Star Trek 2023 Cast Reportedly Surprised By Movie Announcement

Last week during the Paramount Investors Day Event, producer J.J. Abrams was brought in to announce Paramount was moving forward with a new Star Trek movie planned for release in 2023, which would unite the Kelvin crew from the previous three Star Trek feature films. The one caveat at the time was that the studio had not yet secured deals with the actors, and a new report indicates the announcement took those stars by surprise.

Surprise!

Paramount has made no secret that J.J. Abrams is at work on a “top secret” Star Trek film project, which was first announced last April when the studio set a 2023 release date. So last week it didn’t come as a huge surprise when Abrams appeared at the investor event with, “We are thrilled to say that we are hard at work on a new Star Trek film that will be shooting by the end of the year that will be featuring our original cast.”

But according to The Hollywood Reporter, the announcement about bringing back the Kelvin crew was a surprise to “most, if not all, teams for the franchise’s primary players.” Agents for the actors were not aware “their clients would be touted as a part of the deal, and certainly not that their clients would be shooting a movie by year’s end.”

Getting Chris Pine to come back as James T. Kirk is said to be the “lynchpin,” with the actor first to enter negotiations. Pine was a holdout the last time Paramount tried to reunite the crew for a different follow-up to Beyond that was set to start filming in early 2019; it was shelved after Pine (and Chris Hemsworth, who isn’t needed this time) balked when Paramount tried to renegotiate deals made before the release of Star Trek Beyond.

J.J. Abrams at a Star Trek Beyond fan event at Paramount Studios in May 2016

Admiral, this is an almost totally new Paramount

Also, according to THR, the script and budget have yet to be finalized for the 2023 film, so the film does not yet have an official green light—and of course, cast salaries are a big variable in that budget. While money is why the last attempt to follow up Beyond fell apart, the situation may be different this time. Paramount is in a better financial situation and has gone through an extensive reorganization, with new management throughout the studio, including new CEO Brian Robbins who said last October he “can’t wait” to get live-action Star Trek back on the big screen, adding it was “crucial to the health of the overall franchise.”

Paramount CEO Brian Robbins

As THR notes, by announcing the film to Wall Street investors, “Paramount let go of negotiating leverage.” The report also points out that the world has changed with the new focus on streaming spending, noting “what seemed expensive in 2018 is now, in a world where Netflix or Apple is making $30 million-plus talent deals, a norm.”

So six years after the last Star Trek movie, the next continues to be in flux. While there is clearly interest by all parties to see it happen, as always, it all comes down to the math. Can they find a budget that gets the cast they want, that still makes sense based on the projected earnings a Star Trek movie with that cast can make? In 2018 the answer was no. But with enough things changed, in 2022 that answer may be yes. One thing is for sure, they are running out of time to work all this out if they want to meet the planned filming start this fall.


Find more news and analysis on upcoming Star Trek feature films.

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So much for the “they couldn’t have made that announcement without the key talent lined up” hypothesis.

Paramount needs to be bold, but this is somewhat bizarre.

One also has to wonder why the Hawley project couldn’t be revived with new leadership, especially since Hawley seems open to it.

It really seems they are desperate for a tent pole feature.

Too bad, because Hawley’s film seems much more likely to have been something that I could get the family out for.

After seeing the movie Lucy in the Sky from Hawley, I have only these words to say, “Keep Hawley away from Star Trek”. That was possibly the absolute worst movie that I have ever seen and if his Trek script is anything like that movie, it is a certain failure.

Ah, that’s too bad. For a while I was hopeful for his Trek movie based on what I’d heard, but perhaps we dodged a bullet.

Still, I’m hard-pressed to imagine a fourteenth Star Trek movie out of all the proposals that have been floating around the last few years that I’d want less than another Kelvin timeline thing, or a Tarantino Star Trek.

The Hawley movie definitely could’ve been bad. But I still would’ve preferred to see what he would’ve done with it which sounded like a Star Trek story versus Tarantino. The more I hear his idea, the more I hate it. I just read a week ago that in his script, they weren’t actually going to the gangster planet like in Piece of the Action but actually time traveling to 1930s earth and getting involved with Chicago mobsters. Fun for an episode maybe, but sound like a disaster for a film. Just would’ve felt too niche and too far out of scope for a Star Trek story IMO.

Traveling to Earth past is a Star Trek tradition, but it sounded like he just wanted it to be a gangster story line more than anything.

There has to be a very good reason the tarantino film didnt happen, and the central premise of star trek vs gangsters (R rated) is probably the reason. ‘ It just dosnt sound that interesting for a trek movie. plus it never sounded like he was going to direct so it’d just been ‘Tarantino presents’ / ‘from an story idea by QT’ (like Cameron ‘returning’ to Terminator with Dark Fate)

I was never thrilled to have Tarantino’s name even mentioned in association with Star Trek. I am NOT a fan of him OR his films.

Crazy. It’s either write your own cheque for the cast or egg on the face time again.

You would think that they would have learned after they announced the Kirk and his dad movie without bothering to secure Pine and Hemsworth and it blew up in their faces.

LOL I know! It’s so crazy.

I wouldn’t say it “blew up in their faces.” From what I understood only Pine and Quinto were signed to do a 4th one and after that the studio wanted to redo Pine’s deal. Which he was, and rightly so IMHO, dead set against doing.

Well the movie didn’t get made, so I think that’s what they mean. It never got resolved, but ended up getting cancelled. Even other cast members thought they would work something out and of course they never did.

And now we are back for round two. ;)

We spoke about this the other day, I suggested that actors can’t always be entirely honest and then this article comes out! We can only hope that perhaps they’re at an advanced enough stage to feel confident with some of their bigger more expensive stars ie Pine and maybe Saldana because otherwise it just seems crazy to make the announcement. I know they’ve got plenty of previous form but it’s supposed to be different people making the decisions now!

I think with the Hawley script it sounded like they didn’t like the idea of the virus story line and taking a chance on new characters. I’m still most interested in his script out of all of them so far (but we don’t know what this new film is about yet).

But I agree with you, I think they just feel like they need some big IPs to show off the investors and why they are pushing so hard to get another Star Trek film going. It proves they want to make the movie, but the way they are going about it is a little crazy.

I just don’t understand it, if you got the writers and director on board last year, what stopped them from getting the cast to sign on sooner as well? I assume part of the reason was they were still debating on using them, but I can’t believe they just decided on that a week ago either.

I suggest you watch Hawley’s attempt at making a movie. You might just change your mind and feel as i do. Keep him AND Tarantino away from Trek.

Not sure why you would think Hawley’s film was the superior product when I am doubting no one here has read the script nor whatever script this potential Abrams film might have.

when I am doubting no one here has read the script

So… you think someone here HAS read the script?

From what was in THR, it’s not likely anyone has read a script yet.

I’d like to think they have determinded that Trek isn’t a tentpole franchise, and likely never will be. I’d like to think that, anyway….

No one wants a virus movie right now. It’s that simple.

Good lord, talk about bargaining power. All the original cast are going to demand more with Paramount’s butt on the line with investors. Seems like a recipe for failure. Bizarre indeed!

Sounds like a repeat of what happened to the original 4th Pine/Hemsworth Star Trek. Paramount putting the cart before the horse again.

Yeah, it’s feckless, because it is likely to lead to disappointment for a lot of fans and also misleads investors.

No, because that would have required two A-lister level lead character very large salaries, not one.

Huge overall film budget difference.

I don’t know… For all we know this could just be public posturing. The article also didn’t mention whose agents said they were taken by surprise. Part of me is thinking it could Pine’s or Cho’s. Ones whose payday would be lower than other names and it’s a game to squeeze more pay for their client.

The problem is that I can’t imagine what purpose the public posturing served. The cast would be eager to report they’ve inked deals, and I don’t see why Paramount would stop them since they already announced the movie.

I’m just spitballing. If they say they were taken by surprise (even if they weren’t) one could try to use that to squeeze more out of the deal.

And a correction for above… I meant Pegg’s agent. Not Pine’s. He’s already likely to get top pay for this gig.

Thanks for the clarification. I had wondered what you meant by Pine. Maybe Paramount paid them to say that to create another headline lol

I might offend someone but I do not think that Pine’s star status is shining quite as brightly as before so maybe he shouldn’t(get more money or better deal). Urban, Cho, Pegg and even Quinto have had equal if not more exposure than Pine.

Yea, I think that’s exactly what is going on. THR is a gossip rag, so they love to do this.

I read somewhere that they were already in negotiations with Pine. It was the other main cast characters that had not been approached and were surprised.

lol

not in the least is this surprising

…. And they were worried about those SNW posts on social media?

Snw Posts?

About a year ago, when it looked pretty bleak for another Star Trek movie, Paramount should have met quietly with the various cast members, signing each of them up to some nominal deal, based on it being a long shot of anything ever happening.
Then, BAM, announce the movie now.
But, nah, that makes too much sense.

Also a Trek fan since ’66. Totally agree with you. Guess it makes too much sense to actually hire the actors before you announce their participation in a movie.

There’s a serious history of not dotting the i and crossing the t with Paramount and Trek features going all the way back to Gulf&Western at the start. They signed the whole cast (sans Nimoy) for a new TV series but didn’t have the scripts all ready. Even though the cameras were supposedly set to roll, they apparently had no intention of committing and cancelled it, since months earlier the top echelon had decided it would be a feature film based on the pilot script instead, but let construction go on anyway, without even giving the art department a budget (hence a bridge set that, at that time, was fully wired to work. By unit production mgr Phil Rawlins’ estimate, 5 mil of TMP’s budget was spent on TREK before any work was done on the actual feature film, so that was money that would have been tagged onto the feature’s 15m budget even if it had been done on schedule.)

Then after switching to movie status quietly again, they move to replace the director in secret, then work to get Nimoy aboard (even though the script doesn’t have Spock in it or anything like a decent act 3) and hold a press conference announcing the film for 1979 (summer 79, was I think the initial report, even though the deal wound up bumping to December, and was still near-impossible to meet.) Then they spent the rest of 1978 trying to fix the script while shooting the thing, and all of 1979 trying to fix all the artistic and technical snafus their pisspoorplannng caused.

Then, when the mess is over and trekkies plus general public make the film a hit despite going triple budget (at least), they seem to throw the people most responsible for saving their corporate asses from class-action lawsuits under the bus, letting Wise take the blame for the film and not even considering Trumbull’s way-under-ILM budget bid to do the VFX on KHAN (which works out for me because his company does BLADE RUNNER instead, and I can’t think of any company back then that could have come close to pulling off BLADE RUNNER like they did.)

So it seems there is something in the water at corporations that own and operate TREK, because the corporate planning / mismanagement isn’t just genetically in any one group’s blood, it seems to be more intrinsic to the whole enterprise. Because you can cough up stories about TNG and TFF and countless other horrorshows and see how the errors of history never get learned, just repeated. And yet, even though it only reflects the errors of previous echelons of management, they still try to spin-control the history of the franchise (look at how in the 21st century they withheld image permissions from RETURN TO TOMORROW because the writer wouldn’t accede to demands to cut the less-laudatory passages about TMP, and how they did the same for at least some other articles much less critical of that era.)

b/c $tar war$
bcc: greed

Yep. His post though reminds me of the type of people that would prefer John Voight’s Jim Phelps over Peter Grave’s Jim Phelps.

not to mention all the bts drama with Trek VI

Wow, nice to see you back Kmart! I wondered what happened to you?

It wouldn’t surprise me if they announced the movie in a ploy to get the cast to sign on with salaries the studio offered; “we’ve announced it now, think how disappointed your fans will be if you back out now”.

That already happened the last time lol. They announced the fourth film with Hemsworth before Beyond even came out. They lined up a director and writers for it…and it still blew up in their face.

Making announcements means nothing. Movies are announced and later cancelled all the time. That literally happened with the first two Spider-Man properties; first with Tobey Maguire and then Andrew Garfield. They just kept moving on to the next new guy. What’s so weird about this though is after they already went through this in 2018 with the same cast, they are putting themselves in the same situation all over again.

And I don’t understand why would you announce to start shooting a film by the end of the year when you haven’t even talked to them if they CAN shoot by then? They are not under contract anymore and probably have other commitments too. Seem like you would make sure they can even do it first before anything.

You’re joking, right? None of this cast is hurting for work, and at the end of the day, this os still a business. If it were that easy to blackmail talent every studio would be pulling that nonsense….and no one, anywhere, would work for them with that kind of reputation.

Zoe Saldana has two massive series to work in other than Trek. I’m guessing that this maneuver would do nothing but alienate her. Ditto Pine and maybe Quinto. All of them have other things to do besides be jerked around by Paramount’s incompetence.

So to see if I got this straight: the script isn’t finished, they have not green lit the movie, no official and the biggest surprise of all, they didn’t even tell the cast they want to do the film with they wanted to do another film with them…before announcing it to the world?

Sadly, that sounds about right! ;)

It’s not surprising on one hand knowing what we have known for the past few years now, but I think most assumed if they have gone this far to announce a movie like this, then at the very least they have gotten some assurance that the cast was ready to sign on and it was basically just a formality.

The craziest thing is that they admit getting Pine onboard is the biggest issue but you would think after LAST time they would have called the guy up and ask for a meeting to see if they can work something out first before announcing anything.

I don’t understand how Hollywood works. This movie has been developing since last Spring. They had months to call these people. As I been theorizing for awhile, they probably just wasn’t sure they were going to use this cast again and based on what we just learned, that seems a bit obvious. But why not talk to them once you did know? And I wonder how far along is that script now?

It can all work out, but its funny they are still this far behind.

What was implied in the (THR) story was that to meet the 12/23 release, principle photography would be wrapping up around the end of the year. So, what the suprised talent, and their reps are also hearing, is that Paramount is expecting them to drop what they are doing now for four months of filming the end of this year. This has scheduling clusterf**k written all over it. Then again, look back at the preproduction of STID. All you ever heard out of the BR mouth pieces was everything was proceeding great. They even got indignant when it was pointed it it wasn’t. Then they moved the release date. So there’s some history here of too much happy talk, and not enough movie making going on.

Yeah that’s an even bigger head scratcher that I don’t think anyone understands. EVEN if they feel they can get them to all sign on, why in the world would you just assume they can all just be available to shoot the movie at the time the studio wants? It’s so bizarre, they have announced both an opening date and now a shooting date which is this year but NO ONE has talked to the actors about it. What????

If you are to believe the idea that the Section 31 show has been delayed over Michelle Yeoh’s schedule (I don’t), imagine how difficult it can be to line up 5-6 actors schedule if you haven’t even sat them down and discussed it with them yet if they too have other stuff going on. When they were under contract that was one thing, those movies were the priority. Now many have new priorities.

And obviously it can all work out. Maybe they will all want to do it and whoever schedule they have to work around, they will find a way. But it’s bonkers they put themselves in this position to begin with when they could’ve at least been talking to them about it, even just informally. It just tells you everything why 5 years on there is still no movie.

I think Quinto and Pegg also have their own production companies. As a business, do you risk getting sued for breach of contract if you suddenly dissapear for a few months to go make a movie? Probably not. Recall back to the Frakes interview, where he hinted that his people were blocking out time in the future for additional directing projects – I suspect Quinto and Pegg are likely booked out a ways as well.

Something isn’t right here…

So to see if I got this straight: the script isn’t finished, they have not green lit the movie, no official and the biggest surprise of all, they didn’t even tell the cast they want to do the film with they wanted to do another film with them…before announcing it to the world?

Sadly, that sounds about right! ;)

It’s not surprising on one hand knowing what we have known for the past few years now, but I think most assumed if they have gone this far to announce a movie like this, then at the very least they have gotten some assurance that the cast was ready to sign on and it was basically just a formality.

The craziest thing is that they admit getting Pine onboard is the biggest issue but you would think after LAST time they would have called the guy up and ask for a meeting to see if they can work something out first before announcing anything.

I don’t understand how Hollywood works. This movie has been developing since last Spring. They had months to call these people. As I been theorizing for awhile, they probably just wasn’t sure they were going to use this cast again and based on what we learned in the past week, that seems a bit obvious. But why not talk to them once you did know? And the script is probably still far from final.

It can all work out, but its funny they are still this far behind.

i really hope the cast go for a back end deal instead of up front fees.
will scale down the budget but keep production values high.

The only way that scales the budget is if everyone agrees to the minimum up front (they won’t), and the film tanks (it shouldn’t). That’s just a horrbile situation from beginning to end.

And again, what’s crazy is they still don’t have a budget. But I guess that’s because they don’t have a finished script yet or what they will negotiate with the actors. It’s pretty insane when you think about it, especially when everyone seems to know this movie has to at least cost less than what Beyond did. I would think a whole lot less personally.

But they can’t afford those above the line costs anymore.
These films just don’t do well enough internationally to justify it

Which is literally why people thought they weren’t going to make another Kelvin movie and just start fresh with a lower budget cast and production. But yet here we are.

Well, considering the ham-fisted announcement without agreements in place, we’ll soon find out just HOW keen the entire cast are to sign on for this again, despite their agents being given a stronger bargaining hand now. ;)

Specifically, how keen are they to be told to drop what they are doing now, and make this movie. At a discount.

The one positive is that every actor has said at one point they want to make another one. My guess one of the reasons because they get paid a lot of money to do it lol. But they do seem to really like making the movies and sound like they had a good time on all of them, even when the behind the scenes stuff had it’s problems.

But yeah they have given them a crazy bargaining chip. They announced a movie they have made more than clear is happening. I am guessing though most of the actors will do it if its a fair deal, like most employees. They know they are getting a shot to do another film most sound like they have moved on from until just last week. And if they want at least the possibility of doing future films, it can’t be another Beyond. And lets be honest, for most of the actors, this will probably be their biggest pay even if its a lowered one. And only Peg, Pine and obviously Saldana are film stars at this point. They are all successful, but only a few makes top money from other movies outside of Star Trek.

So I think if others DO want to make the film, they will not try to hold them up for questionable amount of money. And as we all know that’s not what Pine did either, he just wanted what they promised him (OK, he did sort of do that with Beyond though ;)).

But yes, we’ll know exactly how much they want to do it given the odd situation they been put in.

No one seems to care about the other engagements these actors have as well. Shouldn’t that be one of the first considerations for Paramount before announcing anything? They probably think that they can get all of them together at some point in time despite most of them being generally busy with other things. It has kind of become a trademark at this point for Paramount to announce the egg is hatched before actually getting the chicken first.

Some of this cast is just going to take a pass on this. These guys are busy, and in demand. Just telling them to drop other commitments isn’t going to fly.

Yup, exactly my point. It’s not like they were just waiting with their hands in their pockets to get a call from Paramount for Trek.

Its already going to be the biggest gap between films in the history of trek (unlike Bond/No Time to Die that fell short of the LtK-Goldeneye gap) it’d be crazy if they have to put it back again bc no one bothered to sign the actors up lol. at this rate by the time they get started the Deepfake tech will be affordable and good enough to do the film with the real original cast!

I suspect the estates of the dead TOS cast memebrs would likely have something to say about their likenesses being used without adequate compensation.

Obviously the estates would be paid, as no doubt happened with Rogue 1, etc

Lol. This film is never going to happen.

Of course it isn’t. That’s been obvious for years.

Said it once, twice and thrice, but I will say it one more time. I will believe it(a new Trek movie) when I am sitting in the movie theater watching the post movie credits scrolling down the screen, Fans have been jerked around enough.

This is embarrassing for Paramount. With this type of “leadership” is it any wonder they can’t get this project off the ground? Paramount has dropped the ball on the film franchise with nearly everything after ST 09.

Some of us think they dropped the ball with the 2009 ‘re-imagining’ too. ;)

Yep.

If they DO think fan pressure will get the cast to sign for subpar amounts or a bad script, I will say as a fan: I am happy to watch them in other projects. I hope this film happens, I will be willing to give it a fair shake (I know I know, I’m so edgy like that) but geeze…what even is this???

Heck, there are more than a couple fans who don’t want another Kelvin timeline movie and who would be happier if this movie doesn’t happen.

I certainly wouldn’t want the cast to settle for less than they think they’re worth.

Well that’s a curious turn. I still think this, unlike all the other stories the last few years, is likely to happen. And I still think Pine and Saldana will be the toughest, or most expensive, to bring back. But my gut suggests it very well could happen. It’s why I’m commenting on this article and not all the other ones that have popped up about Trek 4.

If Pine still won’t do it then replace him. Kirk is the star of the movie, not Pine. Or make the movie with only a selection of the crew. Chekov won’t be there either.

It would be a more unique plot to have Spock, Sulu or Scotty as acting captain for the whole movie. The story could focus on something medical related making McCoy the lead. Urban was the highlight of the other movies and widely praised. Having friction between McCoy and acting captain Spock would also work.

A (tos) star trek movie without kirk be like a superman film without superman

This “almost totally new Paramount” seems just as dysfunctional as the Old Paramount.

What do you expect when Eric from “Head of the Class” is in charge? lol

Pretty much!

It’s been obvious for awhile they didn’t really know what they wanted to do with the next film and probably just throwing things at the wall. They now have a clearer direction, but the path still sound pretty murky which at this stage really shouldn’t be.

Well that’s stupid then … even if you use the anouncement to intice investors, you usually lock down your star first. That being said. I actually wouldnt mind a Kelvin Trek Movie without Quinto and Pine. They’re great in their roles but so are the rest of the cast. And with Eve and Boutella they’d have two crewmembers to replace them.

They’re always talking about taking risks and doing something new.

You think Alice Eve can play Captain Kirk?

That might be a little too innovative 😅 —so no. As I’ve written: they would of course play the crew members they’ve played in Into Darkness/Beyond.

Both Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are under contract for a fourth film. Karl Urban is not. I do not know about Zoe Saldana and John Cho. However, Paramount does not want to pay Pine what he would get under the contract. They can either renegotiate it or pay it.

It is odd to announce a new movie without having the contracts (both updated and new) in place. Perhaps Paramount decided to announce the feature as a way to show the actors they were serious about it this time. Or maybe they thought all the actors were under contract and had to make the movie no matter what.

Karl Urban also seems to be the busiest of the cast out there with his role in Boys so if they negotiate with him they need to keep that in mind too.

He really enjoys his role in The Boys. I worked with Karl at a couple of conventions, so we had a lot of time to talk. He was the one who told me about Pine and Quinto. As well as his situation. He was only contracted for 2 movies and almost did not come back for Star Trek Beyond. But the script was good enough for him to sign on.

They do want to do another movie. But there are a lot of moving parts. And they all seem to be busy. This is very different than the casts from the other movies (TOS and TNG).

I am not sure why they would try another movie. Star Trek is best on TV.

I am not sure why they would try another movie.

Because even a incompetently managed and astonishingly poorly marketed movie like Beyond made $343 million worldwide. If they can keep the costs down and realize they don’t need to try and out-Star Wars Star Wars or out-Marvel Marvel, then that is money they’re leaving on the table.

But is the “New Paramount” competent enough not to mismanage Star Trek 14? I doubt it.

What I wrote was “I am not sure why they would try another movie. Star Trek is best on TV.” What I meant is that Star Trek is better as a TV show than as a movie franchise. Movies have to have big villains and big action scenes. But the best Trek is not villains and action.

As for Beyond, it is likely that a worldwide gross of $343 million was not enough to make it a success. Theaters keep roughly 40% to 50% of the ticket sales. So the studio only got around $200 million of the gross. This just barely covers production costs. When you factor in marketing and distribution, it was a loss.

Having said that, of course there are additional revenue sources including streaming, Blu-ray, etc. It is possible the studio ended up with a modest profit from Beyond. But is it enough to risk another production? Neither of know that answer.

Finally, as to keeping costs down. Sure. Maybe they can do that. But with a couple of higher priced actors plus the expectation of the highest quality effects, that may be more difficult than you might expect.

Finally (yeah, I know I already said that already), it is possible the market could be too saturated with Star Trek. Then again, I think the market has too much Marvel, but they seem to be doing well.

If nothing else, they have to get Karl Urban back! For me, the three most important characters are Kirk, Spock and McCoy for obvious reasons. But McCoy is one of the best things about these movies. And you can tell Urban loves being part of Star Trek.

But its obvious why they want to do another movie, $$$$. Yeah TV show can bring in tons of money. I read TNG brought in a hundred million a year for Paramount from advertising alone. Now, its very different metrics today and based on subscribers more than commercials. But the films can bring in tons more when they are a hit at least. But the Kelvin movies have never been very big, not when compared to other franchises.

So I think there is another reason why and it’s mostly due to Paramount+. End of the day, the movie will be in theaters for about 6 weeks (with the new 45 day window deal Paramount made with theaters) but will sit on Paramount+ for next 10 years after that. They definitely want a movie in theaters, but P+ seems to be just as much of a priority for it even happening.

Studios see their streaming service becoming the priority because they have more control with those and movies are a huge draw to those sites. It was just reported people at Pixar are angry at Disney because one of their new movies next month is going straight to Disney+ instead of theaters as planned. Even The Batman will be on HBO Max in April, also six weeks after being in theaters. The CEO guaranteed that. It was also the same company that released all their films on Max the same day as theaters last year, so this isn’t a shock of course.

It just tells you where the trend is heading. Movie theaters will never disappear but they are not as vital for films like they used to be UNLESS you have a huge film on their hands they know the entire world will watch in the theater like a Marvel or Star Wars movie (and SW is not the guarantee like it used to be). Star Trek has never been one of those films unfortunately. So, I imagine a big reason a Star Trek film is even happening is due to Paramount+ more than anything listening to how much money they are now pumping into that service.

Wow. So JJ’s announcement was just fake news.

I’m not going to believe any future announcements about a 4th JJ Trek movie. This whole thing has become The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Remember Garak’s take on that parable? “Never tell the same lie twice.”
They’ve told this one about four times now.

I’m really beginning to wonder if this was a way for Paramount to publicly push JJ Abrams to fall upon his sword after they weren’t able to extract themselves from the multi year, multi feature film deal that was made with him and Bad Robot.

After all, if I recall correctly the deal is in its final year. If production doesn’t commence it 2022, Paramount would be free of Abrams.

Or, I could be completely fuzzed on the details.

Honestly, I wish they would just make up their mind what Star Trek is and go forward for a few years with it. They got this, the animated thing, Discovery, Picard and soon Strange New Worlds. These are like a whole bunch of different shaped pegs they’re expecting us to just accept all fit in the same Star Trek shaped hole. All I’m seeing is a bunch of suits scrambling for a piece of a pie that stopped being a real pie 25 years ago.

The Kelvin cast will all return!! Your talking a few million more budget difference wise & Paramount have their own streaming service to feed now (why they announced last week to Wall Street investors to get some funding in!).

Never Going To Happen

Star Trek No Voyage Home

Hahahaah nice

It really pains me to say this, but it seems that if there is to be a credible, believable path forward for Star Trek films that does not keep fans waiting years for the promised end-product… perhaps Alex Kurtzman needs to be put in charge of Star Trek Film productions AND Star Trek TV productions.

Kurtzman delivers his productions on-time and without a lot of behind the scenes drama that upsets his casts.
He has a vision.
He can combine the film and TV universes, casts, and narratives.
He is already doing TV production value that rivals film.
He knows how to maximize budgets to produce *great* shows.
He already has the sets, digital assets, location scouting, etc., that he could reuse for film (saving money).
He has a cadre of directors that he is working with that can stitch a movie together nicely (Frakes’ skills have improved rather nicely).
He has writers (Prodigy writers room and Lower Decks writers room) that can create tight, bullet-proof, canon-honoring scripts. And those same writers know how to craft a narrative that expands and grows the brand, pleasing many older Trek fans and new, younger Trek fans.
He already knows expertly how to navigate the P+ powers that be so that he can cut through the BS to get his job done.
He seems to have the trust and confidence of P+, casts, crews, writers, producers, investors…

Kurtz an was responsible for Discovery, right?
Well, then the trouble with your suggestion is that he knows how to make sausages (on time), but the sausages stink and have no flavour.

I think the real issue with the films is they just don’t have an overseer the way the shows do, at least not anymore. People ASSUMED that JJ Abrams was going to be the guy who was ‘in charge’ of the movies, but that was never realistic. This guy has a hundred other projects on his plate, Star Trek is just another project for him, not THE project. Hence why it took four years between 09 and STID.

It was different with the TOS and TNG films. Harve Bennet basically ran the TOS movies, made it his priority because they were for Paramount as well. Rick Berman took over with the TNG films because he was obviously in charge of TNG and was running the other shows, so he basically just got promoted to making the films as well.

But the Kelvin movies was the first time there wasn’t a more permanent overseer. Pretty much everyone who worked on 09 and STID (including Kurtzman himself) had moved on by Beyond except Bob Orci…and we know what happened with him. Abrams has produced all the Kelvin movies, but his involvement with Beyond sounded like very little beyond recommending Lin to direct. He’s involved as much as he needs to be but the movies really do need someone who is there just like they have for the shows.

That could be Kurtzman but remember even he has other projects outside of Star Trek too. He’s the overseer of the shows but he’s producing other non-Trek shows for CBS too. It would be nice if whoever is making these films or movies, they focus solely on that IF they plan to keep making them in a steady fashion.

But I imagine if one of his shows like Discovery or Prodigy was made into a film, he would be directly involved.

He’s making tons of money running Bad Robot and being a producer and not directing. Its a sweet deal, i mean look at the insane money WB paid him to work for DC comics film and streaming television properties. He gets to play general and hire other directors to go down into the trenches and suffer the slings and arrows if their film fails like Zack Snyder. Honestly it sounds like an awesome job if not a very creative one.

Well, technically Discovery and Picard had very rough first seasons behind the scenes and there was a lot of drama before Michelle Paradise on Disco season 2. Part of this was down to CBS having very strict deadlines, but still!

Article makes it seem like a bigger deal than it probably really is. I’m still pretty confident things are back on track. Maybe the release date is sketchy, but we’re probably getting this movie soon.

But yeah, it’s probably best to have a sense of humor about this process or you’re going to drive yourself nuts.

Deep Roy is waiting for the call….

No Cast, No script. But they have a director. This is pure comedy. This is even more absurd than when Star Trek 3 had a director and a greenlight and was cancelled in favor of Beyond. That film by Bob Orci had even locked down shooting dates and locations, the composer and cinematographer and it did have several drafts of a script. Unless i’m way off the mark only Bob would know. I’m just talking about what was reported.

If only theyd stuck with Orci’s ST3 over Beyond 😔

Paramount certainly would have badly mangled that one’s promotion, too (i.e., not given it any, and then whined about why it wasn’t a hit.) Besides, do we have any idea what Mr. Orci’s story actually was?

Probably a remake of “The Doomsday Machine” or something.

The plotline for Orcis ST3 has been discussed by Bob Orci on TM and twitter etc, Basically a device to either travel to or restore the prime timeline is created or discovered, there’s an alien villain (possibly to be played by Bryan Cranston) who wants to use it to restore the timeline, kirk & spock face the dilema of what to do (potentially save kirks father, spocks mother/planet or let the kelvin TL continue) and in amongst this Shatners Kirk somehow plays a part/helps them (via some CG deaging probably Generations era), also Alice Eve was back as Carol. and it wasnt called Beyond (a working title listed on imdb is Star Trek Into Oblivion but its unknown if this was a legit thing)

….and then the ‘suits’ decided that this particular ‘Star Trek’ storyline was TOO ‘Star Trek’-y, so we got yet another ‘revenge’ plot, damn ’em.

That’s hilarious, considering Orci delivered us two revenge plots himself in the first two movies. So I am suppose to believe that he suddenly became this classic Star Trek genius after STID who would have got the third movie right? LOL, pleassseee!

@ One Lion – I’m previously on the record in slating Orci’s ‘revenge’ plots and other poor choices in the first two ‘Kelvin Timeline’ movies, so I certainly don’t consider him a ‘classic Star Trek genius’….but as the third movie ended up with more of the same, I’d have much preferred his proposed storyline at the time.

You mean the guy who brought us the STID script that brought some of his real-life paranoid conspiracy theory nonsense to the big screen? Not to mention that he’s burned a lot of bridges such that it sure looks like he can’t get a big project anymore?

I’ll pass on that, thank you.

Well some of us consider STID a great Trek movie and was an exilirating ride in the theatre, not the worst trek film ever like a few angry fans promote it as. And his ST3 sounded very intriguing/tied into the first film much more so than we got with Beyond which felt like a live action Gold Key tale ,

The cast is surprised because the announcement was merely another Paramount marketing tactic to excite potential investors. It would not surprise me if this movie does not happen because the actors want more money than what Paramount is willing to agree to. The movie will likely be delayed or scrapped and replaced with a script that either does not involve the previous Kelvin cast or only has a few key cast members like say only Pine, Quinto, and Urban, and new actors/characters to pass on the torch for a new crew and ship for future less expensive films. Don’t get me wrong, I will still watch the next movie (Kelvin timeline or not), but to be honest the Kelvin timeline does not excite me much as nearly the cast of the original series does or the cast of TNG, DS9, and Voyager. With all of the fan nostalgia I think a DS9 or Voyager type crossover film would be very popular and more financially lucrative because the DS9, Voyager, and TNG actors would likely cost Paramount far less than the Kelvin timeline cast. Either way, I will still watch the next Star Trek movie.

Ds9, Voy, Ent don’t have the same attraction for mainstream audiences as the OS era

But I don’t really think the films has proven mainstream audiences care for the TOS era that much either. Yes, maybe more than the others, but still not at a level they can be turned into big mainstream films either. The first two Kelvin movies did OK given their budgets, but they also got people in because they basically looked as much like Star Wars movies as they did Star Trek ones. That’s the problem for a lot of fans, they were TOS films but more in name only. Bringing back Kirk and Spock is what got fans excited, but for non-fans, it was more just being a huge block buster movie with tons of explosions, cool FX and hot looking actors that got them in. And most of them stopped caring about that by the time Beyond showed up.

It’s just more proof as much as we like and want more movies, they just don’t generate enough outside fandom to make them a big enough success for the studio. Star Trek just does better on TV for a reason, because that’s where its base is at. The films has always just been more of an extra serving but never a main course. Yes we have 13 of them, but 9 of them only got made because they were low budget enough and targeted to the base. And frankly probably what they need to do again if they want to make the films long term. They can’t survive with the budgets the Kelvin movies had. I’m still a little surprised they decided on making another Kelvin movie given everything.

It seems Paramount had to pull stuff out of thin air to try and please its investors. I also read the reports of Paramount stock plummeting after the rebrand was announced. The investors didn’t seem convinced with what was presented.

The Kelvin cast should hold out for bigger paycheck now.

Is *anyone* breathlessly awaiting another JJ-verse movie? With the current cast? Yawn. What is needed is a film which aspires to something beyond the level of mediocrity of the past three films and a cast with some energy and charisma. Not just Karl Urban.

Paramount have royally screwed themselves over this. Not to mention it’ll take a lot of convincing to get me to go see it because I’m over the Abrams experience and was hoping for something new.

LOL

I was hoping for something new too. I do like these movies but it’s still so confusing why they are trying so hard for movies that never made a lot of money and then the last one flopped…over 5 years ago now.

And you have a fanbase that seems more apathetic to them if not downright hateful of them.

I still think it will get made in the end, but it’s a lot of back and fourth for a film that will probably make around $400 million when it’s all said and done. That’s peanuts when compared to the big boys. People are just not overly excited about these films anymore. I was saying that even before Beyond came out.

Are the Big Boys Marvel and animated films only then? Because besides those, no movie has topped $400 million since 2018. If it makes $400 million, it’s then in the same class as Dune, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, The Joker, Star Wars ROS. Those a pretty respectable-sized boys in my book.

Lol I’m talking $400 million TOTAL, not just domestic! If a Kelvin movie could make that just in America Paramount wouldn’t know what to do with themselves.

I say $400 million because that’s the average all three Kelvin films have made so far which is sad for the amount of money they spent on them. Two of the films made less than that. Beyond was far less.

Those others you mentioned are mostly billion dollar franchises, but YET mostly cost around what the Kelvin movies cost.

Best example you put up there: Fallen Kingdom. That movie made $1.3 billion. It literally made more than all three Kelvin movies combined easily. You know how much it cost to make? $170 million or $15 million less than what Beyond cost to make. You see my point now?

And why it’s shocking they are still trying to make a fourth one with the same cast. And five years on at that.

It cost them more to rush the production of Beyond to make the anniversary and still they brought it in at 5 million less than Into Darkness because it wasn’t shot in LA. But that savings doesn’t matter when it had to earn 370 million to double its production budget and it earned 343 million. In other words the film had to be budgeted more towards the 150 million dollar range. not the 185 million it cost.

Thanks for clarifying on Global. Fair enough. However, post COVID, if they can crack $500 mil Global and keep the budget below $200 mil, that would be a success, especially when the post-theatrical profit lines for streaming/etc are added in.

We’ll see.

The irony of jumping the gun to announce a new JJ film before they’d secured the cast was that it would psych people up on Investor’s Day.

The stock plunged 20% after the presentation.

The Wall Street reports point to the rebranding and high costs of their streaming content as the reasons investors fled on the 15th, not the content headlines. And it certainly had no relation to whether they jumped the gun on the Star Trek movie announcement versus the actors knowing about it.

Clearly the content headlines did not assuage investor skepticism as they were designed to do. So obviously the expense of the negotiating leverage they lost by announcing this film before securing the cast would seem to have been for nothing.

If you believe that. I think that is primarily agent posturing/manipulating the news. THR is notorious for publishing gossip, professional journalism be damned.

If this shows up in Variety or the LA Times (as an original story with their own sources), then I’ll take it seriously.

I think this is all a non-story.

The whole “green light” thing is silly. When in recent Trek films have we actually gotten a “greenlight” press release? Trek 2009 was the last time. Paramount is not big on doing those.

I think this is all agent posturing — some of the actors agents are pretending it’s a surprise, and THR gossip rag bought into it, hook, line and sinker. LOL

This movie is getting made, period.

I agree. The drama is a bit overblown here. I think the release date in movable, which isn’t uncommon these day, but otherwise this is going to happen.

I advise everyone to have their sense of humor handy as we go through this process.

I think I lost “my sense of humor” multiple cancellations and false rumors and information ago. At this point I have little faith in anything announced by Paramount(the film side). They do not seem to be able to get their act(no pun intended) together.

It’s a movie, not your marriage, folks. It’s not meant to fill every void you feel inside. In the meantime, I am still not Paramount’s complaint department.

Exactly!

First of all I am a widow so I have no marriage axe to grind and I do agree with you that it is just a movie which is also why I do not understand fans being so passionately against the Kelvin movies not being Trek. I did and still do like the Kelvin movies for what they are–fictional entertaining movies. I really could care less if they meet “canon” status if they are good. As an original fan(Since first episode in 1996) I have seen all the various offerings of Star Trek. Some I liked and some I didn’t but I was grateful for ALL of Trek. I personally do not care for any of the new Trek streaming now but I certainly do not trash it as fans have trashed the Kelvin movies and in particular Abrams. I simply choose not to watch it. I was simply commenting on MY lack of trust in Paramount which is due to their misinformation, cancellations, etc. How many times have fans had their hopes raised only to find out that Paramount had once again either cancelled or changed their mind.

New Paramount tagline: We’re not as inept as the last team… we’re actually worse

Well although his pitch was unsuccessful, even Quentin Tarantino recognised the recast Kirk, Spock etc as the gang he’d continue with on the big screen.

Paramount will undoubtedly want the name recognition, but avoid yet another round of TOS replacements, especially since the TV/streaming universe is already partway through doing so.

Personally I would write a scenario where the Kelvin timeline is shown in a worsening state due to the destruction of Vulcan. And this is likened to the disastrous alternate reality seen in a Next Generation episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise”. War with the Romulans over resettled Vulcans. A series of deteriorating events, all fallen out from Nero’s actions in the 2009 film.

By the closing moments of the fourth film, the damage is undone and we’re back to a single Star Trek Universe again, set somewhere in the massive gap between The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan… still Pine, Quinto et all running around but in monster maroons aboard the original movie-refit look Enterprise.

That sounds like a cool premise, like Star Trek Days of Future Past , the Naradas interference having long reaching implications that result in eventual universal armaggedon. and the last hope being the Enterprise going back in time to repair the damage Nero caused.

That wouldn’t work because Star trek 2009 wasn’t a standard time travel movie. Otherwise Spock could have just slingshot around the sun making sure he saved Vulcan and Romulus from being destroyed then returned to his future after saving Kirk from dying on Viridian 3. But we all know he died in the JJ universe and in the Prime timeline he just went missing. It would be pretty dumb for Spock to get stuck in another time and forget how to timewarp. Its not possible because the writers made it not possible. its a one way trip. There is no restoring the timeline because Prime hasn’t been altered, Romulus was always destroyed in that timeline.

I thought the general consensus was nero/spock/red matter created the kelvinverse in 2233. Before that was the same as the primeverse. Not that they opened a doorway into an alternate universe (like the mirror universe) which i believe was Peggs assumption around the time he was writing Beyond. I guess if spock were to have slingshoted around the sun ended up in front of the Narada as it emerged and fired a red matter torpedo and saved the USS Kelvin then zoomed around the sun back to the 24th century, the ‘kelvinverse’ would end up pretty much the same as the Primeverse (therefore no kelvinverse)

Even though movie exhibitions have changed a lot since the rise of streaming why would Paramount announce without signing talent. Didn’t they learn the last time Pine didn’t want to sign up.

In my opinion we are long overdue for a Q movie 😁

Agreed!!!

Picard s2?

Typical. Now these actors get to boost their price. Well played, Abrams!

Getting a new cast and starting again flies in the face of the fact that Star Trek, unlike Star Wars, is character driven. It always has been. The studio took a huge risk with the introduction of the Kelvin timeline and the new set of actors, a risk which worked and paid off because they nailed the cast. But trying to do that again so soon is an even bigger risk because fans are invested in these people and not ready to start again. That’s the whole reason the last attempt failed, because the studio thought they had more leverage than they actually did and wanted to nickel and dime the cast. How many successful new TV series can be built around, and star, an actor in his eighties? Only one where fans are already seriously invested in a character and the specific actor portraying him. Such is the nature of Star Trek. I’m a fan of Quentin Tarantino but there is no way I would want him anywhere near ST. Let’s face it, there has never been a fan phenomenon like unto Trekkies and when studios recognize that fact they can turn it into success.