Paramount+, the streaming home of new Star Trek, continues to evolve. Today they launched a new lower cost ad-supported option and announced more new content and features on the way.
Essential plan for $4.99 and “My List” function being added
Today Paramount+ launched a new plan in the U.S. with limited ads for $4.99 a month. The new “Essential Plan” provides access to all the same episodes and movies as the $9.99 “Premium Plan,” as well as access to live NFL and Champions League games and 24/7 news from CBSN. In addition to no ads, the Premium Plan offers live access to local CBS affiliates and mobile downloads as well as 4K, HDR and Dolby Vision. The previously offered limited commercial plan will no longer be available for new users, but existing users will maintain access.
Later this month, Paramount+ will also roll out a new feature called “My List” that will allow subscribers to save shows and movies to watch at a later date, available with both Essential and Premium plans.
“The breadth and depth of premium feature films and exclusive series coming to the service further strengthens our position in the market as a premium entertainment destination and, by offering this compelling content portfolio at an all-new low cost, makes us even more accessible to a wide consumer audience,” said Tom Ryan, President and Chief Executive Officer, ViacomCBS Streaming.
2,500 movies including Star Trek Beyond
Paramount+ is also scaling up its offering of feature films with plans to include 2,500 movies by the end of summer 2021. The first 1,000 films will be available starting June 10, including 2016’s Star Trek Beyond, the latest film in the Trek franchise. Currently Paramount Plus also includes Star Trek IV, Star Trek: First Contact, and Star Trek: Nemesis. TrekMovie is currently trying to get more details on the rest of the Trek film franchise for Paramount Plus, so look for a future update on that.
Other films being added this week include Terminator: Dark Fate, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Skyfall, Gemini Man, Rocketman, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Birdcage, The Dictator, The School of Rock, and Tropic Thunder. Also arriving are family films like Dora and the Lost City of Gold, Sonic the Hedgehog, and The Addams Family.
There are also new exclusive movies arriving this summer. On June 10 the service will also exclusively debut Infinite, a sci-fi action film starring Mark Wahlberg and Chiwetel Ejiofor and directed by Antoine Fuqua. PAW Patrol: The Movie will debut on August 20, the same day it hits theaters. A Quiet Place Part II also arrives on Paramount+ on August 20th, following its recent theatrical release.
Lower Decks and more original series coming this summer
Summer 2021 will include a number or new and returning shows for Paramount+, including the second season of Star Trek: Lower Decks on August 12th.
Also arriving this summer: iCarly, (June 17), Evil (June 20), RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars (June 24), RuPaul’s Drag Race Untucked! (June 24), The Good Fight (June 24), Behind the Music (July 29), and more.
You can sign up now with one free week and they are also offering 16% annual discount for both the Essential and Premium plans at paramountplus.com.
Keep up with all the Star Trek streaming news at TrekMovie.com.
Cool, but have they improved the app? The sound keeps cutting out when I use it on my TV.
Finally, a my list option!
Really? God, they are so far behind.
Very strange that Paramount+ doesn’t carry every single Star Trek movie like Disney+ does for the Star Wars movies. I wonder why that it is.
Guessing pre-existing contracts. Many of these last for years.
These contract issues go both ways too, as Indiana Jones movies, a Disney franchise, are still on Paramount Plus instead of Disney Plus. And I’m not going to even get into whether the Young Indiana Jones tv show has any possibility of showing up on either streaming channel.
Though worth noting that, even though Disney owns Lucasfilm now, all of the existing Indiana Jones films were distributed by Paramount, not Disney. (The next one is the first to be scheduled as a Disney distribution, and even then Paramount will be getting a cut.)
Then again, Paramount distributed Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger, and they were one of the production companies (along with Disney) for The Avengers and Iron Man 3. This stuff is weird and complicated sometimes.
All I can say is, if this pattern continues, Paramount will eventually sell Star Trek to Disney along with any other properties that actually make money.
When Disney bought Marvel they paid Paramount a heck of a lot of money in 2011 to renegotiate their distribution deal, which allowed them to control marketing and promotion and distribution of the Avengers (last movie on the Para deal)– and I presume they also included streaming rights in that.
Unfortunately never renegotiated any deals for Lucasfilm, which was moot for Star Wars when they bought Fox, but left Indiana Jones in a kind of odd limbo.
They renegotiated eventually, hence Paramount getting a cut of all future Indy projects and retaining ownership of the first 4. Maybe they will come to an agreement to share proceeds of box sets or streaming collections, but looks like Paramount smartly refused to let the original movies go.
I think the main difference in the contracts comes down to Paramount both distributing and footing the production bills for the first 4 Indy films, whereas the Marvel deal was more akin to handling distribution for an independent studio’s movies.
There are a couple of great YOUNG INDY shows, amongst all the duds. I wouldn’t mind seeing those again, the one with Elizabeth Hurley (she CAN act!) and the two parter that I think was in Africa. Genuine weepfests, both.
Does it really matter? Just buy the discs then it doesn’t matter one bit what streaming service the movies are on.
Interesting that the following movies all leave Amazon Prime Thursday. Wonder if we’re getting more than just Beyond on Paramount+.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek Generations
Star Trek: Insurrection
Star Trek Beyond
If so, the only ones they’d be missing are Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness, though I’m just speculating here; Hulu has all of the same films (including Beyond) and I don’t see any of them on lists of movies leaving Hulu in June.
Man that would be so great. I actually rewatched all of the TOS movies back in April on Amazon. I will start on the TNG films soon, but looks like it won’t be there anymore. Yeah I think if P+ actually finds a way to at least get all the TOS and TNG movies again AND Beyond it will finally start to feel like a real exclusive Star Trek service. Probably won’t happen but looking forward to see how it turns out.
Looks like your theory turned out true! :)
All the Star Trek films are now there minus ST09 and STID! Great to have and just in time as I plan to start watching the TNG movies in a few weeks.
I don’t use the app as I prefer the web portal. I also have a 2nd subscription through Apple TV. It looks to be the same aside from the layout.
They didn’t think to include the “My List” option at the very beginning?
One of the BIGGEST problems with AA was just the really bad movie ‘library’ they started out with. I mean there were literally just 20 movies lol. But since the last year it has really gotten better. Still nowhere close to the big boys of Netflix, Disney, HBO, etc, but at least getting more worthwhile. And dropping another thousand movies this week is a great sign they can make this site more worthy.
But what does it say when they DROP the service by a $1 while adding thousands of hours more to the service? It really shows just how BAD All Access was when they even realize it wasn’t even worth $6 a month lol. I never remotely thought it was worth $10. Now maybe will be. But I’m happy with my commercial free $4 a month deal. ;)
The movies were definitely a very minor afterthought on CBSAA, which was basically a television network adapting itself to a streaming model.
The current Paramount+ is only half-way to being a decent film and television streaming platform. Hopefully the watchlist addition and a massive film library will complete its evolution to a decent general streaming platform instead of being CBS with a functional but really flawed movie end glued one to it as it is now.
Yeah it’s improving for sure but AA basically felt like an extension of CBS and not a true streaming site like Netflix and the others, especially when you were paying MORE for it than these other channels. I never cancelled it, I’ve had it since May of 2017 (wow over four years lol) but that’s ONLY because of my obsession to Star Trek. And of course I get all the classic shows on multiple other sites so its just to watch the new shows basically. If it wasn’t for that, there wouldn’t be a reason to sign up to the site at all for me.
But it is getting much better now. I’m going to keep it no matter what for the new shows but at what pay option I’m still not sure when the deal I’m under now is done.
I’ll throw a Quatloo or two on the table that the next feature length Trek goes straight to Paramount +. Paramount can’t ignore that the production infrastructure is right there at their fingertips…
Honestly this would be a great idea. Just make cheaper films (at the level of TOS and TNG size budgets) and make them feel like a special event on the site. That was another issue with AA, they are the only site that doesn’t make movies for their service. It’s nice to see theatrical movies coming straight to P+ now but still should make original films like Netflix, HBO, Disney and Amazon does.
So they still have a way to go but since making more Star Trek movies for the big screen seen to be more of a pain for them to do these days, this could be a great middle ground to go in and MAYBE we can get another movie before 2025. ;)
So let me get this straight…. It’s got commercials…. And you STILL have to PAY?????
Is there really a market for that?
Man that’s how I been paying for it for it for the first three years lol. So yeah there is definitely a market for it, especially if you keep it all year long like I do. I also have the commercial options for both Hulu and Peacock. Had that for a few years as well. Peacock IS free though so zero complaints on that one
And HBOMax is launching a commercial option this summer as well and that will be $10. Non commercial option is $15 which I DO have and plan to keep it because I feel it’s very worth it. I don’t feel the same about Hulu and P+ although I got a special deal with P+
I guess… I have just gotten to the point where unless it’s a live event I’m just not watching commercials any longer. And even some live events I still record and pick up at some point after they start and ultimately “catch up” with the live broadcast on the DVR. All scripted shows I look at are recorded and I watch later at my leisure.
I hear you but again that’s the irony about the new normal we are living in. That’s why these streaming sites even exists. People just don’t want to watch commercials so now they are getting the option to bypass them, but it’s literally going to cost them. ;)
But I still have cable, over 500 channels. With the exception of the premium channels, like maybe 10 of those they ALL have commercials. Its always been a strange argument people knock streaming sites for having commercials and yet pretty much most of cable is still commercial run which we also pay for. And been paying for decades on top of it.
But as you said we have DVRs now and can skip over them. But then that goes back to my first paragraph. I don’t mind SOME commercials if I get a cheaper deal out of it, but most of the sites I have don’t have them like Netflix, Amazon, Disney and HBO.
Man that’s how I been paying for it for it for the first three years lol. So yeah there is definitely a market for it, especially if you keep it all year long like I do. I also have the commercial options for both Hulu and Peacock. Had Hulu that way for a few years as well. Peacock IS free though so zero complaints on that one
And HBOMax is launching a commercial option this summer as well and that will be $10. Non commercial option is $15 which I DO have and plan to keep it because I feel it’s very worth it. I don’t feel the same about Hulu and P+ although I got a special deal with P+
That’s the first I’ve heard about HBO having a commercial option, Tiger. Wow. No way I’d ever consider it. I feel that $15 for HBO Max every month is the best value out there. Agreed, very worth it.
The commercial plan literally started just this month. So you can now pay cheaper for it, which for a lot of people who can’t afford the original price is a good deal. BUT yeah, the $15 plan is totally totally worth it. I would never consider spending less on Max because of what you get.
And the one big drawback with the $10 plan is you don’t get the new WB movies that drops the same day on both HBOMax and the movie theaters. That alone is worth it for sure even if you don’t watch all of them.
I suppose I’m just an oddball then. I grabbed HBO Max because I wanted to see the Snyder JL cut and didn’t want to wait for the disc… IF there was going to be a disc. So I broke down and subscribed. I kept it for two months as there were a few things I figured I’d look at. But once I took in those things there was no reason to keep it around. So I canned it. At this point I don’t see any reason to pay $15 a month for it. It’s just not worth it. If it was included in some kind of bundled streaming plan with a few other services I might consider $15/mo. But by itself, it just isn’t worth it.
Unless they change things, then the commercials are in the current programming (including all of the new Trek content), but the library content (e.g., TOS and the TNG-era shows) and movies are commercial-free.
Just checked Paramount+ and looks like they added the 1,000 movies as promised but ALSO added practically all of the Star Trek films to their library with the exception of the first two Kelvin movies (but I’m guessing most people on this site aren’t too bothered by that ;)).
But yes, its great to see nearly all the Star Trek movies in one place now and P+ is feeling more and more like an exclusive place for Star Trek content. But it would still be nice to see actual Star Trek documentaries and even the TV specials show up eventually.
That’s all good news, but I’ll be interested to see if people here think the service itself improves, Tiger. I read about a lot of issues with how it runs here. I may do a free trial run through Amazon at some point, see how the quality is.
No mention that they promoted “Woman in Motion” in that trailer? Love that Nichols is getting some love this year, especially when it’s an especially trying time for her personally, apparently.