMS was adamant that what made the characters great was the actors and he wasn't going to replace them (and even more adamant about the actors that had died, as long as JMS has say there will never be a Ja'Kar played by anyone but Andreas). This killed any big movie project, but they found a happy middle ground in the direct to DVD idea (lower budget, therefore Warner was willing to get the old actors back). Who knows, if the direct to DVDs make any money Warner could be convinced to cough up the money for a real movie.