Paramount Sets World War Z For December 2012 – Star Trek Sequel Date Still TBA

Ten days ago Paramount began to shuffle their schedule around, officially moving GI Joe 2 to the summer 2012 slot occupied by the Star Trek sequel. And today they have made another move, setting a holiday 2012 date for the zombie movie World War Z. A new date for the Star Trek sequel is still pending.   

 

World War Z set for holiday 2012 – awaiting decision on Star Trek

Paramount Pictures has been busy shuffling their schedule for the last couple of weeks. As expected, two weeks ago they moved G.I. Joe 2 (now called G.I. Joe: Retaliation) into the June 29, 2012 slot previously occupied by the (still untitled) Star Trek sequel. This left GI Joe’s previous August 10th date open. Conventional wisdom for some industry watchers (and suggested by Deadline) was that Paramount would put their yet-to-be-scheduled World War Z into GI Joe’s former August 10th spot, and move the Star Trek sequel to a holiday 2012 spot.

However, today Paramount picked December 21st, 2012 as the release date for World War Z, the zombie war film starring Brad Pitt. This makes December 21st very crowded with three other films set to open on that date (Life of Pie, Lone Ranger, and Hunter Killer), and all of these are coming one week after The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens on December 14th. Surprisingly there are still some open weekends in the holiday 2012 season, including the weekend before The Hobbit opens, December 7th.


World War Z concept art – film set to open December 21st, 2012

If one were to try and read into the situation it could be seen two ways vis a vis Star Trek. On one hand they have left open a couple of good potential holiday 2012 dates for the Star Trek sequel, and Paramount doesn’t have a problem opening multiple films in the same period. They have three films opening this December including Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol on December 21st and Tintin on December 23rd. On the other hand why not put World War Z (which was supposed to be a summer 2012 movie), onto GI Joe 2’s old slot of August 10th? As the zombie movie is already in production, it seems reasonable that it could be ready for release in a year. It could be that Paramount believes World War Z will do better on December 21st then on August 10th. On the other hand, Paramount could be trying to fill out their year as they have no other films in the fourth quarter of 2012. If so, that would indicate the Star Trek sequel is more likely headed for summer 2013.

Enough for the speculation and tea leaf reading. Star Trek sequel producer JJ Abrams promises we will know all "within the next month," so until then we will just have to wait for the real news. 

Spidey adding insult to injury

In other release date news, Spider-man appears to be lapping the USS Enterprise. Following Paramount’s 2010 announcement of a June 29, 2012 release date for the Star Trek sequel, Sony decided to get in on the 4th of July action by announcing a July 3, 2012 date for The Amazing Spider-man (only 5 days after Star Trek). That film is already in post-production and will now be going up against G.I. Joe: Retaliation. And Sony is so excited by their new Spidey, they just set May 2nd, 2014 for the sequel. Oh, and they have also just released a teaser trailer for The Amazing Spider-man.

 

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2013 for sure.

Whatever, Abrams has said news is coming within the next few weeks so hopefully we will know soon enough.

I really want to see World War Z as well and am a little surprised they’re releasing it at Christmas (zombie horror/war film is odd for a holiday release). I think it would have worked better in August, and could have been the Rise of the Planet of the Apes of next summer. Maybe Paramount felt going up against Total Recall and The Bourne Legacy (plus The Dark Knight Rises would still be new in theatres) was too much competition.

Yeah …:-( :-(

Oh they are going to release World War Z on the very day that the dead come back to life for real and start chewing on the living. The needle just broke on the Awesomometer.

Could they be having trouble coming up with a bad guy for the next film and that’s another reason for the delay? Could Paramount have lost faith in Trek? I don’t see why since the last one earned alot of money for them and I liked it.

At the rate they’re going I wouldn’t be suprised if they cancelled the 3rd movie.

World War Z is Marc Forster, right? The guy definitely can use more time in postproduction, so he doesn’t have to rush and overcut his first pass, a la QUANTUM OF SOLACE, which would have been great (except for Craig being in it of course) if the ADD editing hadn’t held sway. Forster apparently does stuff a little like David Cronenberg used to, where he cuts too much out right away, then plugs filler in as he retouches stuff. Cronenberg did this on the first cut of VIDEODROME and audiences didn’t even know where the main character worked until 85minutes in… pretty big goof for preview audiences to have to point out to you.

I’m not saying WWZ is going to need a year of post like Nick Meyer had on TIME AFTER TIME, but a little more time, sure why not? Cuts down on the VFX overtime bill.

Dear Lord God!! I would ask why all this is happening,but I already know.

How are we gonna watch it in 2013 if the world ends one year earlier? :))))

How about Christmas 2012? 4 years after it’s suppose to have been release date?

7. Wow, a Videodrome reference! What an awesome flashback!

One step closer to summer 2013……..in the meantime, CBS should do an animated series. Oh crap! There’s a lot of legal hurdles to go through. Even a damn cartoon can take years to happen!

Oh well! At least we have the prior shows and movies on dvd/blu ray to watch. Almost 700 hours.

Is the Star Trek sequel even green-lighted yet? Who’s to say if Paramount even approves of the story yet?

At this rate, it looks like it’s going to be 2014. Time for another reboot already.

Very hard to care about a ST movie coming out in two years.

Boy, that Spiderman movie seems awfully familiar… like something from way back in 2002… directed by… Sam Raimi.

What was the name of that again…?

What a horrible bunch of movies are being made at the moment. Really awful, sicko stuff with zombie war movies and the like.

Perhaps Paramount are wondering how a movie like Star Trek which hopefully deals with the adventures and experiences of ordinary decent beings, human and otherwise, can compete with such violent, visceral sicko stuff that it and other movie studios are busy producing. As in real life, creating something positive and good is harder to bring about destruction, I guess similar applies when it comes to making movies.

So sad, so very sad.

So, are JJ and Paramount having trouble believing that having a movie like Star Trek “boldly going where no one has gone before” (in the best sense of that statement) will bring in the audiences, given these negative, ignorant and cynical times? I wonder…

(DS9 was about as dark and mean as any Star Trek should go.)

Yeah were gonna get a sequel every 4 yrs and 3 movies max…thanks paramount, you have a great franchise here and you just cant get your act together..

Edit: …is harder to bring about THAN destruction…

If Star Trek is going to come out in 2013 it will loose all of its moementum it had in 2009. The new fans it got might forget about the sequel if its out in 2013.

Its not about destruction…its about priorities…

This is RIDICULOUS. COME ON, PARAMOUNT!!! Get Your Act Together NOW!!!!!!!. It’s been almost 7 years since There’s been a New Series(I know that Johnathan Frakes has been using Facebook and other Social Media to make STAR TREK:TITAN the Next Series, which I Suppport 100%), It could be Another Two Years before Another Movie…Gene Roddenberry has to be Rolling Over in His Grave. I Love Star Trek(I have been a fan for 24 years, and I’m PROUD to be a Star Trek fan), And I Can’t Believe that Paramount is Treating it this way. Have they Forgotten How Good Star Trek has been to Paramount? We fans, just as we have done before, have to Stand Up for Star Trek. Get on Paramount Case, and Keep doing it Until they get their Act Together. Gene Roddenberry’s Son could help too.

Well. No choice now. Has to be Summer of 2013. To crowded for christmas of 2012. I still think that the court should write an epic 2 or 3 parter like the lord of the Rings. make this trek. A grand scale and Adventure with a Human hart.

This is all very, very disappointing. Looks to me like Paramount has no clue when this thing will be ready, if ever, and they know now they can’t peg a release date for it because the production team doesn’t even have a script ready.

Can’t believe we had the great success of ST09, and all that great momentum is being squandered. As I’ve maintained all along, setting a release three years out told everyone where Trek was in Parmount’s pecking order, and here we are, no firm date, and only vague promises of Yet Another Announcement Coming Really, Really Soon.

Part of me would love to believe Abrams and crew are going to pull some double-secret rabbit out of their hat and stun everyone by doing two movies simultaneously, ala Back To The Future, but I know that’s just wishful thinking. It’s just depressing to see all the current sludge being made and knowing another iteration of Trek is *at least* two years away. It just sucks, plain and simple. I wish someone would at least apologize for the delay.

Very, very frustrating and disappointing.

I really, really, really want someone to blame. But I guess that doesn’t do any good, either.

You don’t get anything unless it makes money, dum-dums. This notion that there will always be Star Trek… where does it come from???????

@24 Thanks, now please finish your jar of Gerbers and put your pacifier back in your mouth.

#21 Why are you blaming Paramount? It’s not like their the ones holding up the production. They gave Star Trek 2 a prime spot in Summer 2012 and the writers/producers missed it.

24: “You don’t get anything unless it makes money, dum-dums. This notion that there will always be Star Trek… where does it come from???????”

James Cawley.

@26

While I agree the production team has seriously dropped the ball, I think Paramount has to accept some of the blame for setting the bar so far out that it made Trek look like a second-tier priority. IF the studio made it look back-burner, there was no urgency on the part of the production team to buck the trend, and by the time everyone realized things weren’t getting done, it was too late.

Blame to go around in my book.

Why cant they just go in the Aug date vacated by GI Joe?

“If Star Trek is going to come out in 2013 it will loose all of its moementum it had in 2009. The new fans it got might forget about the sequel if its out in 2013.”

No.

Take your time JJ and Paamount, do the movie right, get the story as pefect as you can, make it with even greater gusto then the last one, lens flares and all and never mind the obsessed fans going thru with drawal pains, the wait is just what they need. As for a TV series, don’t bother, TV isn’t the same any more, the real money is in films and DVD/Blueray sales.

5, Craiger… the bad guy will be a mysterious Romulan whose face we never see behind his mask…

Sony will be disappointed at the box office. Doing an origins story will put way too many people off with the last origin story done so well so recently.

Emma Stone on the other hand may guarantee some bums on seats. At least one.

23.SoonerDave – “I really, really, really want someone to blame. But I guess that doesn’t do any good, either.”

Very true, but that’s not stopping nearly everybody else here. ;/

31.TheKeeper – “Take your time JJ and Paramount, do the movie right, get the story as perfect as you can, make it with even greater gusto than the last one, lens flares and all, and never mind the obsessed fans going thru withdrawal pains, the wait is just what they need…. ”

Agreed.

40-40 Summer or Holiday 2013, 20% shot Summer 2014. It just gets worse and worse.

31. And it will fall apart as badly as Trek 09 did with a moment it becomes impossible to suspend disbelief. Something always tickled the back of my mind about the movie, but for the longest time, I just went with it without really analyzing it.
Spock Prime would NEVER NEVER EVER have let Red Matter fall into Nero’s hands ; he’d have done what young Spock did at the end of the movie. I am surprised Mr. Nimoy didn’t have objections to it as written and filmed. It wasn’t addressed in an out-take or a deleted scene.
Just
plain
hackneyed
writing.

Seems kind of insulting to the fans how little they care about making any sort of deadline with the next Star Trek. If the last one had taken a long time I could understand, but it didn’t.

Just keep it away from The Hobbit. That movie is gonna make a TON of money, and really hurt all the ones that come out around it. If we want a third one, the second has to make money, after all.

#28. How is 3 years too far out? A lot of franchises do 2-3 years. Paramount gave them three years to write and produce a film, and they couldn’t even meet that. Do you honestly think that cutting it to two years would’ve helped anything. The writers’ plate has been incredibly full to the point where they couldn’t get a script DONE in over TWO YEARS. And seriously, second tier? It was the first movie they slotted for Summer 2012 and they gave it one of the best slots of the summer (the weekend before the 4th of July, guaranteeing a strong second weekend number)

33. I’m eagerly awaiting it. Heck, this one’s coming out 10 years after Raimi’s first Spider-Man (which got it all kind of wrong, in this fan’s opinion… well, except for J. Jonah Jameson).

If they will not bring ST 12 at least in winter 2012, I will simply learn from this: I cannot count on one more ST movie in time. I will not count on any ST movie release date at all. The new people behind ST are creative, but maybe they will just always be too late at our meeting-point: In cinema.I do not like people, who – how brillant they may be – are unpunctual. That is – maybe – what I will learn about the new people behind ST. I will see…

New spidey is crap. Who needs another boring 80 million dollar movie where Spidey appears only near the end and the rest of the movie is some cheap Twilight romance wannabe. Star Trek would have kicked Spideys azz all the way back home to mommy. I am soo sorry that now this mmatch-up will never be. Sony just got a let-off and are now smiling gleefully with no ST on the horizon.

Hey, don’t forget, it was some Paramount exec (forget his name) who championed Star Trek to come back in a big way. That’s what relaunched the franchise. If that guy gets replaced, which happens every day in Hollywood, the franchise could stop right there.

Let’s get moving, folks!

#37 – “Spock Prime would NEVER NEVER EVER have let Red Matter fall into Nero’s hands ; ”

How do you know he let him?

“I am surprised Mr. Nimoy didn’t have objections to it as written and filmed. It wasn’t addressed in an out-take or a deleted scene.”

You only just came up with this yourself, an okay theory, but quickly resolved. One of the many “What Ifs” in all of Star Trek.

40 – “””And seriously, second tier? It was the first movie they slotted for Summer 2012 and they gave it one of the best slots of the summer (the weekend before the 4th of July, guaranteeing a strong second weekend number)””””

Summer 2013 has a weekend before July 4th too. All is fine :)

I’ve always said Star Trek should come out in 2013. Once they missed summer 2012, the holiday period was pretty full with Superman, James Bond and the Hobbit. LInk. As the above article points out the movie could be headed to the summer of 2013. That’s where Paramount could put its first tentpole for the year.

On the other hand, summer of of 2014 and summer of 2015 look good. :-)

http://www.comingsoon.net/movies.php

I’m convinced someone dropped a ball here, and that the “make a great movie late vs. a crap one on time” is window dressing for whatever cock-up has occurred. We heard already that the writers were locked up in a hotel room with the Trek script, and that the actors were expecting to get to work in August, etc. What happened?

At this rate, they can do years 4 & 5 of the 5-year mission that Shatner & Co. never completed in TOS. 3 years down the drain…

I said it before on this site, the Star Trek sequel will never be ready for winter 2012. They haven’t even finished the script yet! So I guess summer or winter 2013.

At least Spider-Man looks good and there is no long wait for the sequel! :-)

@37 Except that Spock Prime didn’t know what Nero was going to do with the red matter then.