Amazon was about to embark on a sequel to sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest but the death of star Alan Rickman caused the plans to fall apart, according to Sam Rockwell. Rockwell, who starred in the original Galaxy Quest alongside Rickman, Sigourney Weaver and Tim Allen, claims the cast were close to signing before the actor’s death earlier this year.

“They were going to do a sequel on Amazon,” he said in a Nerdist podcast. “We were ready to sign up, and [then] Alan Rickman passed away and Tim Allen wasn’t available – he has a show – and everybody’s schedule was all weird. It was going to shoot, like, right now. And how do you fill that void of Alan Rickman? That’s a hard void to fill.”

On its release in 1999, Galaxy Quest wasn’t a big hit, despite good reviews. The story of sci-fi TV actors who get accidentally involved in a real-life space adventure only made $90m worldwide. But its cult following would have made it attractive to Amazon.

When asked about the likeliness of a sequel in 2013, Rickman said: “They’d need a few zimmer frames”. His last on-screen performance was in acclaimed drone warfare thriller Eye in the Sky, out now in the US and released on 15 April in the UK. His voice will also be heard in the big-budget sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass, to be released in May. The 69-year-old actor died in January after suffering from pancreatic cancer.