The future of the Star Trek film franchise continues to be in flux following the unsurprising news that Paramount has now taken the movie planned for next year off of their release calendar.
The saga of the next movie continues
Paramount Pictures has now removed the Star Trek film set for release on December 22, 2023. The news first came from the trades, with Variety noting the move was “inevitable” following the news from last month of director Matt Shakman exiting the project.
After Shakman left the project, producer JJ Abrams and Paramount were reported to have started a hunt for a new director. There are no details on the current status of the project and no new statement from Paramount today. Last month following Shakman’s exit the studio did issue a statement that said (in part), Paramount was “excited about the creative vision of this next chapter and look forward to bringing it to audiences all around the world.”
This Star Trek project was already delayed once before with Paramount previously setting a June 2023 release. The film appeared to have momentum in February of this year when producer JJ Abrams announced plans to move forward with another film in the Kelvin Universe era with hopes for production to begin this fall. While Chris Pine and other stars have all expressed their interest in doing a fourth film, they also expressed skepticism it could move ahead that quickly. Earlier this month Pine was still talking about how he would like to see the script.
This is a developing story. TrekMovie will provide updates as they become available.
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lower case “surprise.”
Maybe they ought to try what Brian DePalma did around 1977 or 78. A magazine, I think it was FILMMAKER’S NEWSLETTER, had a ‘write a screenplay for Brian DePalma’ contest, where you took the premise of what would become BLOWOUT and write the first 10 pages. I don’t know if there was a ‘winner’ but I remember a lot of people were saying they would throw their hats into that ring.
I’m so happy that Craig is gone from Bond that my old creativity kind of exploded, and I actually have written what to my eyes is a pretty sensational pre-title sequence to intro a new Bond. There’s not a chance in hell of anybody doing anything with it, as I specifically set it around 1980. It’s kind of my take on how Bond could have gone forward if Dalton had come on instead of Moore for FYEO, very spy-vs-spy. It opens with a billboard sign (written in German) saying SEE BERLIN FROM THE AIR …
Having said that, I have absolutely no good ideas about how to make a Kelvin Trek movie.
Don’t feel too bad…apparently neither does Paramount. ;)
AMEN!
Paramount and Secret Hideout. Star Trek is currently in pretty bad hands. Now more than ever I buy into my belief that no Star Trek is better than bad Star Trek.
Disagree because no Star Trek no one wins. Bad Star Trek (to you) may still have dans and people who love it. Just don’t watch if you don’t like it and then you’ll have no Star Trek. It’s really that easy.
Dude, I love how you made this about Bond…well played!
Nope, not surprised one bit.
shplendid
The Bond producers have said they’ll get around to casting a new Bond “after a couple of years”. That tells me that they don’t know how to deal with a dead Bond. That franchise isn’t Trek, after all, where characters can be brought back to life on a whim. So they’ve got a problem. And replacing Craig will be a huge challenge. Actors with his gravitas don’t grow on trees (as we’ve discovered with Pine and Quinto).
I saw the bit about them saying they wanted to figure the villain out first, which seemed way off to me, unless they are going to tool a generic Bond story for anybody, a la TLD, but with a better antagonist.
I still think doing a period Bond would be a great way to test a new Bond in what could be considered a one-off. If he hits, then they can either stay period or jump back to now with the same guy, using the same lack of logic that let Judi Dench stay in place like Guinan though her character seemed utterly different between Brosnan and ugh-Craig eras. I’ve longed to see a period 50s MOONRAKER, but am also very into cold-war era 1980 or so.
a 50s or 60s set Bond would be very interesting (with Michael Fassbender).
In my warped fantasy mind I’ve also imagined them doing a 007 ‘Legacy series’ of 4 movies set each decade with CG/deepfake/deaging. Connery in the 60s, Moore 70s, Dalton 80s, Bronson 90s
Fassbender has been my choice for Bond for as long as he has been on my radar, about 15 years (I was more interested in Cavill back when he almost got CR and was the director’s pick, in part because he was young enough to be credible as the bratty Bond in CR — who to me has about the maturity level of Maverick in TG — but also because he hadn’t yet become the musclebound weirdness that came about later on.)
http://blog.trekcore.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/facepalm-deja-q.jpg
Once again, that says it all! No, not a surprise at all. I was suggesting back in July it would be moved and that was WITH a director. Now, who knows?
Pretty ironic since Disney took Star Wars: Rogue One off their schedule a week ago and both films were suppose to open in the same month. At the rate both of these studios are going we will probably see another Star Trek and Star Wars film after the next U.S. Presidential election the earliest.
Party at Phil’s house tonight — I am buying the drinks given how wrong I was.
PS: I do think we will eventually get the movie.
Yes I believe a movie will happen eventually too, I just hope it will be before 2030. If Paramount just too risk averse to making one then give it to someone else to make it or make a much smaller one and put it on Paramount+. Most people will probably just wait to watch it there anyway.
Hey, come on, Paramount. I’m not getting any younger….
Yeah neither any of us lol. I like to see another Trek film before I hit 60.
But you turned out completely right as usual Phil. I’m curious what do you think will happen? Do you think they will eventually get another director and announce a new date or is this one just as dead as the others? I’m leaning to the latter personally; especially since they didn’t make a new date.
Contrary to other commentators, I don’t think this ever got much past a check box on JJ’s “to do” list. Now that Bad Robot is moving ahead with Cloverfield IV with Paramount, Trek XIV is very dead. Moving forward….
Plan A: When a production house steps up and signs on to make a Trek movie somewhere in the 125MM range, then we’ll get a movie. Damned if I know when that might be.
Plan B: Kurtzman does have a ton of Trek infrastructure in place up in Toronto. If someone pens a feature length story in universe for any of the current streaming shows that could be the path of least resistance to get a movie done. That would have to be a stand alone project, though.
I agree with most of that but I’m confused why the movie would be dead just because Abrams is doing Cloverfield IV? It’s JJ Abrams, this guy runs 10 different projects a day. Couldn’t he just do both as a producer like he does with Star Trek and the Mission Impossible movies?
You’re not? At the rate they are going, it will not matter to me in the afterlife. One of the original Stay Trek fans I was.
I think we will eventually get a movie. But honestly I don’t think it will be Kelvin. Honestly that time has long since past.
Hey great to see you here bro!! 😄 It’s weird to talk here and not our usual spot.
But yeah I agree. Like why are they even wasting their time still with JJ verse??? After Beyond tanked they should’ve did something different after that. Instead they keep trying to revive a dead horse.
If they were serious about it they should’ve made it 3 years ago now. Most fans already moved on. Make a cheaper movie with new characters. It’s not going to make a billion dollars no matter what.
There could’ve been a new movie by 2020 with a cheaper cast and geared it to Paramount plus. Instead they will have squandered like 8 or 9 years for a movie series that ran out of gas after 2013. 🙄
I don’t think he’s that wrong though to be honest, at least people who will watch it in the theater. Maybe not ‘most’ but probably more than Paramount would like.
My feeling on it is that the Kelvin movies still have lots of fans BUT not at a level that will drive them to the theater which is a big issue. I remember bringing that up before Beyond came out and I got shouted down a lot lol. Not here, on another board.
But you’re right no one really knows. But again, if Paramount was confident there was a big enough group of fans out there who will see this movie we would’ve had one years ago by now.
There are fans and I am one of them that are not impressed with the Star Trek on Paramount + and I don’t know if a film based on these shows would be successful, A lot of people do not subscribe to streaming channels and would not have any interest. I am a fan but I would not go to a theater to see one based on one of these shows and I am NOT fan of animated Trek or any other superhero movie for that matter. Maybe its a generational thing.
OK fair enough. I do like most of the new shows but I would be lying if I said they compared to most of the old shows, at least so far, but that’s having those other shows for decades now. And stuff like LDS and SNW I like because it at least feels very much like the old shows, SNW especially.
I myself certainly don’t think I speak for all, But you’ve got to remember the times in which we live. It’s true theaters are making a comeback but it takes an MCU movie or Tom Cruise to do it. Unfortunately Trek has neither. Paramount today is in way more of an uphill battle then they were when Beyond came out and Beyond still didn’t perform well,
Given their budget, ST films have to attract more than just hard-core fans. And judging from the Kelvin films’ box office, they haven’t done that very well. Fact is, there really isn’t a very high interest in ST among the general moviegoing public.
Great to see you here too! :).
It’s just IMO Kelvin has too many things going against it. Actors like Pine and Saldana probably cost too much at this point to star in a Trek movie. So much time has past and Trek has reinvented itself, yet again, on TV. We have a new Spock, Uhura, and even Kirk now and introducing a movie with the same characters to general audiences would just confuse things.
It’s honestly my OP that while STID itself performed well, it left bad taste in a lot of fans mouths which contributed to Beyond’s performance and now they have just sat on it too long.
It will be the third cancelled Kelvin movie lol. And the fifth overall. I still think they can at least make one more film but I think it will be time to move on to something new if this movie is cancelled too because they obviously have no faith in the series anymore.
And it’s Star Trek, eventually the franchise just keeps moving along. And it doesn’t mean we’ll never see them again. I think just like every other thing in this franchise the characters can show up in other shows or even films. I don’t think the Kelvin verse is dead because nothing ever really dies in Star Trek. They originally showed up to replace the TNG’s cast in the movies and now all those guys are back lol. You just never know!
Since Lower Decks are doing crossovers with DS9 and SNW, maybe they can do one with the Kelvin characters too!
They can do another holodeck movie parody in season 5 or 6 but this time with the Kelvin characters part of it! Or the Cerritos can end up in JJ verse running into the Enterprise and let the mayhem commence. Maybe Q brought them there!
They can even crack jokes about meeting two different Spocks.. 😂😂
I won’t lie,I would be all for that lol.
It would be fun to see the Kelvin characters in animated LDS form. Or I guess the LDS characters could be in live action like they will be in SNW. But it probably be cheaper to get the Kelvin cast if they were animated. ;D
It would be interesting for sure. Honestly I know this isn’t LDS’ style but I would love to know how the prime universe is even aware of the Kelvin universe. As far as I know they only thing they are aware of till the 32nd century is that Spock is MIA.
The answer is that those reference are canon violating brain-farts they throw in just for laughs. They’ve also had references to Star Trek PRODUCTION things that are outside of canon and in no way are part of Trek’s future history.
So Paramount and McMahan proclaim this series is canon, but then they show us over and over that they don’t really give a shit and don’t take proper responsibility for this series representing some very basic level of consistency regarding the future history of the Star Trek universe.
That’s actually a good point. I don’t think anyone is aware of that universe at that time. And I guess the Cerritos would be breaking canon if they showed up in the Kelvin universe first interacting with those characters.
But it’s all timey-whimey stuff so they can probably get away with it if they get there before Spock does a few years later.
I know for a fact *someday* there will be a new Trek movie. Just not before 2025 and honestly not a Kelvin movie. Just like Trek XIV’s director, you can’t hold on to the cast forever when they are so busy doing other things. Add to that the sad truth that they lost Anton Yelchin. Audiences love SNW where we have a new iteration of Spock, Uhura, and even Kirk.
I don’t think it’s before 2025 either because it seem like they would’ve just push the date another year or something. But if true, it proves it had nothing to do with just losing a director. It’s probably nowhere close to development and for all we know they could’ve tossed the script they had out long ago and either started over or just decided against it completely since no one and I mean no one has ever talked about it. There has been so many red flags with this movie lol.
A Kelvin movie doesn’t make economic sense for Paramount. They tried to reinvent ST as a tentpole franchise, but none of the Kelvin movies made enough at the box office to justify the expense. The only way a ST movie works is if it is modestly budgeted (like the 80’s movies). But I don’t know how you could do that and afford the entire Kelvin cast and have enough money left over for the kind of production values these movies need to have. I suppose one way you could go would be to focus on just Kirk and Spock. As I recall, Philip Kaufman’s 70’s Star Trek script was pretty much a Spock-only affair.
🙈🤦🏽♂️🤦🏼🤦🏽♀️
You would think that the holders of the IP, that spawned the facepalm as a globally understood sign and emoji, would understand when they are doing something that is so utterly facepalmable.
What were they thinking!? At this point, JJ and Kurtzman must be with their palms glued to their faces. :D
I honestly don’t think JJ has much in the game at this point. All indications are that he has moved on from both Paramount and Disney and is with Warner Bros Discovery now.
Bad Robot’s current deal is with Warner Brothers now, no, JJ has nothing going on at Paramount. Nothing new, that is, they are still on the hook for previous obligations.
JJ just announced Cloverfield IV, with Paramount. His agreement with WB’s isn’t exclusive.
That’s only sort of true. Warners basically has to pass on a project in order for Bad Robot to pitch it elsewhere.
Thank you, Tiger2. You have trained us well. You have prepared us to be OK, for expecting this announcement. I will not believe anything until I see a trailer with real footage! LOL :D
LOL, I would love to take credit, but I think most people saw this coming. And Phil has been 100% right since 2017, five straight years now. Now there is a record!
But it was obvious to me once the summer came around and everyone was still talking about the movie like a hypothetical, I knew it was mostly BS. Because they should’ve at least been in pre-production by that time like every Kelvin film before it.. It was no way they were going to stick to the 2023 date after that. I’m not even shocked they didn’t just move to June 2024 or something because it’s obvious they have no real drive to make a movie. Matt Shakman left a month ago, the announcement should’ve been announcing another director.
Just smoke and mirrors. It’s funny, they announced the movie back in February and the only two announcements we got seven months later is losing their director and now being taken off the schedule completely.
If this movie ends up cancelled like the others, I hope they just stop these bizarre announcements until they come up with a new direction they want to go in, even if it takes years to do it.
If they do not make this movie then that is it for me. I am tired of being the mouse tied on a string with Paramount holding the cheese just put of reach and assuring me that someday the cheese will be mine.
Hopefully a film will happen at some point but my guess is you will probably have to rely on the old stuff for at least two more years. And yeah it will probably be longer than that now. I’m guessing 2025 UNLESS they add a 2024 date in the next few months. But its like watching a baseball roll down a big hill at this point, who knows where and when it will finally settle. ;)
Amen!
I do think even in Paramount’s heads they believed the movie was going to move forward, one way or another. But then Paramount was practically gifted a brand new blockbuster IP with Top Gun and honestly I think all their attention is going there now and using tom Cruise as much as they can going forward
Plus, this is turning into a huge budget-baggage thing, a la TOTAL RECALL and the original TREK movie, where you have all the costs of fall starts and pay-or-plays added to the actual budget whenever they do commit to making a film (and, post BATGIRL, commit to releasing said film.) The only reason RECALL got made was because Arnold wanted to do it … otherwise the costs of the Reeve, Cronenberg/Dreyfuss and Swayze/Beresford (I think it was Beresford, am I wrong?) versions would have proved prohibitive.
Development costs on all these post-BEYOND films has to be something substantial by now.
I agree there have to be commitment costs each time they say something is going to happen and then it doesn’t. they can only do this so many times before this has just gone too far. Esp when they don’t need to bring Trek back, they already have it on streaming.
That’s right. Most of TMP’s cost was made up of money spent on all the other proposed ST iterations that led up to it.
Well, no. Only 5 to 7 mil was on the earlier versions, including all the costs of the TV version.
Source for that is the production manager on the film, as quoted in RETURN TO TOMORROW. When he left in August or Sept 78, the budget stood at 37 mil, of which I think he said 7 mil went to earlier costs. Reasonable to expect final product was at least 10 mil higher, given triple time for vfx and sound.
I don’t disagree, why keep hiring writers and directors just to decide you’re not going to do it? There can just be real creative differences of course and maybe why the movie has stalled. But the whole thing is weird because we don’t hear about these ups and downs on their other franchises. We’re all very focused on Star Trek here but we all watch other stuff too. There hasn’t been five separate writers and directors for the next Transfomer movie. Or for A Quiet Place movies. Definitely not the Mission Impossible films. How do all of those manage to get green lights without any huge hassle or turn overs but Star Trek has had the worst development hell in decades?
As for Top Gun, I’m sure they are focused on another movie but that would still be a few years away. Paramount still have to put out other movies although sadly Top Gun Maverick made more than all the Kelvin movies combined and at a cheaper cost. So yeah you could be right.
That’s a good point too. Star Trek is an odd beast. Due to the sci fi nature of the franchise these movies can get pretty expensive if you throw everything at them. But the returns are fleeting. So they just aren’t worth it most of the time for the studios. Movies like TWoK were more like Lightning in a bottle than they were the norm.
Pretty simple, really. Star Trek doesn’t bring in the bucks (or at least, not enough of them).
I get that, I been saying it for years now. My question is KNOWING that, why do they keep hiring writers and directors before they even figure out a budget that they find suitable first?? That is what most films do. They don’t hire the director and have them figure it out for them or after the fact.
I think the key here is whether the film has been greenlit or not. From what I’ve read, it does appear that Shakman’s movie was in development, but it was never greenlit, despite being put on the release calendar (which I suspect was done to gauge interest).
OK I agree with that. I don’t think it was ever truly green lit either. If that was the case they would’ve tried to sign the actors on long ago…or at least called them lol.
Rogue Squadron is most likely cancelled. They just say its shelved like those Rian Johnson movies. Lucasfilm has no movie coming out except for Indiana Jones V next year. Even the planned sequels to Willow which were mulled over when Lucas was still at Lucasfilm became a tv series.
Exactly. In a world where even Star Wars has issues pushing movies out, Star Trek doesn’t have much hope sadly.
Yeah that’s what I’m thinking too and wouldn’t be surprised same situation is happening here since they don’t seem to be in a rush to do anything with this movie lol.
It will be time for a reboot of the Kelvinverse, since will likely be 10 years since Beyond before the next film is released!
Yet TMP came out 10 years after the last season of TOS.
Whoops! Lol :-))
That’s apples and oranges. The Kelvin crew are not TOS. The entire reason it’s constantly delayed because there is zero hype for the Kelvin movies and they know it. If this movie is cancelled, a reboot is probably the next step, but I really really hope not, at least not another TOS one.
Actually, no, given the relative ages would be about the same from the earlier series/first set of movies to the later movies/TMP.
There is no reason why they could not do a soft reboot like TMP did for TOS given it would be 10 years later. Kirk is an admiral, the ship has had it’s retrofit, and the Klingon’s look different again (lol), etc. etc.
I don’t mean in terms of story lol. I mean no one will probably care about these movies in another few years EXCEPT people on these boards. People were begging for a TOS movie at the time because they were desperate for more Star Trek with nothing on the air. This is the total opposite issue.
I would argue that ST was at the height of its pop culture relevance in the mid-to-late 70’s so there really was some general interest in TMP.
I fully agree. But it was also just one cast that made up the entire Star Trek universe back then. That’s obviously not the case today and why the Kelvin movies have a bigger climb.
And it’s hard to justify $150 million budgets if you know most of the audience would rather stay home to watch PIC and SNW and just wait for the movie to hit streaming.
It’s a very very different world versus 2009.
All very true.
Of course true. But it took the success of Star Wars to make that happen. These days even Star Wars seems to have issues getting a movie off the ground. In both cases, “JJ”
Exactly. Even Star Wars can’t get a movie off the ground these days. I think both the gift and the curse is streaming. The studios thinks its too risky to put another movie right now but will shove in ten new shows because they are cheaper and the streaming services are the priority for them.
It’s so weird because MCU keep throwing on shows too but their movie slate is still as busy as ever. I guess someone decided Star Trek and Star Wars still has more of a ceiling and MCU will thrive no matter how much you throw at it. At least for now.
actually it been natural for the SW movies to take a break after a trilogy and use the tv shows to keep people interested while new films are in development
Yeah but that’s not what is happening because they have announced multiple films that were suppose to be in development NOW like the Rogue Squadron movie and a movie by Taika Watiti. Both of those were announced to come out next year and then both just quietly disappeared. Then you have the long in development Ryan Johnson trilogy which he keeps saying is still being developed but when are they announcing it?? That’s been 5 years now. Then there was the movie by Kevin Feige. They haven’t said anything when its coming but it probably has the same chances of happening as all of these at this point.
It’s no different than what is happening with Trek, they seem afraid to put out another film and just stick to the shows. They keep announcing movies, two of them had openings for 2023 and then just fade into nothingness. They can all happen but it won’t be 2023. ;)
100% with streaming. The gift is, as we are being told we are seeing with Picard season 3, is you can put out movie quality content for the small screen AND charge for it and not have to solely rely on ad revenue. Honestly streaming is the perfect medium for Trek even beyond TV because even though Trek thrived on TV it could never withstand nielsons ratings. The only Trek show to have done that was Voyager and that’s because that show and Next Top Model were all UPN had.
It’s still funny to think how ANGRY many people were when it was announced Discovery was going to be on a streaming site. My guess, and I could be wrong. if Discovery landed on CBS or FOX, it would’ve been gone in a few seasons due to its cost and the higher competition. And I bet that’s how the executives at CBS felt too because they had a decade to put something on a network and never did. But we got 5 CSI shows and 4 or 5 NCIS shows, I literally don’t know how many there been lol.
But on streaming, Star Trek is thriving. We can argue how much it is and probably not compared to the Star Wars or MCU shows but it doesn’t matter, as long as they do well enough on P+. I don’t think it will stay that way forever, but I think it can go at least another decade until it needs a break of some kind. Or the shows are just beyond awful. ;)
Before Supergirl was a CW show it’s first season was on CBS. It couldn’t survive their either. And FOX is well known for cancelling SciFi before it’s time Honestly the only network Trek might have survived on is CW and that’s the network that famously rejected enterprise when the UPN/WB merger happened.
And yeah people exaggerate the “cost” of watching Trek. I mean like $10/mo or something? Is that really a huge deal for the content you are getting?
They should’ve rebooted it in 2017 after Beyond was DOA and made another movie with a new cast in the prime universe again. 😎
JJ verse was fine when there was no new Trek in the prime universe. But most fans don’t really care about it because TOS, TNG and all the old shows people been watching for 40 years was in that universe.
JJ verse had it’s time but many fans were already moving on by Beyond and newbies mostly stopped caring way before then anyway.
Most fans seem more interested in staying home watching old TOS, TNG or VOY episodes for the 50th time instead of another loud empty big CGI action movie with another supervillain threatening to take down the Federation against fratboy Kirk and the rest of his fraternity on the U.S.S Apple store for reasons.
And now we got new stuff again with Picard, Spock, Seven, Pike, Riker and Janeway we can watch at home. The movies were already losing money when they were the only things around. I don’t think it’s going to suddenly get more people to care now. And probably why Paramount keep cancelling them. They love making money, not losing it. 😂😂
Just being honest! 👍🖖
I actually don’t disagree with this at all (although I would say it more nicely lol). I think that is a big problem, that the fanbase is obviously geared to the stuff they know and grew up with. It’s why so many of the ‘new’ shows have so many legacy characters now because nostalgia wins out 99% of the time over something new.
BUT, one thing I think a lot of people forget is that the Kelvin movies were NOT intended to be for old fans. Sure they expected us to see the movies but that’s was always factored in. And of course they got Nimoy involved (nostalgia ringing in) to tell the old fans it’s ‘OK’ to like this universe. Prime Spock lives there now lol. So they knew they had to get old fans interested and that was the way to do it. But the point was to build a base of new fans and ultimately they would see the Kelvin universe the same way most old fans see the old universe. That they grow up watching these movies and I guess, maybe at some point, a new show or two. But it would be theirs.
That was the entire point of starting with a clean slate in a new universe and with the original characters. They wanted new people to see that universe being built from scratch and not one already so lived in with the prime universe with 700 hours and 3 centuries of shows.
The prime universe was NEVER going away that a lot of fans back then kept assuming which was odd. Paramount didn’t own the Prime universe, CBS did. CBS didn’t care one iota about the Kelvin universe. All the real money was still in the prime universe. There was always going to be more shows and maybe films in prime universe for old fans. They were just going to exist side by side like a lot of the other franchises.
But the problem was Les Moonves wasn’t dying to make another show anytime soon because CBS wasn’t known for sci fi. But eventually one would’ve been made. But fans only had those movies (and the 700 hours of old content lol) for now. And because they were taking so long getting the Kelvin movies out, the new fans the movies were being made for just didn’t connect to the movies like they wanted. It was never enough of them at the start and many stopped caring when the sequels came because younger fans were getting sequels at a much faster clip in the other franchises like Harry Potter, Marvel, Twilight, etc than what they were doing with the Kelvin stuff.
So by the time Beyond showed up, new fans mostly lost interest as you said but old fans just wanted Trek on TV again and the movies just didn’t have the same level of hype just a few year ago because again it was never made for old fans the way it was made for new ones.
Six years later, old fans now have more shows than they know what to do with in the prime universe (even with mixed results…but that’s not a new thing ;)) and a movie series that never hit the popularity Paramount was hoping with a new base of fans. And my guess why they are so reluctant to make another.
And I do think if it’s cancelled (again) the next movie will probably be geared to old fans again like the TOS and TNG films and more modest budget.
Great summation of the whole Kelvin saga. reading it brought back memories of the past decade, ‘not your fathers star trek’, the issues with the merchandise, the discarded kelvin novels etc. It also explains why we never got the Orci/Shatner ST3, a film that would have undoubtedly looked to the past of ‘old’ Prime Trek (for the anniversary) and not enough to the ‘new’ Kelvin Trek. Ironically had it been made it may well have broken 400m (enough for more movies) due to the nostalgia of having Shatner and the primeverse involved (like Nimoy and the primeverse links in the first 2 films), unlike Beyonds wacky plot centred completely on the new ‘kelvin-verse’ (except the last 5 minutes of quick show a photo of the old cast for the anniversary to keep those old fans happy in their basements lol)
Yeah this is a good summation. I know the movies were made with new fans in mind but they kept saying the movies were canon to the old universe too and so people like me thought the movies would still feel like old Star Trek, at least a little more.
And I thought the old universe was gone forever because people kept saying this universe overwritten the old one which didn’t bother me that much because I had my DVDs of TNG, DS9 and Voyager. At the time that’s all I cared about anyway. 😎
But I was hoping to really like the movies. And since I was never a huge TOS fan (but love the movies) I could just watch those instead. But that idea died fast because TOS was made by people with brains and real storytelling.
JJ seem to think you have to dumb things way down I guess or make it more like Star Wars than Star Trek so teenagers would think it’s cool to watch. It’s like teenagers were running that ship too.
I think these movies are pretty dumb…pretty but dumb! 😂
I thought this was going to be the only Star Trek for the next 20 years lol. I thought they would make JJ verse TV shows with more people empty action every episode. It even depressed me. I would’ve watched but I wanted the prime universe again. And like you said another show.
So I was happy when they announced Discovery. I didn’t like going backwards again. I wanted to go forward post Nemesis like most people. I just wanted to be in the TNG era again. But I thought they would make one later and they did. They made 3 in this era so I’m cool.
But I was just happy to be in the prime universe again. Discovery is not great at all but it’s much closer to old Star Trek than JJ verse IMO. I used to hate Enterprise but after watching JJ verse I gave it another chance and grew to like it a lot. So I can think JJ verse for that too. 🤣🤣🤣
I know people love these new movies but like you said people aren’t attached to them like the old stuff. I had 3 friends who never watched Star Trek before and they all love the first movie. But by the time STID came none of them cared anymore. Because to me these movies are like junk food. Really good when you eat it but empty calories. Something you like eating for the moment but it doesn’t really stay with you like a lot of these big CGI movies. And for most new fans it’s something they watched at the time but moved on.
I think more old fans care about these movies now because it’s still Star Trek and they are fun movies. And yeah Prime Spock is there too. 🤣
All great points! And I remember the hilarious story you told me about your friend who watched the 2009 movie and loved it so much wanted to watch other Star Trek because of it…but didn’t go to well. ;D
And my guess if things went the way Paramount was hoping with these movies, we would’ve had 20 years of the Kelvin universe easily. There probably wasn’t some long term plan but since they went out of their way to create an entire universe and was cut off from merchandise for the prime universe, I’m sure Paramount was thinking a long game and the Kelvin universe would be a long term franchise they would just keep building on like the Prime universe today.
I would love to hear what Orci had in mind personally once the first movie was deemed a hit. But I think Paramount probably hoped for spin off movies in the future and probably a few TV shows down the line to tie people over between films. Since the point was to get new fans they probably wanted a whole new line of merchandising that would get those fans into buying Star Trek toys, comics, video games etc like the old stuff.
But the Prime universe would’ve still been making their own shows regardless. That was never in any doubt. And it’s no WAY CBS would’ve allowed to have a studio they are licensing their IP to just wipe out 40 years of shows and movies for a new movie series that could bomb out the gate lol. And why in Kahless name would CBS be OK with a clean wipe of something that was still bringing them in billions of dollars with merchandising, streaming rights, Blu ray sells and on and on?
So many people did argue this though, for years in fact although anyone with a brain would tell them to take a step back and ask themselves who would be crazy enough to declare 700 hours of Star Trek as non-existent in canon (well Enterprise funny enough would’ve survived) when you still have MILLIONS of fans buying DVDs/Blu Rays every year and watching it in repeats on TV and streaming? You’re not going to keep them on your good side if the universe they have invested with both time and money for decades no longer existed so a 3 year old cadet turned captain can make a few movies. Never was going to fly. And yet those arguments persisted for years. People really thought because Enterprise was prematurely cancelled and Nemesis bombed that the entire fanbase was just ready to move on from all of forgetting that other shows have been cancelled and other movies bombed in the past (oddly both surrounding TOS) and the franchise still kept going anyway. Just beyond short sighted and myopic.
And that was made very clear the day it was reported Abrams went to CBS and wanted them to stop merchandising the old characters so his could be the new merchandising arm. Well thank Kahless CBS shot that down because Kelvin dried up completely by the time Beyond arrived and it was the real sign these movies were not going in the direction the studio was hoping for.
So yeah although I don’t think the Kelvin movies did what they hoped I still think it’s great to see Star Trek expanded. NOT replaced…expanded as it should be. And unlike you I do enjoy the movies. Yes they are definitely dumb down but to be fair all the films were IMO WHEN compared to the shows with the exception of TMP. But I do agree the Kelvin movies were more so (see cadet turned captain after being in space for 3 days as an example ;)). But they are still fun distractions for me overall and captured the spirit of TOS IMO.
But if the movie is cancelled, I am hoping they move on to something COMPLETELY new now! Could still be in the Kelvin universe (but I am guessing it will probably go back to the prime universe, but fine either way). Just no more TOS reboots. Be creative for a change. ;)
First of all, I am probably one of the oldest fans still alive and watching Trek. I liked the Kelvin movies but I DO NOT LIKE the current streaming shows so please stop saying that the Kelvin movies were to reach new fans only. Star Trek was divided into the movie division and the television division and the rights to each owned separately. I do not know how much they would have been per
Sorry my computer is messing up again and decided to post in the middle of my typing and then would not let me edit. It is a love/hate relationship. To continue with what I was saying. I do not know how much of the Prime universe Paramount could have used without creating a new timeline due to infringement issues. I personally feel like this more than a desire to appeal to younger fans was the motivating factor. I remember reading an article in which the explanation for the difference in appearance of some items between Prime and Kelvin universes was due to the ownership issues and they could not use the exact same image.—–Finally finished—That was exhausting—new computer problem—cursor will not hold at end of typing—keeps jumping to previously typed sentences. As I said, I have a love/hate relationship with it.
Lynn we’re just talking in general, not directly to any one person. And I didn’t say ONLY to new fans, I said mainly to them, ie, they were the bigger priority over old fans, which was a first in the franchise. And that’s because Paramount wanted the films to compete internationally and where Star Trek has always been the most dismal, especially non-English speaking countries. That’s why there was such a big push for action and spectacle because obviously that’s what usually does well and less translation issues.
But as I said, if they didn’t care about old fans at all, they wouldn’t have went to the convoluted premise of Prime Spock time traveling to a new universe and all of that. That was obviously to get the old fans onboard. But the movies needed an huge influx of new viewers, especially if you were trying to make $500+ million films. It’s no way enough old fans alone would get to that kind of box office. Beyond proved that.
I even remember JJ saying this isn’t your father’s Star Trek. In fact I think that’s the main reason why ST ’09 was simply titled “Star Trek”. We’re actually lucky they adjusted the story so that ’09 was not technically a reboot of the franchise but an alternate universe. IMO that was the best decision they could have made. I just wish they left Nimoy out of it because it kills me that Spock died in that Universe.
I don’t know where to jump in but I think that because of the way they handled Romulans in Picard shows that the Kelvin Universe is actually with us in a big way. That’s why I hate JJ. He destroyed Romulus and Vulcan. Trite!
Yes, Picard doubled down on Kelvin because it says the events of ST ’09 did happen, Romulus was destroyed, but more importantly, it says the Prime universe survived and wasn’t wiped out like so many have claimed for a decade.
But what happened after that was really on Kurtzman and co. Sure, Romulus was destroyed. Bad things happened. But the Federation and Starfleet and the Empire didn’t need to be in such a dark state as it was in PIC S1 just because of ST ’09. They took what Kelvin said and like I said before doubled down and made it twice as bad.
It’s hilarious how you and others always say nobody cares about the JJ movies, yet every time there’s an article here on Trekmovie and other sites the number of responses go off the roof. For example, I’m seeing a lot more comments here than for the article here on the latest lower decks episode. Whoops…lol
That’s not a really a shock, it’s kind of a thing for people to discuss a movie that’s been on and off for six years now lol. Star Trek 4 is literally the oldest project in development right now. It’s older than all the new shows today and sadly here we still are today. And a lot of people probably are not bothered by another movie, hence why Paramount is not bothered to make one. We’ll never really know but I will say it’s definitely divided in the fanbase and been so since 2009. After STID, it only got worse lol.
I personally like the movies, but I been wanting them to move on to something else for years now. I just think they had their time if it’s THIS hard to get another one going.
There is also an element of ‘The Dark Knight trilogy’ to the Kelvin films.. A self contained alt universe trilogy separate to the now thriving main ‘Prime verse’..(and belonging to the distant past of the pre stream/covid last decade(s) when Star Wars was a huge deal in cinemas!) .. A 4th movie coming 7-8 years on kind of feels like uh? why? especially when we’ve seen stuff like Batman get rebooted after about 4 years (then again we are now living in ‘legacy sequel’ era so maybe it will still get made lol)
Agreed! I think it’s hard to keep people interested in these movies when you have the prime universe back with many of your favorite characters you grew up with and with canon that they been invested for decades versus a few side movies in an alternate universe that hasn’t had a movie in over 7 years. For people who legitimately love these movies and characters obviously they will still be invested. But for everyone else, it’s probably a big shrug at this point and where the issue lies.
And a lot of people watched them at the time because it was the only Star Trek around. They didn’t care about the universe, they just wanted Star Trek in any form again.
Batman is different because yeah that character gets rebooted every decade lol. The Kelvin movies were really the first for Star Trek and kind of a mixed bag for long time fans who still wanted the original characters and universe again. Nostalgia is really powerful, especially in Star Trek.
I’ll admit to being a but surprised about this. The week before last, a friend at the studio assured me the film was still coming next year and that an official announcement was imminent. I’d called her about it because I was starting to have my doubts, given rumors I’d been hearing in private chats while trying to line up set or atmosphere work. She admitted there were mixed signals on the studio end, but said she was confident good news was coming soon. So now I’m curious what she meant, as it looks like no news is coming at all.
Hmm. Perhaps they just removed it from the release calendar given a new announcement with details, including a later release date, is imminent — would that fit with your studio friend’s info? Or does this mean it is temporarily dead?
JJ announced his next project with Paramount a few days ago. Cloverfield IV. So, there’s no script, director, cast, and now, no production house. Trek XIV is dead for the time being.
The fact they didn’t even bother to move it to another date like they did the first time they moved it is a bad sign. Maybe they decided to just cancel it and give the money to convince Tom Cruise to make another Top Gun movie instead. I certainly couldn’t blame them. ;)
I don’t want another Top Gun movie because it’s going to disappoint given Maverick is probably the best movie sequel ever made, or at the very least is up there with ESB, Lethal Weapon II, Terminator II, From Russia with Love, Aliens and Godfather Part II. It’s basically a perfect movie in my book.
I was mostly joking but the movie made $1.4 billion, so of course Paramount wants it lol. It’s the biggest movie in the studios history. They probably want 3!
True, they’d be crazy not to want another one.
Lets face it, Cruise has had a good run with Paramount. There are two more Mission Impossible movies in the pipe, likely another 1.5 billion in revenue between the two. Maybe it’s time to let Cruise have a look at Trek, if he’s inclined….
If Tom Cruise said he wanted to do a Star Trek movie, it would be financed tomorrow. That’s what these movies could use, real star power. And they would probably take another chance with a $200 million budget.
I joked that maybe his buddies Pegg and Abrams can talk him into doing one, but this series been on life support for so long now, it may need someone with his clout to roll the dice.
And for an extra bonus, you get McQuarrie to write and direct, the movie just markets itself that the Mission Impossible team is making a Star Trek movie. A few years ago he even said he wanted to direct a Star Trek film And its currently wiiiiide open!
Cruise as Captain of the Excelsior (kelvin) searching for the ‘original cast’ JJ crew who mysteriously disappeared on the Enterprise 6years ago..leaving only rumours and speculation on where they went. on the way he encounters and battles with Romulans, Klingons, Gorn, the Doomsday Machine and Lazarus before finally locating an alternate dimension wormhole leading to the Prime-verse.. where he encounters the ‘original’ original cast!
I think George Takei would go nuts if that happened. And not in a good way.
Takei can play Christian Slaters role 😄
Not sure what you’re drinking there. Why aren’t you sharing? :-)
I gave up drinking in 2013 but rereading my Cruise Trek pitch I realise got certain stuff wrong/spice it up so offer a quick rewrite :
Cruise as Captain Styles of the Excelsior (kelvin) searching for the ‘original cast’ JJ crew who mysteriously disappeared on the Enterprise-A 8 years ago..leaving only rumours and speculation on where they went. on the way he encounters Kirks father (who joins the crew for the movie), violent colourful metaphor space gangsters (from Piece of the Action) and a deadly space pandemic before battling Khan (Cumberbatch) who has opened an alternate dimension portal to the Prime-verse.. where he finds the JJ cast, along with the TOS cast (deepfake TWOK era), and TNG cast, all engaged in an epic battle with OG Khan (deepfake Montalban), Kruge (Lloyd), Soran (McDowell), Shinzon (Hardy) and Nero (Bana) ..
What does Xenu need with a starship? ;)
Sorry but given the money that movie made, as long as Cruise is on board, a 3rd movie is all but assured.
The Dark Knight?
I liked Maverick, but… no.
Off the top of my head…
The Godfather, Part II
The Empire Strikes Back
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
The Dark Knight
Avengers: Endgame
Spider-Man: No Way Home
It would make sense. I love Trek forever and I couldn’t care less about Top Gun but Trek is never going to pull in the money Maverick did, Heck even Disney is jealous of that Top Gun money,
I don’t think anyone including Paramount or Cruise thought Top Gun would do what it did. Even I thought it was going to do $500-600 million tops lol. But even if it just made $600 million, it still would’ve been 3 times what it cost to make which would’ve been considered huge, especially right now. To do what it ended up doing is astronomical.
Top Gun is one of those rare Hollywood stories where it just takes everyone by surprise. The last time Paramount had something like that was Titanic. They have other big movies like Mission Impossible and Transformers but all those movies are expected to make the money they do, not a 35 year old sequel.
I don’t think they knew quite how well it would do either, but I think they at least had an inkling. Top Gun 2 has been ready for theaters for years. While even juggernauts like the MCU were releasing movies in theaters during the height of COVID, Paramount made the (rare) wise choice to hold on to TG2 and not release it till things calmed down a little.
That’s mostly true but from what I read it was mostly Tom Cruise himself who kept pushing them to keep the movie in theater. I read that they tried to push for the movie to just go straight to Paramount+ but Cruise kept saying no. They tried to compromise later with putting the movie in theaters for 45 days and then Paramount+ and he still said no. Then It was 60 days and he stayed firm.
Nearly 5 months later and it’s still not on P+ lol. I’m sure everyone is very very happy they listened to that guy. They probably would’ve been out a billion dollars if it just went to P+ a year ago.
The fact that Top Gun Maverick came out so many years after the first movie kind of speaks against your argument that it’s been too long since Star Trek Beyond for a sequel to work. Maybe Paramount should wait another 25 years before bringing back Chris Pine and co ;-)
No it doesn’t. The original Top Gun is considered iconic! It was responsible for the biggest Navy recruitment upswing in history. It was the biggest movie of the year when it came out and was Paramount’s top movie for several years after that. It made $357 million in 1986 on a $15 million budget. If you adjust it for inflation, it’s close to a billion dollars in B.O. today which means it was Tom Cruise biggest film of his career UNTIL Top Gun Maverick showed up. And it still beat Beyond in 1986 BO dollars lol.
It’s the movie that gave Tom Cruise the career he has now. Paramount has been begging for a Top Gun movie for decades, it was just Tom Cruise himself that didn’t want to do it, not Paramount. If it was up to them, they would probably be on Top Gun 8 by now.
Star Trek Beyond is just another Star Trek movie in a long line of them regardless how people feel about it personally. They will move on to other films and actors as they been doing since TMP. And it bombed man. Top Gun…didn’t bomb. It did the opposite of bombing. That’s the reason why we’re talking about yet another cancelled movie. Paramount is the one who doesn’t want to make it, not the actors. Apples and oranges dude.
And I NEVER said another movie can’t make money now, it’s just a bigger risk because once again the last movie BOMBED and unlike Top Gun, there are multiple Star Trek shows currently on now which means its competing with itself. Paramount also seems to think its a risk, right?
Ok, honestly? Even if the director didn’t leave this is not shocking at all, Trek is thriving on streaming and it has always been best on the small screen. The Kelvin movies had their trilogy of movies and most of the cast are too expensive now for a franchise that frankly can’t afford them. Just let it be and move on. If you want to do a movie, do that Prodigy movie Kurtzman hinted about and try to get your own Spiderman into the Spiderverse Trek equivalent.
Since JJ started the reboot, why doesn’t he just take over that his work with Star Wars is done. Yeah, yeah, that trilogy wasn’t so great but it made billions. Just don’t go back to the previous movies and tv series and try to springboard a new movie off of another character/episode like (Khan/TWOK/Into Darkness). One would’ve thought that they had some plan in place for multiple movies beyond the first one. The Beyond movie was too soon with the story treating them like veterans when Inside Darkness was just the beginning of the 5 year vision. The Kelvin group had not even just one adventure and the following have them ‘reminisce.’
I say go to the news or recent history or even projected near future, take some contemporary topic and work it into a Trek story line. I wouldn’t go campy like saving the whales in IV. TOS was great at episodes touching on rascism, sexism, world war and even religion.
So..JJ as the current feature producer, hire yourself some new writers (okay get Meyer involved for those literary references..but no quoting them in the heat of battle, please), lock yourselves in a room with 3 white boards and start on some jotting down elevant contemporary topics..global warming (in the future..maybe a sector warming caused by warp drive vehicles damaging the fabric of space), the current political divide…then try to Trek-ify that topic and fill in the characters and alien involvement.
It has nothing to do with the director and everything to do with $$$$$$. These movies have not earned what the studio was hoping for and the last one BOMBED!
And I find this funny people keep suggesting Abrams, the guy who went over budget with STID by $30 million.
My guess is they want to make a MUCH cheaper film but if you’re paying huge salaries on your actors and now Abrams who is probably really costly now since his last film made a billion dollars, it’s probably not realistic. If Star Trek movies could make a billion dollars, we would’ve probably had two more by now.
IDK. Its just that whatever plans Paramount had in doing the next movie with different directors and a famous one (Tarantino) have all panned out. Go back to what worked the best with Kelvin and thats JJ. You have a point in that he may be too expensive, but if he has a good story pitch, Paramount could just say we’ll give you $ at the end after it hits that $500 M mark. :)
With movie prices in IMAX @ $22, I wouldn’t see a low production Trek movie until it hit Paramount Plus and I can enjoy whatever other TV Trek shows are in production for my $9/mo. Give me my $200M big budget spectacle..okay.. $150M but no lower that pays for some decent production value and visual fx sequences :) And release the movie when there’s no competition like Avatar 3, a Marvel movie (insert name here) or Tom Cruise movie, then there’s a chance to maximize its box office.
Two last things..no more Kirk fights where he gets his butt kicked like in all the prior movies. And no more Enterprise is defeated after a short battle. She’s the best ship in the fleet for pete’s sake! :)
Okay, a third thing. Spock and Uhura get married in the next movie. They have a child and its a hybrid baby..and is bullied much like Spock was growing up. There’s a contemporary sub story/reference there much like kids today with school/cyber bullying.
Reading this post is actually why it’s so hard to get another Star Trek movie off the ground. They just face too many conditions the big boys don’t really have to think about.
And since none of the three films even hit $500 million, they probably think the next one won’t get close either. Frankly I think the next movie should have a budget and aim for a $400 million box office take because that’s what these movies average and 2 out of 3 didn’t even make that much. But if it makes more than $400 million then the movies over shot expectations. That’s how they should be playing it. But I think they can’t get it down to a certain cost. But it’s not surprising if you promised Chris Pine $13 million lol. It’s not exactly a shock why these movies keep getting cancelled.
I don’t even blame them for being cautious but STOP announcing these things until you’e really ready to make a damn movie. They are just jerking around their middling fanbase who only gets more and more cynical over it.
Ok, maybe I just do not get actor’s salaries but I would not think that Pine would command that kind of paycheck. He does not seem to be in demand as much as other actors.. He was right after the Star Trek movies came out but not now and it does not appear that his recent movies have been that well received.
There was some article that said he was getting that for Star Trek but who knows if it’s true or not? But I think that’s specifically for Star Trek but he’s never been paid that from the other Trek movies so it would be this one as the first (if it ever happens). You must have an amazing agent to get paid that much although you never opened a big movie on your own.
And if it’s true and they want to pay him that, fine if we still get a film out of it.. But I really think it’s another big reason the movie is still stalled and I don’t mean Pine alone, just the cast salaries in general.
Totally agree. I know he is in the much hyped D&D movie being released in 2023 but only time will tell if that movie is a success. There have been D&D movies made before that were not successful.so its past track record is not good. Only time will tell.
Abrams is not the person who would make the call. This is at the studio end. He has no say in it.
Should have been a cakewalk how do you mess up, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. The characters practically write themselves all you had to do was have the actors be themselves like in the originals. Disney does stupid things sometimes. JJ just brought back the flavor of the original but it was empty imitation. Characters regressed, died for no apparent reason. Acted out of character. It wasn’t Lucas Star Wars. I’m sorry but its not even canon to me. Sure the prequel was bad but somewhat original, the sequel was worse. They did remake sequels, or requels. Last Jedi is the only one that has real character moments for me for Leia and Luke. Its sort of a one off movie for me but at least its enjoyable in parts.
The difference for me between the prequels and the sequels was the execution. The IDEA behind the prequels was actually brilliant. The way Palpatine actually created the separatists and then played both sides to create a war and necessitate the formation of the empire makes the prequels much more of a political thriller than a fantasy trilogy. If you could have just not relied on CGI so much, got rid of Jar Jar and made some other tweaks here and there it could have been great. The sequels OTOH were fundamentally flawed in idea and scope before the cameras ever started rolling.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Fool me once shame on you. Fool me six times….
No one cares about these movies anymore. Paramount knows that but just can’t face reality. It’s become a joke. No one is surprised for a reason.
I say make a Lower Decks or Prodigy movie! They will cost $160 million less too! 😄
Or actually come up with an original idea for a change with a new crew and post Nemesis. Get a big star to lead it like Hugh Jackman! Oh wait, I think that guy will be busy next year!
“No one cares about these movies anymore.”
Entirely untrue. YOU might not care. Many fans do.
Which is why they haven’t gotten another movie for 6 years now! 😂😂😂
I’ll be nice but the reality is everything in Star Trek has fans, but for JJ verse there isn’t enough of them to make any real money anymore…and they know it.
The hype died after STID. Now it’s just the same people watching these movies who watches LDS, DIS, SNW and PIC. Enough fans for streaming to make money, but not for big block buster movies.
Fans (alone) aren’t enough.
LOL I had NO idea Jackman signed on to play Wolverine again in Deadpool 3 until I saw this post and googled! That’s crazy. Maybe Patrick Stewart will play Professor X again??? You can’t rule it out, especially when it comes to Marvel lol.
Just thinking about it but Jackman will probably make two more Deadpool movies by the time Paramount actually makes another Star Trek movie so brother got plenty of time if they ever want him! 🤣🤣🤣
Gotta get Stewart back for Professor X too. Hell maybe he’ll be playing Picard in the next Trek movie too? He’ll probably be 90 by then but if Jean Luc wants to go on one more adventure it can’t hurt. 👍
You think Stewart wants to come back so he can have a 4th death scene? or would it be the 5th?
Stewart has been working in sci fi movies and shows for over 30 years now, he knows the score lol.
If Jackman is coming back then yes I think he would come back again. It’s really hard to say no to MCU money
I saw a video today clarifying from Jackman himself that Wolverine is still dead after Logan, but that took place in 2029, so he (and Professor X) would still just be alive in the Deadpool movie and zero free deaths! So that problem would be solved!
If Jackman is back I’ll fly out to Vegas right now and bet on Stewart’s return. He was only in it for like 2 seconds but he was a highlight in Dr Strange 2
Paramount announced the movie before informing or securing the (very busy) cast so scheduling is likely the biggest challenge facing this film. Lock down the cast, set a start date and then announce the film (and only this film).
JJ is on a bit of a cold streak as of late.
I just can’t imagine what the actor’s agents are saying behind the scenes. This is not like the TOS movie series where there is a built-in fanbase to keep the crew exactly the same, with the same cast. So Paramount was being trying to get a better deal by announcing the cast before they were secured. Probably even worse than that.
Yes it is never a good sign when your own Captain says he has no clue what is going on but you think you have a movie on the schedule.
I like the Kelvin ‘verse quite a bit, but I won’t be at all upset if Paramount just throws in the towel invests those funds into streaming Trek. There are things on the TV side that I’d actively like to see followed up on, whereas the notion of more Kelvin is just kind of a nice abstract idea.
Top Gun Maverick box office as years biggest grossing movie by far means it will still happen for sure with the Kelvin crew! Probably 2024-25 though….!
I think it’s the exact opposite. Top Gun 2 was such a huge hit that now Paramount has their new biggest franchise replacing Trek and that’s where they are going to focus all their budget from now on. The Cruise-verse.
Also, Maverick was cheaper than the Kelvin movies, so was more profitable.
ST IV: Cry Wolf. Paramount, hire Jonathan Frakes please…and keep JJ away.
I agree, re: Frakes. He’s the best man for the job, if there’s ever to be another ST movie.
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
They would never hire Jon Frakes to direct a Star Trek movie again. Paramount doesn’t like money.
PPSSHH Love Frakes but get Nicholas Meyer.
You know, with all the talent on the TV side, talent that has also proven itself in film(looking at Frakes in particular), I don’t know why Paramount is having such a hard time finding someone to direct a Star Trek movie who won’t just jump ship because a mouse waves a fistful of $100 bills at them.
It’s NOT about the director, its much deeper than that. None of the cast has even been signed on yet for a movie they announced seven months ago. Even if they had a director, they still have no cast lol.
And why do think that is? Because they were never that serious to make another movie in the first place. If they were the first thing they would’ve done is get the cast onboard who already starred in three films before you hired anyone else. Those are the people the audience goes to see, everyone else is sadly replaceable.
And they couldn’t even bother to tell them they were in it until after they announced it.
I loved Beyond. If Justin Lin needs more time to recover from Vin Diesel and they can bring him back I’m all for it.
Its worse than that its dead Jim!
(SNW this is your fault lol)
They should just get rid of Abrams and get Kurtzman in. He gets things done and could start merging the film universe and tv-show-universe.
This is making Star Trek history now: the new record for a period without a new movie! The longst hiatus was inbetween NEM and ST09, and that was “only” 6.5 years, with ST09 being shot much earlier but only postponed time and again…
Now we are talking a minimum of 8 years (summer 2024) without a big screen adventure, most likely much more.
This isn’t good but let’s be grateful for all the stuff we get on TV these days. It was far worse the other way round…
Just like the good old (TOS) days!
Actually it’s the opposite because we have waaaaay too much content these days and it’s hard to stand out with jumbo size films when you can watch hours of new shows for just a fraction of the price. When it was just TOS, it was easy to get people motivated for more because there was nothing else around. That and it was only 79 episodes lol.
Now we have 55+ years and 800+ hours of content that grows every week all year long thanks to P+.
Unfortunately for Star Trek our base isn’t the size of MCU. We have a much lower ceiling.
“Unfortunately for Star Trek our base isn’t the size of MCU. We have a much lower ceiling.”
The MCU has no base. It’s a fluke. A giant fluke, much more persistant than expected, but it will fade. Trek will never fade. It may be smaller but it is so much more. The MCU has existed for 14 years now, count the adjecent Spidey and X-Men films and it’s 22 years… Trek will be around long after the Marvel Multiverse has gone dark.
And if judging MCU by the new movies that have come out, they may be in for a surprise. The old MCU was great but from what I have seen and from what comments I have heard from MCU fans, people are not impressed so far with the new MCU.
I wasn’t too impressed with the old one either. Maybe CBMs are just noot my cup of tea. I liked GotG and some visual elements in Thor and Doctor Strange but that’s about it. The TV shows are such a drag. It’s easy to see how those stories could have worked much better as 2-hour movies.
I know it was technically a movie but I thought Black Widow was quite good but I guess that was in the original MCU. I wasn’t impressed with the other streaming shows other than Hawkeye. Everyone raved over Wanda Vision, but I just didn’t like it. In fact and I think I said this before in another link that I stopped watching it after a couple of episodes and it wasn’t until my Grandson told me it got better and basically the plot that i returned to watch it.
The MCU might fade from exhaustion one day. Marvel comics never will. They have been going a lot longer than Star Trek has and DC comics have been going even longer than that.
True. But those are “just” comic books. Not expensive to release. I’m talking movies and TV shows. And in that regard, Marvel is rather young.
Seriously just need to bin this film series. Noone seems to have the heart to do it.
JJ left long ago to do Star Wars. Its been coasting ever since. Its been most of a decade. Regime change after regime change and no new Star Trek movie. New Mission impossible films have been made and Transformers films, its not like the studio is broke. They just won’t get the funding to make this movie. Or put it all on the line. Its either the cast is too busy and unavailable or they think its going to do even worse than Beyond. They need the new fresh and bold vision, the new young director. JJ is no longer that guy. But he could get it done as a seasoned veteran of this franchise, but not on less than a 200 million dollar budget. Hence why they are spinning their wheels.
The hallmark of a film they’re trying to ‘cobble together’. Considering Star Trek Strange New Worlds is running, I really don’t see the relevance of another Kelvin-timeline film. The original concept to close the Kelvin timeline was probably the best idea (although it doesn’t sound as though Chris Hemsworth was up for it). At this stage, I think it’s best to cut their losses and move on.
The Kelvin timeline maybe done but I want the Kelvin cast back, in the original Primeverse… Give them the five-year mission inbetween TMP and TWOK…
My suggestion to have STIV ready in time and to save money:
Use one of the already rejected scripts adapt it and have the Kelvin-Crew use the sets of Strange New Worlds, which already exist.
The option to shoot a TOS-era-movie does exist! Just insert the actors of the Kelvin-Crew! Can’t be THAT expensive nor should it take so many time to make it.Why does it hacve to be so difficult?
SPOCK: “The Kelvin Timeline/chance of even more prequels are dying.”
KIRK: “Let them die!”
“They’re animals. I can never forgive them recasting Khan!”
They don’t believe in Star Trek and they don’t know how to market it. Remember they pulled the plug on the original third reboot movie for being Too Star Trekky. They wanted Star Wars, Fast and the Furious, Guardians of the Galaxy anything but Star Trek.
Beyond was pretty much Guardians meets Fast&Furious meets TOS.
The original Orci script sounded more Generations meets ST09 (perfect for the anniversary)
This is barely even news, as far as I’m concerned. This studio doesn’t know the first thing about Trek, imo. It would be nice to have people at the helm who actually ‘get’ and literally care about the franchise. Maybe in another 5 years or so…
Not a big surprise, especially in the wake of Disney cancelling the next Star Wars film… DC cancelling Batgirl and rearranging their movie priorities… and also the fact that Karl Urban had a scheduling conflict with shooting The Boys in Toronto.
You also have to look at the impact COVID has had on the film industry in the past few years. Less people are going back to the movies, so studios really want to make sure they can make money.
I am sure that their thinking is going to capitalize on their streaming services. Although, I have been greatly disappointed in all the Star Wars series they have produced. The pacing and stories have been horrible. Even Marvel shows are lacking. Don’t get me started on how dull the new Lord of the Rings series is. Star Trek (with all its faults) seems to be faring the best in streaming. And I think, unless something big in terms of movie news comes), Trek has always been best on TV… well except for movies like TWOK and TUC – those worked best cinematically. I liked BEYOND, and I think it closed up the JJ trilogy nicely.
Let’s forget Trek in the movies for a while… and let someone else take the helm when it’s time. JJ showed he was only in it to get Star Wars…
I am very glad particularly with the rumors they were going to recast the Next Gen characters for it. Star Trek with few exceptions is not a great movie franchise. It is much better on TV when it is done correctly. I think they need to stop trying to go back and use any legacy characters from anything in any of the shows and movies. There needs to be a new Enterprise with a whole new cast in a totally new time period. I don’t need a 4th Kirk or another Spock, or anyone else. I loved Next Gen, and DS9, and Voyager because of the new casts and the new relationships between them. Let’s hope we can finally get back on track someday.
“…. I don’t need a 4th Kirk or another Spock, or anyone else….”
YES! This. The studio needs to grow a pair and actually Boldly Go into something new, new ship, new characters, new time period.
No surprise at all. I always knew this movie was never going to happen.
This is tremendously disappointing. I loved the 3 Kelvin-verse ST films.
I don’t understand what the heck is going on over there. The ST franchise looks like its been re-invigorated by Discovery, Picard, and especially Strange New Worlds, which is a direct call-back to TOS. So why isn’t Paramount that interested to jump onboard?
I get that Star Trek Beyond under-performed, even though I thought it was better than Star Trek Into Darkness. It got great reviews and my wife said she thought it was better than Star Wars The Force Awakens.
But some time has gone by and, again, the franchise is doing well. So why all this trepidation. Also, I don’t get why Shakman departed this film in favor of Marvel’s Fantastic Four. I would think doing a film based on the classic ST characters would be something more substantial than another iteration of the Fantastic Four, which has seen a string of mediocre to terrible films. Yes, it could be a fun movie in the vein of Shazam, but Star Trek is a great blend of drama, comedy, and human (and Vulcan) heroics. It just seems more substantial than FF.
I think he did it for the money, because everything Marvel does is gold at this point. The FF movie, just from the Marvel brand, is seen to be a bigger money maker than ST, with the last film under-performing for some weird reason.
It all comes down to money. ST films don’t reach the same box office heights as Marvel movies. For someone like Shakman, directing a Fantastic Four movie is a much, much bigger deal than making a ST movie.
Certainly, ST seems to be thriving on Paramount+, but remember, we’re still talking about a second-tier streaming service. The last numbers I saw had Paramount+ at 43 million subscribers, versus 220 MM for Netflix, 200MM for Amazon Prime, and 152 MM for Disney+.
Thanks for the numbers, Will. That helps put everything into perspective. Yeah, Shakman probably did it for the money.
I’ve generally really enjoyed the Marvel films, so nothing against them, but I still don’t understand why Star Trek Beyond underperformed. I thought it was a great film and a lot of fun and definitely better than any of the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
I know Pine’s said, and its quoted above, that the ST films can’t make as much as Marvel and I guess, after seeing these Abrams films with the bigger action and the more Star Wars treatment, I just don’t understand why that is so. They were made to appeal to a bigger fanbase and the first film and even the second film, did that, didn’t they? So why did Beyond underperform? Marketing?
Anyway, I’m bummed. I really loved that new cast and the energy those films had despite the canon quibbles I have with some of their elements.
ST has never had the kind of broad appeal that Star Wars of (lately anyway) Marvel films. I mean, when is the last time any news organization reported on anything related to ST the way everyone was abuzz about Baby Yoda? There was a lot of buzz back in 1979 when TMP was released, but it didn’t do anywhere near the BO of Star Wars. It made less than half of what Close Encounters took in. And I’d argue that ST was at the peak of it’s cultural relevance then. And as I recall, Paramount barely marketed Beyond.
I was curious about the box office for the first Star Wars movie compared to The Motion Picture. So I just looked at BOM and WOW!
Star Wars did $307 million domestically with an $11 million budget. And that’s only domestically. For some reason they don’t have the international numbers.
TMP only did $82 million with a $35 million budget. Again only domestic numbers but since Star Trek was never big outside of America, especially then, I would be surprised if did more than $20 million.
This says a lot though and these movies were only released two years apart from each other. Everyone here knows that TMP only happened because of the crazy success of ANH. And it didn’t even make a third of what that did but cost 3 times the budget on top of it. The irony is when they made TWOK, it cost what ANH cost to make.
It’s also a good reminder that Paramount really did try to sell Star Trek to a mass audience the same way the Kelvin films tried and it didn’t really take then either; at least not at the level they were hoping for. I also think part of TMP problem is it was like watching paint dry for most people. I still wonder how well TWOK would’ve done if that was the first movie instead with all the hype and build up TMP had. But that’s all in hindsight now.
The Numbers gives worldwide figures (as does wiki). TMP was 139m worldwide (roughly 550m adjusted to today). SW77 total ww 775m (although looks like they added rerelease grosses to domestic as is 460m). . Also CE3K did 340m ww (169m domestic but probably including some rerelease in that too as is 135 on BOM)
the following 2 Trek films did roughly same as TMP domestic (78/76m) but less overseas (ww 95m, 87m) presumably bc less promotion, audiences burned with TMP, slightly less frenzy over big budget scifi than in late 70s direct wake of SW.
Ok thanks! I’m so used to going to BOM I forget there are other box office sites out there lol.
And TMP did a little better than I assumed internationally but still nothing amazing. And yes compared to what SW did, especially when you add the international numbers it’s a complete blowout. If they were trying to get close to ANH in terms of BO and especially all the money they spent, I can’t blame them for being so disappointed. But I think Roddenberry was so tone deaf in making his version of Trek closer to 2001 and not, ironically, SW where fans probably wanted what they got in TOS with Kirk getting his shirt ripped off, big fight scenes, shooting at Klingons, etc, would’ve just been a difference IMO. But who knows, maybe that’s all the money the film was going to make since as said, TWOK did great for its budget and got amazing reviews, but still wasn’t a big break out either.
It’s more proof while Star Trek is popular and can certainly make money, it will probably always have a ceiling of some kind as a movie franchise no matter whose in it, how great the reviews are, big distribution push, etc.
I find all the numbers for TMP to be quite suspect, especially given that the numbers reported in the early 80s were much higher. (This is in regard to rental dollars and gross, btw — typically you would multiply the rental figure by 2.5x or sometimes 2x to get the gross, but that isn’t a hard-and-fast rule.) TMP did 56 in rentals (that’s a number I saw with my own eyes repeatedly, as my best friend got weekly Variety — I believe 39 of the 56 came in 1979 alone), which suggests a domestic gross of between 112 and 140mil. That’s just domestic.
Now if you look at the number most reported for worldwide gross in print sources of the era, like David Gerrold’s number in 1982 Starlog, he cites that TMP made 175 mil wordlwide. That actually jives very nicely with my projected gross, suggesting an int’l take of between 35 and 60 (TMP did much better overseas than the following five sequels.)
However … at some point after Shatner and co announced they were going to audit Paramount’s books (think this is 1985 or 1986), all of a sudden these numbers change downward drastically, and the 82 domestic/139 worldwide numbers you see everywhere on line start getting bandied about. Did a second set of books get prepped and swapped in to keep from having to pay out profits over an entity that Paramount was still claiming to be in the red? 82 mil domestic on 55M rentals is barely what, 1.5x? That’s the number to look at, because the remainder to get to 139 would be 59, which is within the int’l projections on the ‘old’/real? figures.
There’s still a huge dif between any of these numbers and what SW did — plus, the 35mil budget for TMP is at least — at least — 10 million too low, probably 12 or 14 mil too low, so the return on investment is still nothing too terrific. RtT has Phil Rawlins saying the budget was already at 37 mil when he left the project in fall 1979, and that was at a point when all of post was working insane hours to get the thing done and Katzenberg was just throwing money at the thing to try to keep Par out of the doghouse and the courthouse owing to the deal they had to get the film out by 12/7/79. They had to have dropped another 10 mil during all that. (the film had the most prints made of any film at that point too, so costs weren’t just fx and ot related.) Even if you subtract the 7 mil in stuff charged to TMP for false starts on features and the scrapped tv series, you’d still be at 40 mil, but that’s cheating because most of that went to p2, and those sets are the basis for the Ent you see in the feature.
175m adjusted would be around 675m today, no wonder they wanted more movies!
Wow that’s a detailed post of the financials I never heard before. Actually I DID hear that the budget was at $45 million but I guess as stated, it’s been debated.
And I know about ‘Hollywood accounting’ and trying to make a movie less profitable to pay its actors and creators less. But I never knew that was an issue for TMP until now. So maybe it did make more money.
But then the movie probably didn’t do what they expected or they wouldn’t have made the sequel sooooo much less. I mean for majority of sequels, they usually cost more, sometimes a lot more as we saw between ST09 and STID. Keeping with Star Wars, ESB cost a whopping $18 million 3 years later. Yeah still much cheaper than TMP lol but more than ANH obviously. It’s funny reading that Gary Kurtz got fired off that movie because they supposedly went over budget for a movie that would make 30 times its budget lol. Especially when compared to what happened with TMP but I guess it’s why Roddenberry got the boot on the other movies too. Today these things can go tens of millions over as the last two Kelvin movies did. I guess it’s a different world.
Anyway I can’t really add or dispute anything you said since I know zilch about it, but I do think Paramount was probably disappointed either way even if they are lying about the true BO. They never attempted to make a big Star Trek movie again until the Kelvin series literally 30 years later.
I just checked to see if I could find more info, and believe it or not, it was in a thread on this site from 7 years back, where poster DISINVITED provided more info suggesting the 139 mil figure is suspect. https://trekmovie.com/2015/02/25/take-a-trip-to-the-nostalgia-quadrant-on-the-orion-trail/
I think Kurtz got the short end of the light sabre (or to quote from GL’s scripts, ‘lazer sword’ — he was still calling it that in his TPM script, at least the one I had to read when writing about it in CINEFEX) on EMPIRE. He’s one of the reasons the original came in fairly close, and I have often wondered if there is a way for productions to have insurance against the dollar vs. pound shift, which blew the wrong way on EMPIRE, along with a lot of cold winds on location that cost them lots.
And I found another annotated site supporting the 175 figure here: https://jerickweb.50webs.com/goodlife/Movies.html
Thanks Kmart. I looked at both links and it shows TMP did better than the official statement. It also proves probably why Paramount got out of the big budget Star Trek business as early as it did because they didn’t earn anywhere close to what they wanted even if they still made a little more to try and keep some more of the profit.
And yeah Kurtz definitely got screwed over.
Shakman was hired to direct the Star Trek movie in summer 2021. He stayed on the project for a year, but it seems like development just stalled.
If he didn’t see the Star Trek movie moving forward, can you blame him for taking on another movie that is much more likely to actually happen?
yah I think the lack of momentum on Star Trek 14 and meanwhile the MCU machine is go go go led to Shakman leaving. If ST14 was pretty far along they could have swept up a new director in a week.
Exactly. Someone suggested after Shakman left that they would replace him in a month and even get JJ Abrams to do it. Instead, they basically just removed it from the schedule completely which surprised no one the minute he left. And that to me says either A. they are still very very far from a movie to be green lit to start production or worse B. they were on the verge of just cancelling it anyway.
Regardless if it’s A or B, Shakman knew a movie wasn’t going to happen anytime soon and took another and probably more lucrative job. And they weren’t paying the guy just to sit and wait for a movie to start filming or not. He still has to eat like the rest of us.
Ikr, the suggestions game of who to replace him, JJ, Frakes, Lin, Meyer etc but they just wipe it off the schedule. No slotting it somewhere in 2024. I guess they could still do that (with new director) in an out of the blue announcement in next couple months, but doesn’t look good .
Good. The Kelvin movies were just not that good.
I’d much rather they made a Star Trek trilogy centered on characters from across all Star Trek series. A mix of crew from TNG, DS9, VOY, Enterprise, Strange New Worlds and Discovery, live-action versions of Prodigy and Lower Decks (the latter being the proverbial comic relief…), and, somehow, Shatner, Takei, and Koenig
It could be an epic story involving time travel, like maybe war breaks out between the Prophets and Q Continuum or something and time shatters, allowing all the crews from these different timelines to interact in the same moment in time.
Like everybody’s saying – not a surprise.
I saw Don’t Worry Darling last night (meh, although Pugh was great) and I was struck by how much Pine reminded me of TWOK-era Shatner and how much charisma/presence he has on screen now, compared to when he was younger. He’s only 42, so we’ve got a few years left for a good Kelvin movie, if it ever happens.
I don’t know if Quinto is a draw anymore (I’ve never been a fan and think his range is limited to pretty much just being irritated).
But these FX-heavy movies cost so much money now to make and release that they have to do bonkers box office to break even. There needs to be a draw for a general audience/teens/kids (which Trek ‘09 did pretty darned well). Hence, the talk at various points about bringing in Hemsworth and buzzed-about directors.
So I’m doubtful.
Strange that the kelvin films kind of mirrors TOS 3 seasons in that there was a massive gap before they resumed again in which all that potential Trek was lost (they should really been on their 5th or 6th film by now like TOS should’ve had another 2 seasons and whatever else, TV movies etc)
And hey, whatever happened to that Kalinda Vazquez script? After that was announced, she signed a deal with Netflix, so I assume that’s dead too.
JJ had announced his Cloverfield IV project with Paramount a few days back. I saw that as the stake through the non-beating heart of Trek XIV at that point.
I don’t think that ever went anywhere. Maybe she wrote it but it was clearly rejected once she did because they hired other writers to write this movie. We only got the news she was writing it when it was announced and nothing since. So yeah.
I think that’s a good example that maybe Paramount should stop announcing these things until they are 100% confident they want to make another movie.
My disappointment with the Kelvin movies was that they were “alternate universe” movies that weren’t quite alternate enough. They had a slick new coat of paint on pretty much the same old concept. For example, Kirk just had to be captain. Couldn’t be the adventures of Ensign Kirk working his way up through the ranks. No, pop culture knows him as Captain Kirk and so that’s the way it had to be… I guess?
Though, that would probably work better as a TV series. Ahem.
I’m not sad about this and didn’t believe it was ever a project going forward. Beyond was not successf and wasn’t a good movie IMO. I only liked the Rihanna song to be honest. And that’s good don’t get me wrong! But can we have an awesome trek movie? That’d be good too
Merry Christmas everyone!
I think it’s very unlikely this movie will be made at this point. It’s hard to come back from being dead this long with an aging cast that is now very expensive. Not to mention the growing time gap since the last movie is only going to lead to diminishing returns. The best thing to do is to reboot and get costs under control while exciting with a clean slate and new vision.
That’s it. This time it really felt like it was happening. No more. Don’t care what is said. I will not believe it until it is actually green lit and cast & crew speak about actually starting to shoot.
Trek is doing well on Paramount + and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of folks clamoring for more Kelvin films. I love the cast and would have loved to have seen them a couple more times but SNW is filling the TOS crew void. Let Trek continue on TV and who knows, maybe one day we’ll get a TNG film with a new cast.
Someone should make a movie about how the Kelvinverse ST4 was (not) made, that would be interesting to watch.
Forbes article worth reading:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/it-s-time-to-stop-trying-to-make-star-trek-4-happen/ar-AA12mqN1
I’ve always liked Mendelson’s work. I’m not sure about his alternate reality 2012 ST2 theory, but it’s certainly plausible. Even at the time, I thought it was strange that they didn’t roll a sequel to ST 2009 into production immediately. I got the impression that, given all the hype the film got, Bad Robot was hoping for blockbuster box office ( >=$500mm) and when they didn’t get it, they lost interest. It was a hit, but not a big hit, so any sequel became something of an afterthought.
If ID had come in 2012 (presumably with a different actor as khan as Cumberbatch was a kind of last minute replacement after Benicio Del Toro passed on it, so who knows if BC would’ve even been available a year earlier), same summer as Avengers and Dark Knight Rises, but then not so long wait since ST09 so maybe it couidve done slightly more box office (500m+) ..
and then would the 3rd film have still come out for the anniversary year? or would there have been a similar 3y gap for summer 2015? (and therefore maybe a different film – the Orci script with JJ or another guy directing). I guess it would’ve come down to the fact Star Wars VII was originally slated for summer 15, so Paramount would’ve probably decided to wait for the 50th Anniversary year (which probably would’ve meant the Pegg/Lin Beyond we got)
I’ve always felt that ST 2009 not crossing the $500mm threshold caused Bad Robot to lose a lot of their enthusiasm for ST, especially given how hard they marketed it to the younger moviegoing demographic. With ID, they tried to make a more “international box office friendly” film (e.g. de-emphasising the Starfleet angle in the marketing), and while it made more money than ST 2009, it still didn’t do what they hoped, and that was pretty much that as far as Abrams was concerned.
Mission Impossible 3 didn’t do as well as they hoped either. They didn’t stop making those films. It didn’t earn 3 times budget. And still we have the 7th and 8th films being made.
MI 3 didn’t do great but it still made a profit at the time. It cost $150 million and earned $400 million at the BO. So it didn’t bomb or anything, but the expectations were suppose to be much higher at the time. I remember reading Paramount was hoping for around $600 million because MI 2 made over $500 million.
And they almost did stop making them. They even ended Tom Cruise contract with the studio because they blamed his Scientology rants at the time and thought his image was too destroyed after that. They changed their minds later when they saw his movies were still earning money and then Ghost Protocol made $700 million and all was forgiven after that.
And Ghost Protocol cost less money than all the Kelvin movies did and brought in hundreds of millions more. That’s why these movies keep getting stalled. They just haven’t earned what others have for way less money.
Also at that time of MI3 seem to remember WoTW had been expected to do higher the previous year due to Spielberg, Cruise and it being War of the Worlds (probably expected like ID4 box office 800m+, but made ‘only’ about 600m), then after MI3 the head guy in charge of Paramount threw like a hissy fit and demanded Cruise no longer be working there or something (think remember him bad mouthing him in the press), think Cruise did some movies for other studios and there were rumours Brad Pitt would take over the MI franchise, then the angry head guy left or retired and Cruise came back with the understanding that MI4 would be a kind of revamped more team inclusive like the TV series and with a possible replacement in Renner (but really it was just an extension of MI3) and the result was the biggest grossing MI imaginable lol (almost double MI3 ww)
Yeah that’s how I remembered it too. WoTW did well but they thought it would’ve been higher if he didn’t do all the scientology interviews where he turned off people. And then MI 3 did less so he was booted from Paramount and made a deal with I think United Artist or something.
But he ultimately came back to Paramount. I remember all those MI reboot ideas with a new star. Although I read later Renner was never meant to replace him, that was just rumors. Tom Cruise offered him the part directly to be in it.
Thanks for the link. It’s an interesting article, analyzing how the time between the films ultimately affected Beyond’s, and any future films, trajectories.
Good arguments. Maybe Paramount and/or Abrams did mess up by not closing the gap between the Kelvin movies. I thought it was too long between them and I obviously wasn’t the only one.
New
Wonder if the phenomenal reception and success of Strange New Worlds was a factor in the decision to scrap ST 4. Paramount is now looking at something new to totally change direction for the movies.
That would be awfully knee-jerk and short-term in thinking, especially given that the whole thing could turn on a dime with how s2 gets received (esp the Kirk end of things.) If they just decided ahead of time to switch and do SNW features, it would be basically letting Kurtzman have the whole enchilada, but if Par thinks he is Feig-level material, I think they are in for a huge comeuppance (I think they’re way overdue for that anyway, but audiences just … audience, I guess.)
Having said all that, I can definitely imagine them positioning SNW so that when it wraps, you go straight into a feature that is Kirk’s first mission as Captain, or even an epic reimagining of WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE as feature. But putting all eggs in a pseudo-TOS basket seems myopic, especially when at present there is still a weirdly large audience paying to watch whatever it is that DSC has been doing these past few years.
If not for how they seemed to treat Hawley’s largely original TREK material, I would say they should be open to a writer-director’s new take on direction, but since they got that and then discarded it, it’s anybody’s guess what will catch their eye (and if the TPTB who approve such a take actually stay in place long enough to get the idea into production and then into theaters.)
It’s hard for me to see Paramount doing any ST feature any time soon. It’s clear that they are not sure there’s much of a market for one, and they’re probably not wrong. There seems to be a pretty definite box office ceiling for ST. I certainly can’t imagine them greenlighting a SNW theatrical feature. Most people have never heard of SNW, so how would you even market that to the general moviegoing public? If they ever do make some sort of SNW film, I could see them doing it for cheap and releasing it on Paramount+, though.
Having said all that, I can definitely see them retooling SNW into a TOS reboot down the line. Paul Wesley was a lead actor with his own long-running show, and it’s hard for me to imagine that he’d sign on for a recurring role without the potential for something more substantial down the line (kind of like the situation Anson Mount described on Wil Wheaton’s aftershow where he was told when he signed on for DISCO that the plan was to spin him off into his own series, but “shhh…don’t tell anyone.”).
Anyone remember this article:
https://trekmovie.com/2022/06/07/paramount-studio-chief-star-trek-4-close-to-starting-line-says-audiences-want-more-kelvin-crew/
Yeah, they were on the ‘starting line’ and the movie was going to start filming any year now. So much talk talk talk and never anything beyond that. I don’t get these people, if you are still worried the next film won’t do well, no one is forcing you to make one. But then why keep saying you will make one only to delay and cancel over and over?
ST is IP that needs to be leveraged. But ST films have a pretty firm audience ceiling, as history shows. So the only way ST features make business sense is if they keep the budgets in line, and the reason project after project after project ends up on the scrap heap is that no one can come up with the magic formula for a probable hit movie on a budget.
After watching Lower Decks this week with the crew visiting DS9, it was a reminder that Star Trek is just more comfortable on TV. It can be so much more dynamic and really appeal to hardcore fans in a way a movie can’t. They certainly have at times but not to the degree a show can do. The TV shows can have stories that are small and introspective as much as they can be big and bombastic at times too and why it works on TV.
With the movies, especially the Kelvin movies, they can only be big and bombastic when you’re spending $150+ million. And that’s a lot of pressure that the movies needs to do very well but they also can lose core Trek fans in doing so if they feel that’s all it is, spectacle and little more.
And I also think not being in the prime universe where you can have characters from the other shows involved also hurts these movies now. I personally don’t mind the Kelvin universe but it does limit the possibilities of having a bigger shared universe. And in this day and age where shared universes have become almost a necessity in every major franchise, that’s a big knock against the Kelvin movies today. Not so much in 2009, but more noticeable now; especially since even the new shows are taking advantage of crossovers and inclusion of legacy characters like visiting DS9 as an example.
It’s just more proof why Star Trek is a better fit on TV and probably where it should remain until they find a better center with the movies that can satisfy fans and better box office revenue for the studio.
I thought they were better than the JJ Star Wars. Both have incredible casts. Star Trek was more fun to me. Maybe because i didn’t care about it ruining TOS because it was in an alternate universe. The intention was just to have fun, but fans treat Star Trek like holy writ. Spock and Kirk were recognizable just younger and more hyper. The action and pacing was less glaciel and more like other Hollywood action films. The cast is phenomenal, and the energy Chris Pine brought to the role of Kirk is great. The music and cinematography if you could take out the lens flares, was great. I loved the story the first two films were leading to. Then the third was like a soft reboot. More like an amped up TOS movie. Beyond was boring and it sunk the Kelvin Timeline. It wasn’t bad but it was meh to be honest.
I wasn’t talking about the quality of the films, just the fact they can’t have more intimate and diverse stories or connect to the bigger universe as the shows are now doing since they are literally in an alternate one. To be honest, some fans were complaining about that from the beginning but I think with all the new shows out, now people are getting those types of connections and deep cuts the Kelvin movies can’t do and less of a reason for some fans to care about these movies today.
I know some people were convinced that the next movie would cross into the Prime universe for a crossover story of some kind but since no one has ever said a single word about what the story even is or was about, it felt more like wish fulfillment instead of rumor.
The crossover idea for ST4 is really just came out of what Marvel and DC are doing with their multiverse crossovers, it was just logical to assume Trek would follow the latest movie trend (as its done several times before) and do some kind of multiverse crossover (Kelvin cast go into the Primeverse?) ,and there was the Orci ST3 that had already kind of looked to be exploring that theme (and maybe even the ST4 with Hemsworth).
Anything is possible and you could be right obviously. I’m only saying we heard nothing about the story or anyone Trek actors in it outside the Kelvin actors. It may have been the opposite and just solely about the crew itself. But if the movie is cancelled I’m sure the writer will do an interview with someone and give us a small idea what it was about like the others lol.
How can they make a Star Trek film for a hundred million though. They need to reduce the budget by at least half to be profitable or is it worse than that? Because if they made one of these for 100 million and it made 300 million then that is a formula they can work with. but not at the 200 million dollar level when these are never gonna make 600 million or even 500 million.
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That’s a good question and probably the reason why this movie has stalled. I listened to the All Access podcast that was released on Friday and according to Anthony Pascal said they are having trouble getting the movie financed which isn’t a huge surprise. People kept underestimating how much damage Beyond did in terms of the image of these films. It was the costliest movie of that year and it really put a sour note in the franchise going forward because it probably told them that these movies will not just make what they were hoping what they would make, but not even a guarantee they will even earn a profit. When you’re spending around $200 million on a project and you’re not even sure it’s going to make money, yeah, can’t exactly blame them for being cautious about it.
We all know the budget has to be lowered but it’s probably easier said than done because if they try and lower it too much it may feel less than a big blockbuster film and I assume they still want that. Just a guess anyway.
It’s why I’m surprised they are still trying to make one with this cast. I always emphasize I do like the Kelvin movies and definitely the cast. They are great. But it’s still a business and I just think a movie with a cheaper cast and probably back in the prime timeline will be a bigger benefit profit wise…if it’s good obviously. But if this films is canceled because they just can’t make it work financially than that will probably be the direction of any future films.
I think Beyond felt more like a TOS season 3 episode and Insurrection meets Guardians and Fast&Furious. The 2 JJ films felt more like the TOS films, obviously not in terms of the fast pace/lens flare but the scale and stakes and hooks and ‘event’ness. Had JJ stayed in for the 3rd we probably would’ve had the Orci script or some form of it building on events and stuff teased from the previous 2 films (the timeline dilemma, Kirk Prime, maybe even the Klingons). we have Disney star wars seducing JJ to thank for that (which bar the initial reaction to TFA and R1 seems to have annoyed just about everyone as well. In hindsight JJ should’ve stayed for Trek 3 and Justin Lin should’ve done TFA lol)
Yeah i expected war with the Klingons, Carol Marcus returning. Maybe Kirk’s dad alive in Rura Penthe. Not sure about the rumored time Travel and Old Spock and Old Kirk stuff.
if the ST4 with Hemsworth (Trek Thor) was Kirk finding out his father had somehow survived and was held prisoner on Rura Penthe and goes on a Trek III style rescue mission with some of the main cast , only to find some twist (its George Kirk but from like 3 months ago, or its the Primeverse George etc) id have been pretty pumped for that .. shame it didn’t happen in 2018/19 but be OK to do now even (providing they could make it for like 120m as it probably be lucky to match Beyonds box office)
I figured. That’s why I pitched the show of Captain Sulu with Cho. I figured no new movies would have a chance and back to TV in new streaming format would be great. But I’m an idiot, so there!
Nice to hear from you Bob! And that’s interesting you pitched a Sulu show. I think that would’ve been interesting too. Why do you think there was no interest? Was it because they only wanted a show in the Prime universe or wanted to keep the Kelvin characters together? Or something else?
I still don’t understand why there isn’t one Kelvin based TV show? When your movie series has been dead for six years, maybe it would be smart to build that audience again with a TV show for a few years since we’re getting a dozen shows now. Even an animated one would be great. Look at Lower Decks and Prodigy?
Hi Bob, was wondering if you look at the current Marvel multiverse movies and maybe thinking how your ST3 might’ve been along those lines exploring Prime and Kelvinverse (instead of what was done with Beyond). that seems to be where things could have been heading after ST09/ID anyway, I just get so frustrated when thinking what couidve been with that 3rd film,
Should just do your Trek 3 script. It would work and makes sense at this point. Keep the cost reasonable and in the movie set up whatever direction they want to go for the future.
Good questions. I figured that the Box office of Trek 2 was not enough to be justify salaries and cost of three. When 3 bombed,I figured it was all a forgone conclusion, unless they go back to pre-09 budgets.
As for TV, Paramount and CBS weren’t exactly simpatico on how to divvy up trek. David Ellison and I worked hard to unite the franchise. We failed.
Alex took over. At least it was a friend
Thanks for the response Bob! :)
I know while your time with these movies didn’t end how you expected it to, it still must kill you to see them being this badly mishandled. You guys did start on a really positive foot but things got bad fast. And yes, fully agreed, STID did OK, but not to the point they should’ve made the third movie with a similar budget. It didn’t have to be that small either, but something closer to the first film and not the second at least. That was just a big mistake and because of that it’s where we are now.
And I guess back then CBS just wasn’t interested in the Kelvin universe because they still had the prime one and millions of loyal fans to it. I still don’t understand why even today with the corporation united and so many TV shows on the air, one can’t take place in the Kelvin universe? But I guess they just want it all connected and can use legacy characters from all the old shows across the board as we are seeing.
I would love to see the Kelvin Enterprise jump universes and meet Kira and Quark at DS9 though! ;D
I still want to know why they threw all the setup of the first two films out the window and did a soft reboot with Beyond. Its baffling. Almost idiotic. An overcorrection by the studio in reaction to fans complaints about Into Darkness. Too Star Trekky really. I want to see your Star Trek 3.
This is good news for the likes of me. I won’t labor the point as to why I’m opposed to Trek (and Star Wars) movies produced, directed or written by JJ Abrams.
Suffice it to say that as long as JJ Abrams is dominating the sci-fi/action adventure movie market, there won’t be any such movies for people like me. And the SW and Trek brands will continue to degrade with every subsequent release, which honestly makes me sad.
Star Trek used to have a strong brand identity — it was a brand for thoughtful, nerdy types.
Being a Trek fan suggested something (IMO) good about you, about your worldview and how your mind worked. You were likely a thoughtful person but also a free-thinker. You tended to be rational but also open-minded. You appreciated attention to detail and likely had a passion for science on some level. And you certainly weren’t out to impose your belief-system on the world (let alone one that was fundamentally and explicitly anti-science). You had respect for the prime directive, whether or not you always agreed with its application.
And what is Trek’s brand identity now? The movies are for the undiscerning masses, while the TV shows are for wokey types. That’s how it all looks to me, anyway. And, call me crazy, but those brands just don’t seem nearly as strong or potentially enduring as “the thinking man’s show,” i.e. a brand for thoughtful, nerdy types.
Brand identity: Star Trek as comfort food — that is occasionally spicy. (and sometimes rancid.) That would be how I characterized it up till the end of the 20th century.
That was my take on Trek for the longest time, if I had to break it down succinctly, though in my late teens, I trivialized my obsessive interest by just saying, I like when the ship fires its guns and Kirk has to wipe blood off his lip after getting his shirt torn. Honestly, it was really about the characters and the premise and the execution (for all the complaining about effects and sets, there’s a lot to look at — the props still look fantastic to me.) And it really was very instructive to me as a budding filmmaker in terms of dramatic lighting and music scoring. I still like nice rich blacks where you can’t see a bunch of unnecessary detail in the shadow side — it has a richness.
I don’t enjoy watching the newer shows … I’m bitching about them constantly, even the ones I have managed to enjoy (about half of SNW.) I would never choose to relax with any of the current shows, because they aren’t a comfort the way TOS always was for me. I’ve found recently that even TNG is a solide comfort, which is more than I could say when it was first-run.
One could rage at JJ for ruining Star Wars. But it would be redundant since Star Wars hasn’t been good since Return of the Jedi. It was just another recycled IP with brand identity. There was no story.
Even Lucas found there was nothing to do with Luke beyond a vague idea so he wisely never made sequels. Although he also took his vague few pages of notes/backstory for the original films and made a whole prequel trilogy about it. Which i think was a mistake.
Disney has made the same mistake to have to explain every moment and mention in those movies. Did we really need a movie to explain the roll up of Star Wars about how they got the stolen plans, in a film called Rogue One. Not really. Did we really need to see Boba Fett survive the Sarlacc, nope. Did we ever need to know more about who Yoda’s people are, or who the Mandalorian’s are not at all. Was there a story about Obi Wan. No not really he was supposed to stay on Tatooine and protect Luke not go on adventures.
I am, however, curious as to what’s become of the Tarantino Trek project.
Has it been shelved indefinitely? Lost in development limbo?
It seems to have died a while ago, but maybe it could come back now the movies are seemingly in limbo once again.? It’d really only be worth doing if Tarantino actually directs , maybe he’d be up for doing it before he does another proper (final?) QT film. It’d get fans and general audiences interested at least (yeah some would be screaming with rage over QT doing Trek but was it Bennett or Meyer who said you can give the fans what they don’t want as long as its done well)