A big project that remains somewhat mysterious is the Star Trek feature film Paramount has set for a holiday 2023 release. Now one of the stars of the three Kelvin Star Trek movies (and co-writer of Beyond) has a bit of an update.
Pegg: Stay tuned
The last news out of Paramount regarding their next Star Trek feature film came last November when the studio moved the release date from the summer to December 22, 2023. Previously, producer J.J. Abrams had hired WandaVision’s Matt Shakman to helm the film based on a script co-written by Captain Marvel screenwriter Geneva Robertson-Dworet.
A big question regarding this project has been whether it will include the cast of the three previous Kelvin Universe films; this week we got a clue that the answer may be yes based on some comments from Simon Pegg, who played Scotty in all three films and co-wrote the 2016 film Star Trek Beyond. As he has been out promoting his new film The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, Pegg has been fielding some questions about what he knows about the next Trek. He told Collider:
I don’t know much. I’ve met Matt [Shakman] briefly and seems like a great guy. I love the work he did on WandaVision. It’s always waiting with these things, because the world is an uncertain place. COVID’s thrown everything into a spin. There’s so many factors that have to align in order for these things to happen. I’m just quietly waiting for news basically. And I texted J.J. the other day and said, “Tell me what’s happening.” He’s just like, “We’re waiting for news.”
He followed up making clear he hopes to continue playing Scotty:
I’d love to see more adventures in the Kelvin universe. Obviously, any chance I get to work with those actors is… I’ll leap at it, albeit it’s going to be a little sad this time, but stay tuned.
He reiterated the wait and see point of view to Forbes but also elaborated on how returning to do another film for the cast would be with some sadness due to the tragic passing of co-star Anton Yelchin (Chekov) in 2016:
That’s always a tantalizing promise that we might do something, and I think they just never want to shut the door on the possibility of another Star Trek but nor do any of us, you know. We would all love to get back to it again, albeit with some sadness because of losing Anton (Yelchin). I always wish I could give you something more definite, but we just don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.
Sofia Boutella as Jaylah and Simon Pegg as Scotty in Star Trek Beyond
More activity at Paramount
While there have been many stops and starts on Star Trek film projects since 2016’s Beyond, the 2023 film is the only one Paramount has ever officially put on their release schedule. We have already seen them change the date once, but Paramount has been making many changes to their overall calendar in the last year mostly due to the impact of the pandemic. Just last week, the studio moved both of the upcoming Mission: Impossible films (which also feature Pegg and are produced by J.J. Abrams), a move that could have another ripple effect resulting in another move for the 2023 Trek film.
It was just two weeks ago that ViacomCBS made a huge commitment to the franchise, essentially outlining year-round programming of Star Trek television on Paramount+. And last fall, new Paramount Pictures chief Brian Robbins said he “can’t wait to get going” on the next Star Trek movie, saying live-action theatrical films are “crucial to the health of the overall franchise.”
One important element appears to already be in place for the 2023 film. Last week, Variety reported that Keith Ellison’s Skydance Productions, which co-produced and provided financing for the previous two Star Trek films, is continuing to work with Paramount on the Mission: Impossible, Transformers, and Star Trek franchises even though Skydance has moved their overall first-look deal from Paramount to Apple.
So we still remain in a holding pattern, but there is reason to be hopeful that a Star Trek feature film is in the near to mid-term future. And based on Pegg’s comments, there may even be a chance to see the return of the Kelvin universe crew.
Chris Pine in Star Trek Beyond
Find more news and analysis on upcoming Star Trek feature films.
I do love the Kelvin universe
Star Trek No Voyage Home
I see what you did there :)
I prefer Star Trek Into Home
Star Trek: The Search for Spock’s Doppelganger
Star Trek No One Is Home
Photon torpedo’s can’t flame, as there is no oxygen in space.
violent photon torpedo of truth sounded too violent
LOL
Fingers crossed.
I liked the Kelvin universe cast, even if I wasn’t always a fan of the movies they were in. Still, it’s been nearly 6 years since the last movie and as none of them really set the world on fire, especially overseas, I am puzzled that there still appears to be interest with this cast at the studio level.
agree – the films wasted a generationally great re-casting of the original roles
My view as well.
I’ve seen them all but don’t seek to rewatch them.
What has surprised me is that I couldn’t get our kids to watch them. One bailed after the opening scenes of the first movie. More, none of them will consider the sequels.
I may be streaming this one myself. I’ll be lucky to get my spouse to join me.
“I’ve seen them all but don’t seek to rewatch them.” I agree.
Really? I mean TOS cast was still making great movies 25 years after their first missions?
Yeah, but they had already established themselves with 3 years of TOS. The Kelvinverse cast really only got comfortable in the roles in Beyond. I think if a 4th movie came out not too long after Beyond (say 2 years at the most), we would still be talking about this cast and this universe.
I also wonder if the tragic death of Anton Yelchin played some role in a 4th movie never materializing, which is a real shame. A great way to honor Yelchin would have been to continue on with the movies he helped define.
If you think of the 3 movies as the kelvin casts ‘TOS’ then the 4th film will be their ‘TMP’ it almost will be a decade later as well, and if its to star them is bound to move them all on with ranks, different uniforms, refit Enterprise etc
On the other hand the Enterprise in ST XIII was destroyed like in ST III and at the end they got the Enterprise-A like in ST IV…Therefore…. a new refit Enterprise already exists.
But I really would love to see a Kelvin-take on TMP and have a movie with mystery and without a villain after so many “villain goes mad and wants to seek revenge with superweapon” ST II ripoff-movies. We had 4 in a row of that.
That wasn’t the fault of the lack of experience. Pine either decided or was told to base his Kirk on Harrison Ford and not Shatner. Quinto’s Spock was the most emotional character in the entire cast. The problem was in the direction and in the writing, not in the lack of experience.
I guess they put so much money and energy into the Kelvin universe they don’t want to completely give it up yet. I can understand that. But I also agree the hype for these films died off long ago and even the fans are not overly enthusiastic about another one (look at this board and this website only exists because of these films). Yeah, they’ll see it, but I doubt nothing close to the level of the first two films. As for the casual audience, they seem to have abandon the movies by Star Trek Beyond. Seven years later, I just can’t see how any of them will care at this point unless the film is completely amazing that will make them want to go.
Unfortunately Paramount squandered these movies. They had a chance to strike while the iron was hot after the first one but it never really reached the potential they wanted it to.
ViacomCBS surely has some metrics on streaming views for the Kelvin movies.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the licensees let them know if a film isn’t getting significant numbers of views.
Why would you put more money into the KU if it’s not doing well on streaming?
The way I see it, if we see them sinking money into more KU films it will be because (despite my personal disinterest) there is some audience streaming them. After all, the success of Voyager on Netflix has certainly been a factor in both Picard and Prodigy’s choice of legacy characters.
I love Simon Pegg, but with all due respect to him and to everyone who enjoys these movies, another Kelvin timeline movie is very nearly the last thing I want from the Trek cinema world.
How about something not about the crew of a Starship Enterprise, and led by someone other than a white dude? That’s already been the basis of every movie in this franchise along with four different TV series, and we’re about to get a fifth. Could there possibly be any room in this franchise to for Movie #14 to do something different from what all of the first 13 already did over and over again?
We’ve never seen a ship with a Tribble captain. Still waiting.
How about a Captain Boday film? ;)
I get that you meant that as a joke, but in all honesty, not only would I rather see a Captain Boday movie than another Kelvin timeline one, I’d much rather see a Captain Boday movie than another Kelvin timeline one.
I’ve been hoping that the next film would have Michelle Yeoh in the principal role as a multiverse crossing Georgiou, but one fears that they’ve fallen back to the same old.
They may need to prove the concept of breaking the mould with some made for streaming movies, but I agree it’s past time.
Man I have no interest in seeing MU Georgiou in the next film or any film to be honest. We agree with nearly everything, but completely disagree here lol. I like the multiverse idea for sure and it’s obvious a lot of fans would like to see the new movie go in that direction. But they can use literally anyone for that. I mean if you want the multiverse to come together, bring in Q! There are literally comics where he has done that very thing.
I’m not saying they would, I’m only saying they have a range of options to do that with outside of a character that has caused genocide in her universe to be the face of the new film. Why I’m not exactly losing sleep the S31 show keeps stalling.
The point is that she’s realized that genocide and psychopathic behaviour provides no future.
When she went back to the MU she tried to change the one person she loved, and came to accept that it was hopeless.
I thought that what we would get with Georgiou in the KU is another step on the way to realizing that the end justifies the means inevitably means that the luminous future she saw for the Federation won’t be achievable.
Either way, I just don’t think they should hang an entire movie based on that kind of character. I rather just see a Starfleet based character lead the film and to be honest I think Paramount feels that way to. And I don’t think Georgiou is a strong enough character to lead a film. Yes Yeoh herself is a big actress but I think if they went with a known character it would be someone immensely more popular and represents the franchise more positively like Pike or Picard.
No disrespect intended, but do you think it’s possible that this Georgiou-MU stuff is a little inside-baseball for a general movie audience? It is for me, and I’ve been a fan for decades.
I have no interest in a MU Georgiou Trek movie either. But ya gotta admit. Micheel Yeuh would put asses in the seats in the theaters.
I mean she could still be in the movie. I just don’t think she should be the face of it either, that’s all.
And let’s be honest, 90% of Yeoh’s roles, at least in Hollywood movies, are supporting. She’s rarely the star in them. She had solid roles in recent movies like Crazy Rich Asians and Shang-chi, probably her two biggest films in Hollywood since her James Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies. But obviously not the lead in any of them.
In fact, the multiverse movie she’s in (which I can’t think of the name right now) is probably her first big lead in a Hollywood film, which is great. It’s also a smaller movie too.
I’d be fine with that. But I dunno how you would do a movie with her in it, even in a supporting role, without referencing section 31 or the MU.
Well I think they would still reference those things, why wouldn’t they? And the reason she was brought up because some want to see the film deal with the multiverse, with the theory that’s what the Section 31 show could deal with.
I don’t see any of that happening personally but I also didn’t see any movies taking place in a different universe until the Kelvin movies came along. ;)
Personally speaking, I think Discovery touching on Section 31 and the MU to begin with was a huge mistake. The show took place before TOS and WAY before DS9 and neither topic should have been touched upon. But the powers that be couldn’t help themselves because frankly they had no better ideas.
I think it’s safe to say most people would agree with that.
But that was the entire reason why it was an utter mistake to have this show be a prequel in the first place. I said that the day it was announced it was going to be a prequel and turned out to be more than right lol. But that dead horse has been beaten to death. ;)
It is what it is at this point. And if there is no Section 31 show, then we probably seen the last of Georgiou when she stepped through the GOF portal. But they keep saying one is coming, about as much as they keep saying another movie is coming, so I guess it will happen…some day?
We are already about to get a movie where Michelle Yeoh crosses a multiverse (Yeoh-niverse?), I think that will be far more memorable, creatively.
Agreed. I think it would be great to have Georgiou in the next film – her arc is already set up in a way that she can, canonically, be in pretty much any universe or time. It would be refreshing to focus on a Trek character that isn’t part of Starfleet nor tries to live up to the Federation’s ideals – I think a film like that would attract mainstream audiences more, especially since it seems like casual viewers tend to have different preferences. Georgiou, earlier seasons of Discovery, the Lorca twist, the Mirror Universe, Section 31 – those were actually popular with “non-trekkies”.
And honestly, even with more traditional Trek approach, I think Georgiou would be a great character for dealing with moral dilemmas and her decisions – although likely morally questionable – could also be thought provoking.
Yawn. Big mistake to continue with that crew and universe. It will be 8 (!) years since the last movie (the next one won’t come out until 2024, mark my words) and the gap is way too long to just continue. Do something new, something fresh. No Kirk or Spock. No Enterprise. Something NEW!
Totally agree that if it is something new, it should NOT feature Kirk, Spock & Crew or the Enterprise. No matter how much I love the original crew and ship, it’s a big universe. Get creative and make something fresh and original.
And who is going to watch this “Something NEW!”? Only trek fans will and that will Guarantee that the movie flops.
Well, no one went to watch Beyond… So… People aren’t that stupid. You can make a good, new intelligent sci-fi movie and be a success.
Beyond flopping is the reason why six years on there isn’t another movie. The LAST time there has been such a long delay between films is between Nemesis and the 09 film. And that’s obviously because Nemesis bombed.
But Paramount knew it was time to go another direction, even knowing how popular the TNG cast was in popular culture. And it was the right call. I kind of think they need to do that again now. The Kelvin cast was popular but it was never one set in any long term status either beyond being the new kids on the block. That was obvious when they didn’t even bother making any real merchandise after the first movie. You couldn’t even buy a T-shirt for Beyond when that film came out. That was a sign Paramount knew the popularity wasn’t there for this cast like the previous shows and films. And then the movie flopped.
Seven years later, I just don’t think anyone really cares that much. Again this board says it all. We are the biggest hardcore fans of this franchise. Most people came to this board because of these movies in the first place. And when half of us wants to move on to something new, that says a lot. Especially for a fanbase that relishes in nostalgia. That was the entire point of making these films.
They still could make a Kelvin-Movie involving a new TNG crew. Or finally make a worthy TOS-TNG-crossover with the Enterprise A and D of the Kelvin-universe, how ST VII should have been.
But if it is a new crew, why even bother with the Kelvin universe? The whole point of the Kelvin universe is that they could do whatever they wanted with the crews and stories and not affect canon. With a new crew and ship they could tell new stories and not worry about that.
To be fair, I don’t think Nemesis bombing was the only reason. In between Nemesis and ’09 there was a lot of corporate upheaval at Viacom/CBS and Star Trek was stuck in the middle.
You’re right, there were certainly other reasons too.
But you’re right too, it was time to go in another direction. TNG had two flops in a row. Meanwhile Enterprise was being cancelled on TV. Star Trek was very clearly over saturated and needed a break at the time. They made the right call by calling it off for a while.
Well, people weren’t really watching the kelvin movies either so…
Completely agree they should do something with new characters. I think that would be a better direction. Just with a middle tier budget, which I think is the problem with the Kelvin movies, they can’t seem to make one cheaper than $150 million.
I also agree, I don’t see the next movie coming out until 2024 at this point either. All this ‘news’ is telling me is they are still very behind in developing it because they probably still don’t have a confirmed direction to take it. And I remember people saying it was ridiculous for a movie to come out four years after the last one like with 09 and STID. This one will literally double that wait.
After Beyond failed, they still had a chance to get another film with this cast and do something while people were paying attention. But at this point, it seems to make more sense to start fresh with new characters and begin something anew.
The “Die Hard” film series had a 12-year break between the third and fourth film and another 6-year break until the 5th movie.
The “Pirates of the Caribbean” series has also taken some longer breaks between movies.
Star Wars had a 16-year break between the first and the second trilogy and a 10-year break between the second and the third trilogy.
I’m not saying that Trek can necessarily be compared to any of these but it does show that you can make a sequel even after a longer break.
Again the biggest difference those were all BIG franchises from the start. POTC 4 made a billion dollars, but the first three films all made ridiculous amount of money. POTC 5 supposedly ‘bombed’ although it still made $800 million.
You’re comparing apples and oranges. The Kelvin movies were never big. The first two just made a modest profit and the last one bombed. And every film made tens of millions less money than the previous one in America, it’s biggest market by far. Beyond made $100 million less than the 09 film in America. That was the biggest sign these films were in trouble long term and that was only a 7 year gap between the first and third film. The sequels were already losing money.
STID only made more money than 09 because of the aggressive push they did with China. If you take away that film’s Chinese BO, that movie would’ve only made $15 more than the 09 film did. And you can’t even guarantee if a Hollywood film will even make it to China these days, Ask Marvel about that,
You’re comparing a modest film franchise to billion dollar movies. And the problem is so was Paramount at the time. Two out of the three films didn’t even do over $400 million. Thats chump change today. No one would even bother making a Star Wars movie if it made anywhere to what the Kelvin movies did in the first place.
And why Paramount has fallen to reality after Beyond and the fear the next one may not do even as well as Beyond did. We all keep saying this, these movies have a ceiling and yet they are costing as much as Star Wars and POTC cost. That’s literally the entire issue.
We knew that when they refused to pay Chris Pine his money over the last one and that is chump change as well to bigger properties when you can pay Harrison Ford $25 million for TFA because there was no doubt that movie wouldn’t make at least a billion dollars. Ironically BECAUSE it’s been so long since we seen those characters,
The Kelvin movies are not nearly in the same boat and they clearly know it.
Again the biggest difference those were all BIG franchises from the start. POTC 4 made a billion dollars, but the first three films all made ridiculous amount of money. POTC 5 supposedly ‘bombed’ although it still made $800 million.
You’re comparing apples and oranges. The Kelvin movies were never big. The first two just made a modest profit and the last one bombed. And every film made tens of millions less money than the previous one in America, it’s biggest market by far. Beyond made $100 million less than the 09 film in America. That was the biggest sign these films were in trouble long term and that was only a 7 year gap between the first and third film. The sequels were already losing money.
STID only made more money than 09 because of the aggressive push they did with China. If you take away that film’s Chinese BO, that movie would’ve only made $15 more than the 09 film did. And you can’t even guarantee if a Hollywood film will even make it to China these days, Ask Marvel about that,
You’re comparing a modest film franchise to billion dollar movies. And the problem is so was Paramount at the time. Two out of the three films didn’t even do over $400 million. Thats chump change today. No one would even bother making a Star Wars movie if it made anywhere to what the Kelvin movies did.
And why Paramount has fallen to reality after Beyond and the fear the next one may not do even as well as Beyond did. We all keep saying this, these movies have a ceiling and yet they are costing as much as Star Wars and POTC cost. That’s literally the entire issue.
We knew that when they refused to pay Chris Pine his money over the last one and that is chump change as well to bigger properties when you can pay Harrison Ford $25 million for TFA because there was no doubt that movie wouldn’t make at least a billion dollars. Ironically BECAUSE it’s been so long since we seen those characters,
The Kelvin movies are not nearly in the same boat and they clearly know it.
They paid Harrison Ford closer to $35 million, I believe. No wonder he’s kept the same agent his whole career!
It was a huge deal for the Kelvin folks to do as well as they did, in gross terms. They boosted the international appeal, and even adjusting for inflation, ST and STID best or equal TMP and all three beat out TVH. If Paramount can rein in the expenses while still giving us a creative movie, there is no reason why a Star Trek Beyond level of success wouldn’t be satisfactory.
Wow, that’s crazy but I totally believe it lol.
And I agree with all of that at the time. The problem is the films never got into blockbuster stratosphere like they were hoping three films later. Not even close.
I mean take the international market, that was the entire focus for these films. And yet only STID made over $200 million abroad. Beyond did less than that after just three years. Most big films sequels make more money abroad alone than what the Kelvins movie make in their entirety. First Transformers movie made $400 million abroad alone. Each movie after added $100 million more than the last one until the fifth movie. And even that movie still bought in nearly $500 million abroad. It nose dived in America that was the main issue. That’s building a real international audience.
You mention TMP and that’s the BEST example to all these points because even TMP didn’t reach Paramount’s expectations at the time and why the next film went from a $35 million budget to a $12 million budget. And TMP was considered a hit, but still a modest one for its budget.
It’s obvious since 2018 at least they been trying to repeat history and bring in a much cheaper film once again (but probably still well above what TWOK would cost today.) It seems to be the reason they wanted people like Tarantino and Noah Hawley originally, no one thinks ‘big budget directors’ with those two.
With TMP, that budget was due to all the crazy effects and sets, not really the cast salaries. With the Kelvin films, the salaries are a huge reason why we haven’t gotten another one.
And it still is if Pegg doesn’t even know he’s in a film they greenlit ten months ago already and he’s one of the main stars. I don’t think he was waiting by the phone for ten months when they announced the seventh Mission Impossible movie. ;)
I’m curious what the salary breakdown is for the films.
The only thing I’ll say about Beyond is that I do believe Paramount left money on the table. The marketing was terrible, from the first trailer all the way to a much less robust international publicity tour – far fewer stops than with STID, with a bigger push in China that did lead to a good gross there (but we know the actual percentage studios get in China is not amazing). So they phoned it in, took the international market for granted, were caught in the middle of the Viacom/CBS split during the anniversary year, and yet barely spent less on the production budget. The reviews were solid, and while the villain may not have enticed, it felt like an own goal to me and they could have done much better with good marketing. Maybe that’s why they are keen to give it another go.
Yes, the marketing was indeed terrible. The trailer was placed before Star Wars VII and totally went down in the cinema. No classical soundtrack music, no slow scenes. That 90 seconds flew by and you thought “what was that”?
Then they dropped the name “Star Trek” from the posters! The 50th anniversary was mentioned nowhere and that “once in a lifetime opportunity” was unused. They should have stuck to Orci’s script. (Whatever that was. Hey Bob Orci, are you still reading here?), to have enough time to shot and promote it.
I forget what the original script was supposed to be, but Paramount had such a bad year in 2016 (it was still their #1 film), if there was any sort of rush, they easily could have pushed the film back to allow for more time. It was a fall franchise just as much as it was a summer one, after all. But there was just no care or finesse to the marketing.
The reality is Beyond failed for probably a dozen reasons. Yes the biggest is probably the marketing itself. But I don’t blame it solely on that either. I pointed out many times over the years Beyond also had the biggest second weekend drops of the three films by a large margin. Everyone supposedly hated STID but it kept people showing up even after the bad word of mouth. Not the same with Beyond. People just didn’t seem pulled in by it.
Months before the movie came out, the biggest issue I kept saying was there was simply no hook. Nothing special to the film. It was basically just another Star Trek movie coming out. And when it’s represents something like the 50th anniversary, they could’ve done more to highlight that, both in marketing and in the film itself. But for many, it just looked like a generic story you can find on TV. And the new fans who became a fan of Trek due to these movies seem to mostly lost interest again and it was the old fans like us watching it mostly.
And yeah it didn’t help it was another tired uber-villain looking to destroy the Federation for the fourth straight time in a row…because reasons.
If they do make another film, Kelvin cast or not, PLEASE Paramount think outside the box and come up with a new idea already.
I don’t disagree. I think it’s a stronger film than STID, but the hook was not really enticing. Bland villain and master plan, blowing up the Enterprise (again), and a plot that was rather like a big budget TV two-parter. Irony is that the latter point was so often raised as a highlight, probably because the last two films didn’t exactly do much exploring. But this was also the primary criticism of Insurrection, that it wasn’t a plot worthy of a movie.
Tricky needle to thread. We’ve established that decent action, spectacle and humor entice people, and while it’s still frustrating how villain-centric the films are, having a memorable one doesn’t seem to hurt.
That was the biggest knock against both Beyond and Insurrection. On one hand they actually felt the closest to their respected TV shows and delved into the type of plots you would find on them. On the other hand, that was the problem, they felt TOO much like episodes and not big enough stories for what people think of films. And while both took place on new planets, people don’t seem to like the idea of most of the film being set on a planet….unless it’s Earth of the past. ;)
It really shows how tricky it is to make a Star Trek movie lol. Even when you give fans what they want, you learn they don’t really want that either. ;) And those movies did nothing for new fans at all, because it just reminds them why they never cared much about Star Trek as a whole.
And yes the villain is the other problem. He was a huge hook in both the 09 movie and definitely STID. But by the time it got to Beyond, it just felt like the same old same old. They seem to follow the same formula because I guess in their eyes it works, but fans seem so bored of the villains. And sadly in the majority of Star Trek movies, they mostly feel so one note. There are probably only 2-3 very memorable villains in all of these movies which is an even bigger issue. It certainly was in Beyond.
about the need for a ‘hook’ to entice fans and general audiences.. ST09 had so many that even average Joe audiences were intrigued (mega Transformers budget version of ‘star trek’, the return of TOS characters/enterprise, their origins/prequel, Nimoy, timetravel/rebooted alt timeline, Lost/MI3 director, amazing trailers/visuals)
ID had very intriguing trailers, the mystery of the villian, new sensation Cumberbatch, plus by then JJ Abrams was like an A list director about to do SW7.
But BEY hook was mainly all about that F&F in space trailer, there was the Ent destruction but fans were already used to that (and almost happened in last movie).second trailer was better but it all looked abit ‘Insurrection.’ Had they ‘gone Orci ST3’ it’d have had Shatner, time travel/timelines stuff (going back to 1st well liked movie), and probably more emphasis on the 50th anniversary.
You laid it out perfectly. Regardless how you felt about the first two Kelvin movies, they both had huge hype for a reason. They created something that excited both old and new fans. Old fans felt like they were getting an exciting new set of big budget Star Trek movies with built in nostalgia while new fans were getting these cool slick action movies with a hot director and sexy actors that just happen to be Star Trek as well. You throw in the mysteries of the story and characters, you grabbed a lot of people.
Sadly by the time Beyond showed up, all of that was gone. They were no longer the new kids on the block anymore. Star Wars showed up again in a huge way and the story they had just had no real bite. It was another uber-villain wanting to take down the Federation. The only question the movie enticed people with was ‘why’? And no one really cared why because as the first two films showed, it didn’t matter. It was just an excuse to get the villain to try and blow up as much stuff as they could. And Beyond literally followed the exact same trend. I will say the background of Krall was actually interesting and a bit layered, but only something die hard Trek fans would care about. And his motives for it still didn’t make a lick of sense. So yeah.
And fully agree about Orci and his film. Now THAT was a hook. Bringing back Shatner and Nimoy for the 50th and basing it around the Vulcans with possibly trying to change the timeline (I say possibly because I don’t know if that was ever confirmed. But Orci made it clear it wasn’t a time travel film either).
I still wish to this day we learn what the story fully was and more importantly, why was Paramount so against it? Both sound more interesting than rewatching Beyond lol.
I guess a hook for BEY for the hard core was the NX looking ship and “Enterprise” looking uniforms , plus there were some rumours Krall and his army might be borg related, but really that was just trekkie talk.
Orci’s movie sounded more an event/apt of the 50th (like Dr Who) and a genuine trilogy ender/conclusion for what could’ve been the ‘timeline trilogy’ (like a timetravel series like BTTF as ID was also dealing with the ramifications of the new timeline) an ‘all roads lead here’ thing like TDKR. Shatner was kind of already teased in ST09 (the early cameo rumours, ‘a trick i learned from an old friend/I know your face’) and 2014 mainstream media was all over his return (there was a potential TFA style nostalgia element of the main star of Trek returning. even non trekkies who just caught the odd old episode or movie possibly interested). Also it made all kinds of sense certain individuals in the kelvinverse would want to explore what the potential future could hold/attempt to change things back to how they should be (as in every other incarnation of star trek when it came to timetravel/lines). whereas BEY was like a standalone tale not connected the the timeline stuff of the previous 2. A Beyond type film could’ve been done after Orci’s ST3 providing it did bigger box office, which y’know it might’ve (see XMens DOFP massive increase in box office when they dealt with all that timeline stuff/crossoverd the casts)
Also going back to ST09 it was the first time for the actual TOS era on the big screen and those iconic candy coloured uniforms which was a huge deal for fandom, and ID had a huge evil 2nd Enterprise in the trailers
You hit the head on the nail between the differences (and power) of the stories. Of course we don’t clearly know everything about Orci’s third film, but I think it’s exactly what you said, it was a real extension of both the overall premise of these movies and a continuation of what happened in the first film, at least in part. That was already a stronger hook. You throw in Shatner and Nimoy, people would’ve at least been more excited about it. The movie still could’ve been bad and yes, maybe Paramount simply thought the script sucked, but it had a more enticing premise.
Beyond went the complete opposite direction. It could’ve frankly just been a one off standalone episode in ANY of the former shows: TNG, VOY, ENT (okay a bit too soon to fit that show ;)), etc. That was probably both the advantage and disadvantage. It was a story that was easy enough for anyone to get into and you didn’t need to know anything about the two previous movies. Paramount probably wanted a story that anyone can get without doing a lick of homework. But still throw in elements to make the Trekkies smile here and there like the Krall being a former MACO soldier, the pic of the TOS characters, etc.
But it was also a disadvantage for long time fans who wanted something a little more in-depth and world building. And even casual fans probably wanted a story that followed something from the previous movies. In other words, it was fine, it just wasn’t something anyone had to rush out to see either…and they didn’t.
And then irony was the NEXT movie was going to do just that and tie that movie to the first again bringing back Kirk’s dad. Even though no one seemed that excited about that one either, in many ways it sounds like THAT should’ve been the story for the third film and a good connective tissue for these films like Orci’s idea had. And if nothing else, it had a stronger hook. ;)
Think Paramount were more interested in appealing to what was popular at the time (Guardians & Fast) over anything ‘too star trek’ featuring Shatner etc. maybe the perceived negative fan reaction to ID was a factor in that idk (i.e too much a homage/reimagination of TWOK over doing their own thing). Anyway as you say Beyond felt like a random standalone adventure, or maybe like a Gold Key comic brought to life lol. with a few homages thrown in the final 5 minutes for the anniversary (the Trek V photo did make me audibly gasp in the theatre tho..:) overall just not interesting enough esp for fans of the previous 2 films
i strongly suspect the Kirks Dad ST4 was actually adapted from Orcis ST3 (with Hemsworth instead of Shatner) as it had the same co-writers who wrote ST3 with Orci. and yes even that sounded pretty interesting over Beyond. and tied back to that 2009 breakout film and maybe even featured Nero and the Narada again who knows
I read about that budget a few days ago. But they wouldn’t have to spent the same budget for ST II anyway because the sets already existed, so they didn’t have to start from the scratch.
No, but it’s not normal for a sequel to drop by that large amount either. In fact majority of sequels increase in price, even with already built sets in place. See Star Trek Into Darkness. ;)
OK I’m not sure how I manage to make the same remarks twice in one post lol. That is bizarre. Apologies. Hopefully TM can correct that mistake.
Beyond didn’t “bomb”. It wound up bringing in just shy of 400 million in its theatrical run and was profitable.
It did underperform the first two movies in both profit and receipts but that is in no way a bomb.
Now Paramount wanted a billion dollar franchise, but that was never going to happen. Trek is like Star Wars for smart people and unfortunately there just aren’t that many smart people in the world. Really you’re writing off 2/3 to 3/4 of populace right off the bat.
Now with streaming the game has changed. A fan base that tops out at 700 million of box office is suddenly more desirable/profitable when you can rope them into coughing up 10 bucks a month in perpetuity for your streaming service. Without Disco CBSAA/P+ would have fallen flat on its face.
A. It wasn’t profitable.
B. It didn’t make ‘shy’ of $400 million. It only made $343 million. Sixty million less is not ‘shy’ of that. That would be like saying you’re shy of being a millionaire when you have $400 thousand in the bank.
And people can phrase the wording anyway they like when it comes to Beyond. It lost around $120 million at the box office. That’s not ‘underperforming’. That’s what STID did. Beyond simply lost money, a lot of it. So call that whatever you want, but we can all agree you can’t call it a success ;)
I don’t know why people just can’t admit the film failed. But it did, by a lot. If that wasn’t the case we still wouldn’t be waiting 5 years later with nothing but these useless statements everyone involved in these movies keeps saying like Pegg and nothing more over and over again. And he certainly wouldn’t be sitting by the phone to even know if he was in the next one.
And btw, Forbes also calls Star Trek Beyond a bomb.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2020/08/08/movies-box-office-star-trek-never-as-big-as-star-wars-avengers-transformers/?sh=4b4798f93dc4
So don’t just take my word for it.
Ugh, Scott Mendelson. I can’t stand his columns. Maybe it’s because for the longest time he had a psycho killer-esque avatar of him glaring at the camera, head down slightly, like he’s Jack Nicholson. I rarely remember the names of columnists, but he is so annoying, I remembered him.
Doesn’t make him wrong, mind you.
Beyond bombed hard.
Star Trek movies from 1979 to 2016 – U.S. and Canada box office, actual and adjusted for inflation with original budget:
Wow, the TNG movies performed so much more poorly than the TOS and Kelvin movies. LOL — Beyond, which supposedly bombed, actually outperformed First Contact!!!
That’s an awesome Infographic — thanks!
PS: I think if you take out the awful STV performance, TOS movies and the Kelvin movie made about the same box office on average (adjusted for inflation).
PS2: The budgets shown are not adjusted for inflation, hence it’s a bit of an apples to oranges comparison across time without those adjustments.
Star Wars had 35 years between Return of the Jedi and its direct sequel The Last Jedi.
I think we have discussed this before but I agree that Trek needs a smaller budget. Trek is NOT a summer blockbuster franchise. Star Trek was an “MCU” like franchise before there was ever an MCU, but it never pulled in MCU money or audiences. As harsh as this sounds, Star Trek needs to know its place. Christmas time is probably the perfect release time for Trek films.
Avatar 2 and 3 have been trying to call you, but you are not answering your phone?
I’ll be happy to see the back of the Kelvinverse. It’s dead, move on. Create something original and exciting. Make it thought provoking( but not in a comatose way like TMP)
Hire the Progidy guys, they seem to know what they are doing. I don’t even care if it’s live action or animated.
I heard a rumor that Kurtzman and the powers that be want the next Trek film to be a Prodigy film that will appeal to audiences in the same way Spiderman into the spiderverse did.
If that rumor is true, then I suspect he will have just lost a portion of future proceeds. Not all fans are a fan of the new offerings to Trek and that includes Prodigy and Picard.
Lots of people dislike Discovery and, sadly, Picard. But from what I hear, Prodigy is getting nothing but rave reviews. And IMHO the show really does capture the heart of Star Trek in a way none of the other current offerings do. Voyager is one of my least favorite of the old Treks so that tells you how much I much like Prodigy being that it is a show led by (hologram) Janeway
Prodigy does seem to be the first of the new shows that is a complete hit out of the box. I think Lower Decks was a hit too, but not quite like Prodigy. Mostly because there was still trepidation from some fans over it being a broad comedy, but won over most fans pretty quickly. But Prodigy got the fans onboard from the very first episode and not divisive at all, especially when compared to Picard and definitely Discovery, which still seem to be four seasons later.
But to be fair, I also think people had much lower expectations with Prodigy because it was marketed as a kids show and a lot just assumed it would be a very simple story and characters with lesson of the week type of plots, which it is lol. But it hones in all the elements of classic Star Trek and manage to create three dimensional characters. And it was smart to also build in a mystery from the start dealing with the ship itself, which I didn’t expect at all. And its a GOOD mystery too.
Oddly it’s the first time we’ve ever had a mystery based around the hero ship. And it proves even with a thousand hours of Star Trek today, you can still find new angles to tell a story and Prodigy is doing it in spades.
Hell, Prodigy may end up being the first Trek movie since Beyond the way things are going. ;)
Lower Decks is def a hit too, but because of it’s comedic nature there are still some outliers, as you stated. But, yeah, Prodigy is the closest thing I have ever seen to date to the Clone Wars and yet not AT ALL copying Star Wars which is what I wish Kelvin Trek could have accomplished.
Hey, I’m already feeling nostalgic for the Kelvin movies, I’d love to see a return.
I’m kind of ambivalent about this. I guess it would be fine to see this crew again (Urban as McCoy crushed the part, imo), but I’d probably wait until the film hit a streaming channel to see it. As far as Chekov goes, just sub Jaylah in for him, it would work. And if they could leave the Beastie Boys and motorcycles out of this one, that would be great.
As there’s no actual news here, these articles are just clickbait. It gets some chatter going about what we’d like and not like to see, and it drives traffic to the site, always good for ad revenue. I understand any ambivalence at this point, the theatrical franchise remains in a holding pattern.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing, it gives us all a chance to reignite chats about the topic and to discuss how we all feel about it and what we would like to see. And God willing maybe the powers that be are listening.
You get the impression they’re a bit stuck for ideas.
Something that could be a good idea if executed well could be a sequel to TMP. Set it in the Prime Universe during the timeframe of PICARD (so, early 25th century), with the storyline focusing on a secret Starfleet mission deep across the galaxy to find the advanced machine civilisation that upgraded V’Ger. Starfleet Intelligence has finally managed to decrypt and analyse some of the data downloaded from V’Ger at the end of TMP; amongst other things, it appears to include coordinates for the machine civilisation. The Starfleet vessel has a cutting-edge slipstream drive, the Starfleet Intelligence representative on-board seems to be hiding the real purpose of the mission, everyone is underestimating how advanced the machine civilisation is (millions or even billions of years ahead technologically), that sort of stuff. Could star some familiar faces from the PU, or they could go with a completely new cast.
Basically, a mixture of Contact and Ice Station Zebra.
Could look suitably cinematic and spectacular for the big screen, deals with some hard sci-fi and philosophical issues, and with good writers and actors hopefully the characterisation/chemistry/dialogue would be intelligent, realistic and nuanced too.
I get the impression that no one has stepped up and agreed to make a feature film for 100-125MM. When that happens, someone will ink a contract. Until then, we wait.
Jai, as I responded to Blondie-wan above, I agree that it’s past time to break the mould.
I love your machine civilization idea. It’s one that’s timely and that hasn’t really been covered as well as I would like in beta-canon tie-in novels. (The Cold Equations trilogy was good but written from the perspective of restoring Data.)
There are so many great stories in movie and television Prime Universe canon that can and should be built upon.
These provide opportunities for a richer tapestry of stories that expand the universe, attract new audiences and yet still feel totally Star Trek.
It may be though that, in the risk-averse environment of franchises, it would take some successful made-for-streaming movies to show how feature length stories with new characters can work.
With Paramount+ committing to regular releases of new movies developed for the platform and dedicated AR wall technology in place at CBS Stages Mississauga, this seems like the only way a more out-of-the-box concept will get into production.
It would be great if some established scriptwriters who know the franchise, but who are outside it would pitch for streaming instead.
The gold ring of the cinematic release seems too fraught. I have to say I expect the next film to be another tent pole attempt that just can’t deliver enough audience to be successful.
From a fan perspective that’s an interesting story, but most people have never seen Star Trek TMP, so basing a film on it would have no benefit for the broader non-fan audience that the studio seeks – and needs, to have big enough box office to justify the cost of the film. At best they could fan service some mention of Vger/Machine Intelligence in some dialog but not in a way where the story will depend on it. It’d be more like ‘civilization found while exploring, more investigating, and oh look they sent out Vger, cool..’ and then the story continues.
Plus Decker would need to be recast if Vger shows up – not due to Stephen Collins aging, but due to him admitting to multiple counts of inappropriate sexual contact with minors in 2014 and not having worked since. They’d probably want to avoid Vger/Decker entirely as any mention of the character(s) would inevitably dredge up Collins’ record while mentioning he played the character(s) in TMP, and thats really not the kind of publicity Paramount wants to relaunch a franchise with.
Also if you want an original story, why includes elements of an old story in it?
Wow that does sound like a great premise for a Trek film.and would do what alot of ppl been asking for a Trek movie goes full on scifi again like Interstellar(and abit Alien/Prometheus). and tying back to that first (controversial) movie fans still obsess over today and is getting a new bells and whistles 4k version . Who’d be the main character? Ordinarily a descendent of Will Decker would’ve been the obvious way to go (with Armie Hammer an obvious choice..)
Yeeeeeess!!! I really would love a Star Trek movie with a mystery like TMP and Interstellar.
If there is a sequel to TMP, you could connect V’Ger with the origins of the Borg and maybe with the doomsday machine.
I think I would rather see V’Ger’s origin’s connected to the mysterious machine race from Picard Season 1. After what we know now of the Borg after all these years, I don’t thin they’d be capable of creating a being as powerful as V’Ger.
“Tell me what’s happening.” ….“We’re waiting for news.”
That’s all you need to know. Nothing to see here, people, move along.
Paramount is dysfunctional. Lack of progress doesn’t mean no interest in the movie. It just means that Paramount as usual can’t get its act together. That Mission: Impossible is also being hit with more delays should be reassuring for Star Trek fans. Whatever is causing the dysfunction is studio-wide, not specific to Star Trek.
I agree with this. CLEARLY they want another Star Trek film. You don’t hire writer after writer just for PR purposes. And if it is, it’s really bad PR lol. I been saying this for over two years now, either they just don’t know the direction to take the next set of films OR they just can’t get it at a budget they feel comfortable enough to green light it. It’s probably both a lot of the times.
But I mean the real problem is they simply don’t have confidence in the next movie. That’s just the reality. Even if they keep pushing back the MI movies, it was never any doubt they wouldn’t get made. They not only greenlit another M:I movie three months after Fallout came out, the greenlit two of them! That’s real confidence in the property. Meanwhile in the development hell world of Star Trek, they can’t even land on a single writer or director before they move on to the next one six months later. It’s just nuts.
But yeah, a lot of this is the dysfunction of Paramount in general. Star Trek as a property can’t be the issue if CBS manage to get five Star Trek shows up and running, all within a few years of each other and KEEP renewing the shows as well. There is obviously a hunger from the fanbase, that’s not in doubt. It just seems like the movie side doesn’t have the same confidence as the streaming/TV side does and to be frank because the TV side can survive on the hardcore fans alone and doesn’t need as much as a casual audience. That’s always been the issue with the movies.
The difference is that the Mission: Impossible films keep making money. That’s why the studio keeps making them even if COVID may cause some delays to the productions.
The Trek movies haven’t pulled in enough boxoffice to justify their costs, especially “Beyond”. It seems that the studio hasn’t figured out how to make a cheaper Trek movie or they are still discussing whether they want to try again with a big budget.
Exactly!
End of the day it just probably comes down to the budget. They simply don’t know if the next film will do that well and second, third or fourth guessing themselves. If Beyond made what Fallout made we would’ve had a movie long ago. Probably two films at this point, or at least the fifth one in production.
The way to make them cheaper is to stop worshipping J.J. Abrams, especially after he cheated on the studio in the middle of an expensive first look deal, and with Disney and Star Wars, of all things. He’s been a boon to M:I, and he put Star Trek back into play as a bigger franchise, but $190 million for STID is insane.
But at the end of the day, Mission: Impossible movies are just as delayed as Star Trek movies. Top Gun 2 has been sitting in limbo forever, too.
I still don’t understand why it is so hard for them to make a cheaper Star Trek movie. They did it for 20 years from Wrath of Khan to Nemesis. Sure some of these movies were definitely cheap looking (especially Nemesis) but is there not a middle ground between Nemesis and Into Darkness? This is a symptom of the Paramount dysfunction I was talking about.
No that isn’t the same thing. All those Tom Cruise movies got or getting made. Mission Impossible 8 is filming now. It’s ONLY delayed because of Covid and the worries that enough people still won’t be in the theaters when it opens, And every studio has delayed their biggest movies multiple times now. Every single MCU movie got delayed too, but all the films were shot and ready to go. Dr. Strange 2 just got delayed too but not because of the film itself. That’s not the same thing.
Paramount still hasn’t officially green lit the next film. When you get beyond the smoke and mirrors, that’s what Phil is talking about. They hired a writer and director to write the story, just like the last three films before this one, There is still no budget, filming date and as Pegg made us well aware of, a cast. I mean it still may not even be a script yet. That’s probably the biggest issue, they simply haven’t even landed on the story yet. Just having a release date means buckus, especially when you can just keep moving it as they already did.
As for your question why can’t they make a cheaper film, they can, but probably not with the Kelvin cast for starters, at least not at the price they want. And two probably not as cheap as the TOS and TNG films even with a new cast because the realities of both expectations and distribution have changed since then. And admittedly the Kelvin movies have bought things up to a level you can’t just go on the cheap anymore. But that’s across the board.
I mean even on the TV side, Star Trek cost way above what the other shows made for their day, Discovery and Picard cost closer to what GOT got made for. These shows couldn’t survive on a network today the way old shows could.
Yes! This couples with the fact that MI is not fractured. It has a clear patch to follow. Star Trek could go in a million directions. Kelvin. Prodigy. Discovery. Mirror Universe. Picard. *insert new idea here*.
I’d say the MI franchise is in the comfortable position that they have found a formula that works on the big screen. That’s why they have a clear path to follow. Arguably, that movie formula has little in common with the original TV show, which makes me question how much the MI movies rely on fans of the original shows to show up for the movies. Probably not a lot. Also, the MI movies rely pretty much on Cruise as the star. If they lost Cruise that clear path they have right now could become less clear.
Star Trek has struggled to find a formula that works on the big screen. The TOS movies and even the TNG movies relied very much on nostalgia but with a few exceptions failed to really connect with audiences beyond those that had been fans of the shows. Relying only on the original fanbase means that these movies have a relatively low ceiling of what they can make at the boxoffice. The Kelvin films tried to make changes to bring in new audiences. Some of those changes alienated part of the original fanbase but apparently they weren’t enough to attract a large enough fanbase of their own.
I don’t know if there’s a middle ground between changing Star Trek enough to make it attractive for large new audiences (that justify tentpole budgets) while still pleasing the old fanbase. Taking Mission: Impossible as a template, you’d probably end up with something that has little in common with the old shows.
Very true. Star Trek is a very hard franchise to do in the movies. Pleasing the fans is hard because even when you do a movie purely for the fans, 1/2 of them will love it and the other 1/2 will hate it. And general audiences will yawn.
If you do a movie for general audiences (Kelvin) then you’ll get a fun popcorn movie that general audiences will dip their toes in opening weekend and with any luck, if the movie is good, will grow in the following weeks from word of mouth. But it will NEVER do Marvel or Star Wars money and Trek fans will be so vocal on the Internet about how much they hate it that people will notice.
There is also a very vocal and hateful subsection in the Star Wars fandom and still the movies make tons of money, probably from more general audiences.
Unless Paramount wants to go really low on the budget they need general audiences. As you say, this would likely mean we’d get fun popcorn movies without much depth. Then again, if we are being honest, even before the Kelvin timeline, most Trek feature films weren’t exactly cerebral morality plays. They simply couldn’t go as big as the Kelvin movies were able to.
Would a popcorn Trek movie make a billion $ at the boxoffice? Probably not. Marvel didn’t start out with numbers like this, either. They built up the brand over time. Some of the early MCU movies (e.g. Incredible Hulk, the first Captain America, the first Thor) didn’t do better than the Kelvin movies.
If it’s possible at all, turning Trek into one of the big boxoffice players would probably take several movies (ideally not released many years apart), and there’s a good chance that those movies wouldn’t have much in common with what hardcore fans love Star Trek for.
The big difference is that Marvel didn’t start out with a stigma behind it. When Iron Man or Thor or Captain America came out, there was no brand name whatsoever. Star Trek does have a brand name, but it’s a bad one. It’s one associated with geeks and nerds and being anti-societal. Star Trek 2009 did the best it could to break out of that mold but I would bet any amount of monet that no movie could do better than that movie did in terms of bringing in general audiences. I LOVE Star Trek but the truth is “Star Trek” is a toxic brand to general audiences who aren’t trek fans.
I’ve never said there’s never going to be another Trek feature. Paramount knows there’s an audience for this IP, but they also know there’s no ROI on a 200MM budget, too. Even with JJ’s super secret cone of silence, there were activities going on that clearly indicated a movie was being made – nothing of the sort has happened so far. Nothing seems to have gotten much past a few executives agreeing over cocktails that making a Trek movie is great. So we wait.
Its a coin flip if JJ could make back that 200 million dollar investment if he was the director, without him i’d say its close to zero.
Can e have an Amen. Will believe it when it is in theaters.
There’s a difference tho. Mission Impossible has a clear direction in which it will go. Star Trek could go in a bunch of directions. The next Kelvin movie. a Prodigy movie. a Discovery movie. etc… Star Trek is a franchise that was previously split across two different companies before they merged back not too long ago (before Beyond). There’s stuff to work out.
MI was never split into 2 arenas of TV and films with restrictions placed on each. I wonder how much the 3 movies could have been better with a united Star Trek franchise. It certainly would probably have kept Abram’s interest focused on Trek more. He went where there were not legal battles over what he wanted to do and the profits were better because of it. I am not a fan of Abrams for abandoning Star Trek when he did. As far as Beyond and its failure. It was better than STID and I think the cast was just beginning to mature as the crew of the original Trek show with all of their youthful follies in the past. And if my memory is correct(senile and 72), Paramount has commented that they want to make multiple movies and expand the Trek universe. Sounds like a good long range plan which could succeed if given the chance by fans. If you don’t like a film made in one universe then perhaps you would like another in a different one. They do not all have to be cookie cutter films.
I was never really surprised Abrams abandoned Trek. He was honest from day 1 about the fact that he was never a trek fan growing up but he was always a die hard Star Wars fan. In fact, I don’t know if this is true or not, but I remember reading that when Abrams was making Star Trek 2009 he had a meeting with George Lucas and discussed it.
I too have read that he was a huge Star Wars fan but I really think his biggest fandom revolves around the color green.
i haven’t heard that
Green being the color of MONEY. He went where the greatest profits were to be had.
I think this would be a little weird to have another Kelvin-Verse movie come out since we have Strange New Worlds with different actors for Spock and Uhura. And I am positive SNW will eventually have some other TOS characters on the show played by different actors.
I mean, Spider-Man No Way Home showed you can have different actors play the same character even in the same movie. So, I guess it can work?
No more “me, too”, please. We saw that with the “jump on the dark storytelling” bandwagon with Into Darkness.
I don’t see that as an issue at all. Fans are pretty saavy these days. Comic book characters have been doubling up on both TV and movie screens for awhile, especially DC characters at the moment.
And wasn’t this the entire point of the Kelvin movies? To put them in their own universe away from the prime universe? I know most of it was to just create their own canon again. But another reason was probably if CBS ever made another show again they could just use the TOS characters however they liked without having to worry what the Kelvin films were doing with them. Now it’s possible we could be at this moment.
Exactly, if anything, the recasting in SNW is much more problematic than in Kelvin because SNW is the Prime universe which does occupy the same canon as the original series.
No weirder than having a different actor play Spock and Uhura in Strange New Worlds. Kelvin Spock and Uhura came before Strange New Worlds Spock and Uhura.
It can work when done right. Disney/Marvel got it right with Spiderman. I can almost guarantee WB/DC will get it wrong with Batman.
Audiences seem to like the Kelvin cast as the new TOS cast so at least in casting the Kelvin movies got it right. Who knows how they will feel about SNW. I do know one thing though. In the run of SNW, there is no doubt in my mind we will get a new Kirk at some point.
Multiverse seems to be the thing nowadays. Perhaps one last Kelvin movie with a multiverse story that concludes back in the prime timeline. Then tie the movie thread or ending into continuing based on the Paramount plus shows. Finally merging the so-called TV with the features
I’d hoped that (formerly) MU Georgiou would be the star of this next film.
Having Georgiou transported to the Kelvin Universe would be exactly the vehicle to tie the universes back together. At the end of the movie, she can return to the Prime Universe in the same time period as SNW or they could even jump her ahead 50 years and give us a show set in the era between TOS and TNG.
With Georgiou, we don’t need to have the full set of Kelvin Enterprise officers, and Chris Pine doesn’t need to be there let alone carry the movie.
Personally, I’d be happy with a Georgiou – Uhura team up with Spock, Bones and Scotty along for the ride.
Michelle Yeoh is a cinema star who could pull this off.
This ‘news’ kind of confirms everything I been thinking about with this movie and that it’s still a far far thing from even happening. How does Peg not even know he’s in a movie that has been in development for nearly a year now?? It’s just so bonkers. How long did they have to wait to find out they were in STID or Beyond? If you’ve been writing a script for six months now, I would sort of think they fully know who the main players are in it at this point.
All this tells me is either A. the Kelvin cast is not in the film or B. even if they are, they are still so far behind in developing it and still don’t know the direction the film will go in, especially for one that was originally suppose to come out in June of 2023. No wonder why it was pushed back.
Sorry to sound so cynical but I mean we been down this road so many times already. They keep hiring writers and directors which proves they do want another one, but then it either just completely stalls and ultimately cancelled because Paramount just can’t pull the trigger. The fact Pegg knows absolutely nothing about a movie that should be gearing up for production by summer just doesn’t bode a lot of confidence in the next one thus far for me. That or they are simply recasting.
We’ve had this coversation before. Pegg is one of those individuals where, when you stick a mic in front of him, he’s going to start talking, even when he has absolutely nothing to say on the topic.
Compare this to the Frakes interview a few weeks back: he wouldn’t comment on specific projects, but did mention his prople are blocking out his schedule accordingly. Pegg is in the same line of work, it’s impossible to believe he doesn’t have people working on his scheduling committments as well.
That Matt Shakman doesn’t seem to know what’s going on is telling. The same thing happened to S.J Clarkson – she was all over Trek, until she wasn’t. I won’t be the least bit suprised to hear that Shakman is moving on to other projects….soon.
Which is why I don’t even think they are in the movie. This is a big ensemble cast and a lot of them are very busy. Wouldn’t you at least be talking to them and lining up schedules for a movie that should be filming by summer? Pegg just confirmed to us no one has even called him about the possibility of being in this movie, again, they ‘approved’ nearly a year ago.
He knows absolutely nothing. Abrams also seems to know nothing.
At least with the Clarkson and Tarantino film the cast was confirmed to be in those. Obviously the Clarkson movie was going to be the Hemsworth movie so that was obvious for years. And of course we know what happened with that, they couldn’t get Pine onboard. Again, call me naive, but after that debacle, wouldn’t the first thing you do is work out a deal with the star you couldn’t get back in the last one before you start writing the next one?
That’s why I just have a feeling they are moving on. Or maybe will have some of the cast in it, which is possible, but I just don’t see how you do it without Kirk if Pine is not coming back. And he CAN still be in this film, but this news doesn’t bode confidence in that if no one has even called any of them yet.
As you said, the director of this still seems to be in the dark as well. It was telling when even the head of the studio said he was still waiting to hear what was going on with the movie to confirm anything. And then a week later the film was pushed back six months.
People keep assuring me on this site the next film will DEFINITELY happen without a doubt…for three straight films now lol. Sorry, there seems to still be doubt when not a single thing has been confirmed outside of a release date at this point, which they already pushed back. And my guess is it will be pushed back again.
Totally agree with you except, Pegg may be under a gag order and we WILL probably see another delay. Also why is Pegg the only one asked about Trek.
Possibly, but again, I have said this multiple times in the past, why would do characters whose already been in the last three films and the face of the franchise for a dozen years now NEED to be a secret?? I don’t remotely follow this argument. This seem like it would just be a given. no? When Discovery got renewed for season 5, is there any question if the current cast will be in the next season?
It’s just odd logic to me. If they are in it, then just say that! Why do they have to be so coy about it? That should’ve been the biggest news the day the film was announced. Which really tells me there is a huge question mark behind it. My guess (and SOLELY my guess) they are probably considering using the Kelvin characters again, but open to other avenues as well with either new characters or rebooting the TOS characters with new actors (and probably would be a return to the prime universe). That’s my feeling and based on what we seen with the Hawley movie it’s more than possible that’s what is happening. I think they are open to anything and that’s sort of the problem, they don’t know where to go yet.
And Pegg was asked about it because he’s currently doing a press tour for his new movie on Disney+ and looks like a reporter just asked him. That’s usually when we get this kind of news with any franchise, when the actors are promoting some other project at the time and reporters ask them a range of stuff.
But yes, we fully agree, no matter what, this movie will be delayed again. If they are constantly delaying Mission Impossible films that have literally been shot, I don’t see how this movie stays in place when clearly it’s still in a huge turnaround.
I do understand that Pegg was being interviewed about another film but it seems like HE is the only one that is always talking about it. Maybe I just don’t read that many articles but you just don’t seem to read about statements from the other main actors and I do not believe that Pegg would be the only actor asked.
Well there have been others who talked about being in another film in the last year or two. But it’s always the usual stuff.
The only other one who publicly stated about this movie when it was green lit was Zachary Quinto and he said he heard nothing about it. That was ten months ago. Ten months later, Pegg literally just said the same thing, which basically tells you they are probably just not in the film.
That’s kind of the point too, there is nothing TO talk about because they only know about the film the same way we do, they read about it. Not a great sign. ;)
i’m calling it that kelvin trek 4 isn’t happening
At this point I am not sure that any Trek film will be made. I would also make the comment that making a Trek film with unknown characters will not bode well at the box office and could give Paramount what it does not want which is a Star Trek flop, After all of the wait and confusion surrounding another movie, fans will be expecting an exceptional movie. I have to make another comment unrelated to the topic. I saw the movie “Lucy in the Sky” this past weekend and I can now see why it flopped. That was the worst movie that I have ever seen and I am so thankful that Hathaway and his Trek movie were cancelled by Paramount/
At this point, it could be Star Trek: The Motion Picture 2.0
Watching “The Center Seat” really confirms how amazing it is that this franchise exists and survives at all.
How can so many people keep making bizarre decisions around one property?
Sadly it’s not an isolated occurrence. WB and even Disney have been known to do quite a bit of meddling on their tentpole properties, often to the detriment of the show in question. But yeah, Paramount is incredibly talented in this regard.
Sadly true. WB is ALL OVER THE PLACE with DC. I mean, how many Batman’s do we have simultaneously now? Disney did the same with Spiderman, but the difference is they know how to make it work.
I think the Kelvin cast will all return for 1 more movie adventure. Setup costs for a new cast & ship are way too much risk & it would be a streaming only movie. They need to trim the budget a little or go big again for a theatrical relaunch like 09 did.
Paul you say this every time. I challenge you on this every time as well and explain exactly how a new cast and ship will cost more than the Kelvin movies are now? And I have never gotten a single response lol.
And I have a feeling I won’t now. Guys its VERY simple, if they felt confident with the Kelvin cast, they would’ve paid Pine and Hemsworth the money they promised them and we would’ve had a fourth movie out a year or two ago by now. It’s because those budgets are so big that is the issue today.
The fact Pegg hasn’t gotten even a phone call they are interested in having him back for a movie that has been in the pipeline since last Spring is not reassuring news either,
Let me put this in perspective for you the best way possible when it comes to cast salaries!
In the first film, they paid Pine $600 thousand being an unknown actor and being the first film in a potential franchise. By the third film they paid him $6 million, ten times what he was paid in the first one. And you have to imagine basically all of the cast was making at least 7 figures by the third film easily,
Now imagine a brand new movie with a new and mostly upcoming cast once again. And let’s say for arguments sake they paid a new ensemble cast with 7 regulars about $600 thousand each as they did Pine. That’s still two million less than what they paid him in Beyond and you’re not talking about the other actors either, I think that’s the biggest issue why these movies aren’t moving forward.
Of course this scenario would be for mostly new actors. I imagine if they did go with a new cast there will be a few known actors in it but probably nothing A list UNLESS they decide for the lead to be a big name.
Agreed. A franchise like Star Trek can’t afford those kinds of salaries.
Why even have one more? They’ve had their trilogy and Beyond (even if it wasn’t meant to) kinda wrapped up things nicely.
@ Tiger2
It cost tens of millions to create a new ship, film exposition scenes to introduce the new characters-actors, new sets, new uniforms etc etc so setup cost alone for a new cast & crew with a new ship is easily $50M if you do it right! How much do you think they spent on ST09?? Epic opening scenes, sets & top quality behind the scenes talent!!! its all on the screen the most lavish Trek movie since STMP. Then STID went even bigger! More box office overall but would have been even higher if John Harrison was not Khan but John Harrison instead! Beyond was clearly made on a lower budget than Into Darkness as by now the cast & producers are costing way more so less to make the actual movie with (same problem on ST5 Shatner & Nimoy cost $11M, Kelley $2M & $2M for the other 4 crew leaving only $20M to make the actual movie with behind the scenes issues around FX!) & the aborted Orci directed project setup costs would have been folded into Beyonds mega budget! So Beyond barely broke even due to the reported $185M budget! All the behind the scenes Paramount execs left or were fired after Beyond underperformed due to release date mis-timing & dumb beastie boys marketing put casual viewers off! Now its quite simple Paramount can either go big again with a new cast & crew or go 1 more Kelvin crew adventure with a smaller budget or go to streaming only instead with way lower budgets & less chance of losing any money! (but less chance of making any either!!). The delays are all down to the same thing $$$ Paramount seem to have second thoughts on the budget & crew. They have access to marketing experts who get it right most of the time. So they know already how much they want to spend. So every time they announce something new it then clearly gets side lined after studio exec development notes tell them to cut back the grandeur…then they see they have to give Pine + Quinto the promised raises so it never goes anywhere as clearly Paramount want to lowball the budget like they always have on nearly every Trek movie project since STMP!! Its clear another movie has to be a Kelvin movie otherwise the economics dictate too risky or too costly so it becomes a streaming only project (the most likely Trek movie future as its costing so much to market event movies & only a few really hit the big time). But look at Sony they took a big risk on the last Spiderman movie made it very fan friendly & got their deserved reward & audiences were very happy for more! Paramount need to do the same with Trek listen to the fans make an intelligent sci-fi Trek movie which is also mainstream friendly!!
First off Paul, thank you for the response!
And I wasn’t trying to get on your case about it. It’s just I have responded to you about 3 or 4 times now in the past and never a response. But yeah, it’s just a message board and you probably have something called a life who just post something and move on. I definitely recognize that. So thank you for taking the time for the response.
All that said, I have to disagree with a lot of this. And reading your post, it conflicts with your main point. You acknowledge the Kelvin films have had bloated budgets and that the movies need to cut down on it. And then you also mention the point about Pine and Quinto getting raises which would add to the budget. But then you say they should just pay them. Isn’t that part of the problem though? How do you cut the budget in a significant way if you are paying millions out to the actors?
And then the one thing you keep saying, which frankly just doesn’t make any sense is that you would spend $50 million more with a new cast and ship. First off, where are you coming up with this $50 million figure lol. It just sounds like something you made up and keep throwing out there.
How will a NEW cast cost more if you don’t have to pay them millions like the old cast? Please explain this because as I did in my post, clearly new actors will save the movie MILLIONS. Unless you are hiring big stars, then that makes no sense. A new cast will get basically what this cast got in the first film. They would probably save tens of millions of dollars in the process.
Secondly you go on and on about spending money for a ‘new ship’ which I guess you mean new sets. And as I have pointed out to you in the past, that’s a given since they already destroyed the last ship in Beyond. So no matter what happens, they are basically creating a new ship and sets for the next movie, right? So that’s kind of a moot point.
End of the day, I just focus on current facts at hand and numbers. That’s probably thanks to my job in real life. Fact is Chris Pine walked away from the last movie over 3 years ago over money. Many people said, including other cast members of the time, it will work itself out soon. But it never did. To this day no one has said they kissed and made up. And it shows how much Paramount is desperate for the next film to be lower if they don’t want to pay the star of the movie the money they promised him. Three years later it still seems to be the same deal and why your argument doesn’t make a lot of sense.
And lastly we already know Paramount was going to make another movie without the Kelvin cast with Noah Hawley’s movie. So they were already moving on in the first place. That sounded like it was stopped because the virus story line was hitting too close to reality.
But all that said, yes, you could be right in the end. Maybe the cast will be reunited for this film. But based on everything we know, the odds are slim at best when they will supposedly start shooting it sometime this year but haven’t even bothered to call any of them about being in the movie yet. I’m pretty sure when Paramount wanted to make Mission Impossible 7, Pegg wasn’t waiting ten months later to know if he was in it or not.
My theory on this is simple. Yes, they are probably considering using the cast still but they are open to all options and will probably just go with the one where they can make a much cheaper film, especially compared to the last two. If they can’t do that with the Kelvin cast, then they will just come up with a new characters and setting.
And honestly if they are only making one more film with them just to wrap it up, it’s probably not a big priority for Paramount when it’s already been 7 years and they can just start fresh now; especially since no one seems all that bothered that we will even get another Kelvin movie. Another reason to just move on now.
But we’ll see!
@Tiger2
Thanks for your response also!
New movie setup costs…think about it how much it would actually cost to design a new Starship, design & build those sets then you have to build ultra detailed CGI models of all of that. Its very expensive if done right. Then you have to spend a good 30 mins or so of movie running time introducing a new cast & crew….also quite expensive because before you even get your movie going you are looking at a 2 hours plus running time! Even with unknown actors that’s around $50M gone before you even spend big on creating your actual movie to drive the franchise movie series foward’s!
Its just highly unlikely Paramount are going to throw that kind of money around using an unknown untested crew of unknowns at the global theatrical marketplace post covid19!
If Paramount want to continue to make big Trek even movies the Kelvin crew is still their best hope for success. I think it all comes down to how to craft a good story, keep all the Kelvin crew together & make it all work within the budget numbers they want to play with. None of this is easy if it were everyone would do it! Nick Meyer could do it if they would only ask him!! He is the king of intelligent trek within a budget!!!
The choices seem to be theatrical kelvin crew 1 last adventure (which will lead to more if its a hit) or go streaming only as way cheaper. All they need to do is trim some of the expensive action sequences put a few more Kirk, Spock, McCoy banter scenes in include the other crew on the mini adventures within the main movie to save a lot of budget. I mean really did we need to see the Enterprise get trashed again that’s a big chunk of FX budget blown in Beyond & they get another ship again at the end!
The 7 year wait is more to do with a lot of changes at Paramount at the corporate level and right now all the execs from the Kelvin movies in the front offices @ Paramount are long gone so they are starting afresh with new execs to get the movie up & running within acceptable budget levels. Pine + Quinto salaries are small feed the main sticking point is overall budget levels you are looking around $25-30M for actors, producers, director BEFORE you even reach the movie production stage! So this means its around $150M minimum & that means in post production it goes up a bit more as they always seem to cost more late in post production.
Still think it will happen with the Kelvin crew otherwise streaming only seems to be the best option as not much point spending similar amounts of money on a new crew few will see outside of Trek fandom!
OK Paul I’m going to take your points one by one!
New movie setup costs…think about it how much it would actually cost to design a new Starship, design & build those sets then you have to build ultra detailed CGI models of all of that. Its very expensive if done right.
Dude, I do not understand why you keep ignoring this basic fact, but I’ll say it yet again. They ALREADY have to build new sets for the movie because, one more time, they destroyed the ship in the last movie. This is a moot point. No matter what they will be building all new sets regardless, right? Please don’t make me keep repeating this lol.
And it’s Star Trek, they constantly build new ships all the time on the shows as well as the movies. Sure it cost money, but I don’t think a new movie lives on dies on building ships.
Even with unknown actors that’s around $50M gone before you even spend big on creating your actual movie to drive the franchise movie series foward’s!
No offense, but this makes no sense. And you’re not backing it up with anything. It’s just something you keep throwing out without proof of anything. Again, how do you add MORE money to a budget if you’re for new actors if you’re paying actors if you’re paying them less??? We’ve already talked about the ship thing. Do you have a link or a source?
Its just highly unlikely Paramount are going to throw that kind of money around using an unknown untested crew of unknowns at the global theatrical marketplace post covid19!
Once again, you’re ignoring the basic reality they already were going to do that with Noah Hawley’s movie. Now MAYBE they changed their mind on it for that very reason. Or maybe they simply didn’t like his script. We obviously don’t know, but I think it proves Paramount is already thinking that direction And they sort of have no choice if they think the Kelvin movies are just too expensive or not worth the money they make.
And you can still just reboot the movies with new actors playing the TOS roles again so the crew doesn’t have to be ‘unknown’ at least.
If Paramount want to continue to make big Trek even movies the Kelvin crew is still their best hope for success. I think it all comes down to how to craft a good story, keep all the Kelvin crew together & make it all work within the budget numbers they want to play with. None of this is easy if it were everyone would do it! Nick Meyer could do it if they would only ask him!! He is the king of intelligent trek within a budget!!!
I actually agree with you because audiences are already familiar with them and the first two films made a profit, that’s mostly true. But A. Maybe they decided they don’t to make big Trek movies anymore and B. if they truly believed that, then would’ve just paid Chris Pine his money in the first place. And as I said in the last post, there is no proof that has been resolved yet.
The 7 year wait is more to do with a lot of changes at Paramount at the corporate level and right now all the execs from the Kelvin movies in the front offices @ Paramount are long gone so they are starting afresh with new execs to get the movie up & running within acceptable budget levels.
And that literally goes to the entire point of the argument. The new guys have NO loyalty to the Kelvin movies. None. And since Beyond bombed and it has been so many years later, they probably want to do something new with their own set of films. That’s obviously just speculation on my part but you keep saying it yourself (which goes against your entire argument). You expect them to make one more movie and then start fresh with NEW movies, right? So what stops them from just making new movies now then??
And especially if they just think the actors cost too much. And we know the old guard certainly thought that and why we never got the Hemsworth movie.
I get it, you want another Kelvin movie. And you may get it. But same time, you keep ignoring the basic fact: they have a movie they been working on for nearly a year and has not called any of the Kelvin actors about it. It would be like announcing a Mission Impossible film but no one has bothered to let Tom Cruise know about it yet nearly a year later.
But I been proven wrong before and I may be again!
“Again, how do you add MORE money to a budget if you’re for new actors if you’re paying actors if you’re paying them less???”
OK, that was badly mangled lol. Meant to say how do you add more money to the budget for new actors if you’re paying them less??
Good news in terms of the movie. Wandavision was silly fluff though, like a slightly more serious version of Bewitched.
The Kelvinverse is a really rough position at this point. It’s been almost 6 years since Beyond came out, and since then we’ve had a massive resurgence of the prime timeline. That sad part is, Beyond was the first Kelvinverse movie that truly felt like Star Trek, and it was the first movie that all the actors felt comfortable in their characters (especially Chris Pine, who really began to embody Kirk in Beyond). Alas, it was also the Kelvinverse movie that performed the worst at the box office (though a lot of that was due to piss poor marketing by Paramount). I just can’t imagine Paramount wanting to continue with this universe given how well all the prime timeline shows are performing (and how expensive the Kelvinverse actors have become).
With that being said, I wouldn’t mind one final Kelvinverse movie to wrap things up. I know we didn’t learn much about the rumored 4th movie with the return of George Kirk, but I always imagined it as way for Kirk’s dad to return and somewhat reset the universe back to what it should have been before Nero’s incursion.
hated what happened to the enterprise.
no need for that just for some ‘pew pew’ set piece.
it made kirk look like a fool.
It is a bit sad that things ground to a halt after Beyond…as you said, it’s the only one of the Kelvin movies that really seemed to embrace Trek’s particular blend of drama, hope, and occasional outright silliness, and it’s the only one of the three I rewatch for pleasure. But I also wouldn’t cry into my soup if we didn’t get another. Sometimes the window just closes and you’ve got to move on.
Agreed, I’ve rewatched it a few times, especially specific scenes that were really good (I absolutely love the warp effect we see near the beginning – I wish nuTrek had adopted that same effect).
I too wouldn’t be upset if the movies moved past the Kelvinverse. It’s probably best for the whole franchise to move past it, as it has obviously become a dead end. I do feel somewhat bad for the cast and crew though, as if it wasn’t for them and the Kelvinverse, I highly doubt we would be in the midst of such a massive Trek resurgence.
For the record I wouldn’t mind one more Kelvin movie too; if nothing else but to wrap it up. But if I had a choice between that or just starting fresh with something new, it would be the latter for me easily.
But I agree, I also liked Beyond, even though it still had its problems. I saw it twice in theaters in IMAX. I’ve never saw a movie twice in IMAX before. Most people seem to agree it felt the most TOS out of the three films. But I think by the time it arrived, people just stopped caring. And it doesn’t seem like many care now which doesn’t exactly gain confidence for another film and probably what Paramount is wrestling with.
Unfortunately they really squandered these movies in a lot of ways.
I really think “Into Darkness” is what ultimately doomed the Kelvinverse. The first one, while it certainly had its issues, was a lot of fun, was a nice palate cleanser after Nemesis and Enterprise, and successfully brought in a clean slate for Trek moving forward. Plus it also appealed to a lot of non-Trek fans as well. Unfortunately, “Into Darkness” completely squandered that clean slate. There was just no reason to bring back Khan, let alone bring him back in the absurd way in which they brought him back. Add on top of that Kirk’s death and resurrection, Spock yelling out Khan, and all of the other hamfisted callbacks to “The Wrath of Khan,” and you have a recipe for disaster. I know “Into Darkness” was generally liked by critics and the non-Trek audience, for most Trek fans it was a bit of a travesty.
As such, the core audience was already skeptical of a 3rd Trek film. Combine that with the 3 year gap b/w ID and “Beyond” and the initial poor marketing of “Beyond” (which very much made it look like another mindless action movie), all the momentum that was built up by “Star Trek” was summarily squashed by the time Beyond hit theaters.
So, yeah, a new Kelvinverse movie probably isn’t the best idea for the franchise as a whole, but I definitely feel for the cast and crew, as without them we wouldn’t be experiencing the current Trek resurgence.
I believe STID was an issue up to a POINT. But I also believe what did Beyond in was mostly its own perception issues.
And even though I AGREE that STID was a badly written film in so many ways and using Khan (at least BC version of him) was a bad idea, I don’t think it affected casual and definitely new fans like it did the hardcore fans. In fact, every indication out there is that STID was a solid crowd pleaser for casual audiences. It’s just on boards like this, where us long time and highly devoted fans had issue more with that movie. But here are two examples of what I’m talking about:
IMDB user ratings for STID:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408101/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
IMDB user ratings for STB:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2660888/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
Rotten Tomatoes audience score for STID:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_trek_into_darkness
Rotten Tomatoes audience score for STB:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_trek_beyond
See my point? I mean both movies are generally highly rated but in both cases STID is higher rated than Beyond when it comes to fan reviews. And what’s interesting is both scores have a nine point difference between the two films.
So I think people, especially here, have given this narrative people stayed away from Beyond because of how much they hated STID too much credence. Sorry, that doesn’t seem to bare out much when just looking at the data BOTH from a review and box office standpoint.
Now, I agree PART of that is the issue, but mostly with the hardcore base. Yes I do think a lot of them didn’t bother with Beyond because of that. But I don’t think that was the issue with the casual audience at all and who makes up the bigger segment of these movies. In fact it’s pretty clear most liked STID more than Beyond.
With Beyond, it simply got lower box office for the same reason it got a lower rating score: the film itself just wasn’t very exciting to the general audience. Say what you want about STID it had a lot more actiony stuff happening and the general audience responded to it.
LOL I didn’t read your post close enough. You already said you knew most non fans liked STID. But I also still think you and others are not basing the reality both a lot of fans and non fans didn’t like Beyond that much either. That was the main problem IMO. Yes in terms of story Beyond was the better film which most fans agree with. But it doesn’t make it a more enticing film either and that was it’s problem more than anything I think for a lot of people.
You can blame STID to a degree, but Beyond’s troubles had very little to do with that film at the end of the day. A lot of people just felt it was too generic and even a little boring. I didn’t feel that way personally but even I will admit it’s probably the least exciting film out of the three for me even though I think it’s the best one.
I don’t believe that. The film had no legs, no word of mouth. It was boring, it was mediocre. Unlike the first two films no one turned out to go see it. Honestly it reminded me of the response to Nemesis. They need to turn things around or not do another one at all.
Part of the problem is Paramount did practically nothing to advertise it. Which is especially shocking when you remember it was Star Trek’s 50’th anniversary.
Re the 50th, I read somewhere Paramount were hesitant to do much as didnt want to turn off general audiences with focusing on ‘nerdy old star treks anniversary’ over trendy Guardians/Fast style action (which is also why the Orci ST3 got canned for being ‘too star trek’).
Imagine Star Wars might do the same in 2027 and not celebrate 50th anniversary…
It wouldn’t surprise me at all seeing how Lucasfilm won’t release the originals. Who wants the 4th version of the Special Edition created in 2013 to celebrate a film released in 1977. We’ve missed the 40th of both Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back without the actual original films being released, and i assume the same will happen for return of the Jedi in 2023. Why Lucasfilm can’t just put out catalog releases of their films starting with THX 1138 and American Graffiti without any of the cgi redone stuff is beyond me.
Ok, well, umm, I guess I can see that? But, umm, HUGE MISTAKE! Because trekkies alone could have gotten them a bigger box office revenue then they got. Especially considering this was the death of Leonard Nimoy. Trekkies would have gone to see the film like five times for that alone. Paramount screwed the pooch as per usual.
Paging Lieutenant Arex to the Bridge!
Someone write the excellent Kelvin cast a good TOS movie script!!! Call in Nick Meyer and redo the movie era.
By the way, what happened to Nick Meyer and his proposed Khan-Mini-series?
Buried alive?
Like the Captain Worf proposal, they exist only in the fertile imaginations of their creators.
don’t trash the enterprise again, simon
less ‘pew pew’, more exploration, simon
Kelvin Trek is designed for general audiences more than it is Trek fans. So sadly that means more pew pew and less exploration.
that could change with the success of recent, more thoughtful SF films
I’m ok with no Trek movie at this point. We now have 5 Trek shows and more on the way. Unless something new is being done in the movies, I’m just not excited for a Trek film right now. But I will wait and see.
The funny thing is I’m in the same boat. I do want another movie, but it’s not a priority anymore either. I’m much more happier we have multiple shows on again and a new episode every week for probably several years to come. I really can’t ask for anymore than that.
But if this elusive 14th film ever get off the ground, great. If not, not losing any sleep over it.
I know this isn’t a popular op around here but if there was never another kelvin movie I would be just fine with it. I’ve never really agreed with people who profess “this isn’t Star Trek” but in this case it just really didn’t feel like it to me, outside of Leonard Nimoy, who is gone now.
I liked the Kelvin movies which is strange because all I have heard and mostly from younger fans that the Kelvin movies are not “Trek”. I am 72 and have been a Star Trek fan since the first episode so it just seems strange to me that if I as an original fan can accept Kelvin Trek as “Trek”, then why do younger fans keep making these non inclusive statements.
I certainly respect your opinion. All I can say is that ViacomCBS decides what is and what is not “trek” so by that definition you are right, this is Trek.
The reason I feel the way I do is because Star Trek 2009, while a fun movie, resembled Star Wars a New Hope more than it did Star Trek. Chris Pine based his performance on Harrison Ford rather than William Shatner. Nothing about that movie, outside of Leonard Nimoy, was inspired by Star Trek.
It was still different enough. You want a movie that nearly copies Star Wars 1977 beat for beat, its Force Awakens. Rey doesn’t use the force to destroy Starkiller base, but its basically the same movie.
Its even more insulting that Rise of Skywalker is also a remake of Return of the Jedi in a lot of ways.
It was different enough, sure. But there shouldn’t have been any similarities at all. Star Trek and Star Wars are night and day different. The reason I maintain Kelvin Trek isn’t real Trek is because it wasn’t meant to be. That was the whole point of putting it in a different universe. To give it the look and feel and brand of Trek but to let the studio and producers do whatever they wanted with it. And apparently what JJ Abrams wanted was his own version of Star Wars because he was a Star Wars fan and not a Star Trek fan.
But I agree with you about Force Awakens being a beat for beat copy of ANH. Ditto with Rise of Skywalker and RotJ.
JJ Abrams did some great stuff on TV but in the movies he doesn’t seem to have an original bone in his body. And now they’ve actually given him Superman.
I know. The opening to Into Darkness is copying Raiders of the Lost Ark, the movie of course is a sort of but not remake of the Wrath of Khan. JJ is the remaker/remixer of properties. Other than Felicity i don’t think he has ever done anything original maybe regarding henry.
I don’t mean to keep harping on this, but I don’t understand why he is hollywood’s current go to director these days when it’s so obvious what many of us so can so plainly see. If there is one IP I love as much as Star Trek its Superman and now he’s going to get control of that too.
Just an observation, but are any of the writers for movies or TV capable of writing or developing original scripts. How many movies made previously are being remade. How many TV series are being rebooted. Enough is enough. Try getting a new idea and not repeating the same.
I think you are basing your opinion on the attributes and persona of Shatner’s Kirk at a more mature age than Pine’s Kirk at a much younger, foolish and brash Kirk. Also the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the Kelvin and the loss of his father in no way resembles the circumstances of Shatner’s Kirk. If you remember Spock references the fact that in Shatner’s timeline, Kirk’s father saw him graduate and assume command of the Enterprise in the normal way. Have you read anywhere(and I am not being sarcastic) that Pine based his performance on Harrison Ford. Shatner was my least favorite character on the original series because he exhibited the characteristics on which that you say Pine based his performance. We will never know how Shatner would have played his younger self. Who knows, he could have played it the same way that Pine did.
Can they hire a good writer and director without sabotaging everything in the 11th hour because the script is too Star Trekkie. They wanted Guardians of the Galaxy and Fast and the Furious in Space.
Its the meddling and lack of faith in Star Trek 3 that led to this point. With all the scripts and directors that have slipped through their hands i have zero faith in Paramount to get a Star Trek movie made.
i wanted to see that Orci ST3 more than anything. Shatner coming back as Kirk. time travel/timelines/battle for the timeline. Cranston as the villian. Carol Marcus back. it sounded fantastic. and they just took it away in favour of what we got with Beyond.
I would never turn down a chance to see Shatner back on the big screen again. But I lost all faith in Orci after Star Trek Into Darkness. There have been 13 Star Trek movies and as far as I am concerned that one was the worst by lightyears.
He wrote the most ‘Star Trek’ Star Trek since Star Trek 6. I would love for him to take another crack at it. Beyond was the best Kelvin movie and one of the best ST films to date. He got the relationships and what we are supposed to be doing out there, while also making it a great action piece.
I‘d love to see another Kelvin film, if he’s writing or at least co-writing it. Also I wouldn’t mind getting Justin Lin back since I really liked look he achieved especially for the space shots.
If they need to slash the budget, I’d even be okay with them cutting Quinto and Pine from the movie. They’re great in their roles but having a Trek Movie in what is pretty much the TOS era without Kirk and Spock could be interesting.
Having the people behind Wanda Vision and Captain Marvel at the helm, doesn’t inspire confidence in me. While Wanda Vision started off strong, it became clear pretty fast, that there wasn’t really a good idea behind it that went beyond what’s little more than a pitch. And Captain Marvel was probably the blandest and most uninspired script in the whole MCU (which is saying something).