The latest round of deal buzz around Paramount Global has jumped into high gear today, with reports the company is in early discussions about a potential merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. Such a merger would be a huge deal in the media industry and have a big impact on both companies. As Paramount Global owns and produces Star Trek, a merger could see some big changes for the franchise.
Warner Discovery Paramount?
First reported by Axios, the Hollywood trades and business press have confirmed early talks are underway, with Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish meeting with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav on Tuesday to discuss a deal. Zaslav has also spoken to Shari Redstone, who owns a controlling a controlling stake in Paramount Global. All reports indicate that these are early talks with no agreement in place at this time, but the CEO discussion took up “several hours” on Tuesday and Warner Bros. has already hired bankers to explore a deal. As the bigger player, WBD would be the buyer, although at this time it isn’t clear if it would be a traditional merger or involve a buyout of Shari Redstone’s National Amusements, which holds the majority of Paramount’s controlling shares.
While Redstone had sought a deal with one of the big tech giants (holding talks with Apple, Amazon, and Netflix earlier this year), a deal with WBD could be easier than one with Paramount’s other media rivals due to WBD not owning a broadcast network. According to Variety, the recent news that Skydance was looking into buying out Redstone’s controlling shares pushed Warner Bros. Discovery into action. Valued at $24 billion and $10 billion respectively, a merger between Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount would bring scale to compete against the likes of Disney (valued at $167B), Comcast ($178B), and Netflix ($214B).
According to reports, there are several synergies seen between PG and WBD, including combining CBS News with CNN and CBS Sports with Turner Sports. According to Axios, the two CEOs have already talked about combining their streaming services. A combined Paramount+/Max is seen as a “better rival” to Netflix and Disney+.
In the case of Star Trek, a deal of this kind would likely see the current Paramount+ Star Trek library of legacy and new shows move to this newly merged streaming service. It’s too early to say what the merger would do to plans for upcoming shows but such a deal would take a while to go into effect so there would likely have no impact on anything currently (or soon to be) in production. Star Trek could be one of the big brands within this service, like the DC Universe. However, WBD CEO Zaslav pioneered the recent wave of cutting costs by removing shows from services starting in 2022 on HBO Max (now Max). WBD has also pulled completed productions before being released to theaters or on Max. Paramount Global already removed Prodigy earlier this year, licensing it to Netflix, so it’s possible there could be more changes for Star Trek on the newly merged Paramount+/Max. On the movie side, the merger of Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures could see changes in management and strategy that would likely impact plans for the future of the Trek film franchise.
Right before the news about the WBD talks today, Wells Fargo upgraded Paramount Global stock due to a “higher deal probability,” so there could be more suitors looking at a potential merger or buyout. This is a developing story so stay tuned for the latest here at TrekMovie.com.
True, but what about the future? I can certainly see new management taking a hard look at ST. I hate to say it, but I can see SNW ending after year 3.
Isn’t that one of Star Trek’s most watched shows?
It’s just about the only thing P+ has that registers on Neilsen streaming. I doubt it gets cut.
Then again, it’s Zaslav.
Batgirl would have been the first time audiences saw the return of Keaton as Batman and Zaslav still unceremoniously cut it.
Sorry but I don’t agree. Look at 2023 – SNW was in the top ten for seven out of its ten weeks. PIC was in the top ten for at least three of its ten weeks. Whatever happens with Paramount Plus,Star Trek is a popular property.
streaming ratings are tricky. also very broad. netflix for the first time released their true numbers just last week. Let paramount do that. we do not know for a fact how many people watch SNW. I doubt the show gets the equivalent of 3 million TV viewers if it aired on maybe NBC or ABC.
Also SNW was never a top ten show overall. it was a top ten original show, which means nothing. if you combine all the streaming numbers SNW is not in the top ten. it is rank last or second to last. Suit has far more higher ratings than SNW and the show was not even a big hit when it was on tv.
this is why streaming ratings does not carry the same weight as the 90s when we know a show like friends got 22 million viewers each week. Paramount also has a habit of putting snw for free in youtube. so that makes me question just how many watch the show of paramount likes to give away free episodes on youtube.
What we have with this streaming show are hype and business tv numbers but we do not know for a fact how much people watch the show.
Perhaps you’re right … but everything you just typed sounds very negative and I choose to remain positive. And if you want to compare it to “network TV,” even network giants like Greys Anatomy, SVU, and FBI don’t pull the numbers they used to. The days of any show getting 22m views per week are gone.
That’s absolutely true. But ST isn’t all that broadly popular, so even if you made an apples-to-apples comparison, Grey’s Anatomy or SVU probably have bigger audiences.
The question, which I don’t know the answer to, is whether it’s a cost effective way of netting that viewership and subscription income.
That was I believe the problem with Enterprise back in the day, it wasn’t that unpopular but they could but on a reality show and get the same viewers, so it was too expensive.
Modern Star Trek is obviously on a different distribution model that seems to have been much more favourable to premium TV, it’s also more expensively produced than it’s ever been. But it’s not alone in that – Apple puts out ‘For all Mankind’ and ‘Foundation’ on huge budgets and they won’t be getting SNW or PIC numbers.
I don’t think ENT is really comparable. Unfortunately history has shown time and time again that Trek just doesn’t work on Network tv. From the famous cancellation of TOS to ENT to Discovery not working on CBS prime TV. The only show to ever survive was VOY and that was on the fledgling network UPN that barely had enough programs to fill their roster to cancel anything anyways. And VOY still almost didn’t make it till Jeri Ryan.
Conversely, while ironically SNW probably doesn’t pull in the numbers ENT once did, it is in the 10 ten of streaming services and is obv well liked.
The only problem I see here is “Zaslav”
This is totally on point. Ever since TNG ended Trek has been a niche audience. A sizable niche to be sure and a global one, but in the US DS9 barely survived the rapid contraction of the first run syndication market, and Voyager and Enterprise were protected by UPN’s also-ran status the same way the Paramount+ shows are by it being the #5 American streamer. Paramount has found a way to properly monetize a smaller but incredibly loyal and hungry fan base. Had Enterprise been behind a paywall it probably would have been an economic success despite not making big waves in the ratings.
Netflix’s continued interest in Trek is a glimpse at what its future could be if P+ dies. I’d be worried it would get lost in a sea of content versus being a top performer for a lesser competitor, but more people would watch and likely discover all the shows and films with that kind of reach.
In hindsight, it was a big mistake to end TNG after season 7. The series had broken into the mainstream audience and was basically the most popular Trek of all time. There was talk of continuing the series and adding new cast members as necessary. The original cast was contracted through season 8. Since they typically signed actors to 6 season deals back then, I seem to remember Roddenberry saying maybe they would rotate the cast every 6 years.
However, the prevailing view was that the economics of TV dictated the show ending after season 7 or 8 since it would become more expensive over time to produce.
Lol, it would be the opposite. SNW is a top 10 streaming show. What a silly post, no offense
They’ll keep the franchise going but a WBD / Paramount merger would likely mean the days of multiple series is coming to an end. Star Trek’s performance would now be measured against other.original offerings, which will include everything from “Yellowjackets” to “Euphoria”, “House of the Dragon” and “The Last of Us”.
Billions of dollars in debt, WBD has been merciless when it comes to cutting back on original content to trim that debt. With Paramount also billions in debt that trend will no doubt carry over.
Honestly those days were ending anyways. P+ just couldn’t keep up. Kick no streamer save for Apple or Amazon or MAYBE Netflix could these days.
Those wells of cash run deep.
Gots ta live the magnificent seven lol
Perhaps but SNW is not going to get canceled — that’s the one Golden goose that’s going to stick. 100%
SNW should be around for awhile. It’s the anchor series of the franchise.
So what if it does?
I completely disagree with you. It would be the only Star Trek show that wouldn’t be cut, since it is constantly appearing in the Top 10 Neilson Streaming. That is what they would be looking. Maybe cutting budgets, but not the show.
Exactly! 100%
Yeah the next movie is not going to happen until this gets done
Apart from the whole “businesses consolidating so there are fewer options” angle, after how WB has treated things like Batwoman and Looney Tunes I don’t trust them to be good custodians of the franchise.
Not to mention that I have enjoyed Paramount continuing to release physical editions of their streaming shows. I only see this potential deal as being bad for the consumer.
Your latter point is actually the only reason why WB might be a good deal for Trek, compared to Apple, Amazon or Disney…. So far WB have released most of their stuff on physical media as well: DC shows, GoT etc…
BUT: Big problem: WB seems to be obsessed with rebooting everything every ten years… They are about to launch the gazillionth version of Batman, Superman etc…Not to mention that AWFUL idea of rebooting Harry Potter as a TV show… For sure we would get a hard cinematic reboot of everything with those people…
I agree with what you say about how they treat their biggest franchises. DC has so many projects outside of whatever James Gunn is plotting for the Cinematic Universe, and Im not sure a lot of it goes together. Its very… slapdash is the word that comes to mind.
These days I look at Harry Potter with disdain instead of joy, but it does seem like even without new books that they don’t know what to do beyond tell the same story again.
In addition, I’m acutely aware of how many shows got the axe that just happened to have queer themes around them. I would hate for Trek to be told what they could and could not show in the way they had to tiptoe around queer themes with TNG and DS9.
I have many concerns and I do not expect answers to any of them as that doesnt seem to be how WB/Discovery operates.
To be fair, the DC universe, going back all the way to the comics from decades past has a long history of “reboots” with “Crisis” storylines. And there is really no denying that the DCEU was a total flop. So a DC reboot makes total sense. OTOH, a Trek reboot would be heresy. Trek is one of the few franchises that has never been rebooted. Heck not even Kelvin was a reboot in literal terms.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Yeah because we were all so much looking forward to Batwoman. What a monumental disappointment it was that we didn’t get that movie
But it wasn’t just Batwoman. There were a number of projects that were on the table across multiple divisions that were killed off by David Zaslav to trim costs. This has been an ongoing trend for the past two years and will spread like a disease to Paramount if Zaslav oversees the newly formed company.
As for the toll on employees, this is going to tough. There will be massive layoffs due to inevitable redundancies across virtually every division.
Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies says hello and reminds you that it’s already happened at Paramount.
It has. And I can’t speak for Grease (I personally don’t care about that franchise) but at least Prodigy found a new home. The same can’t be said for Batgirl. Nor is Prodigy’s home on Netflix certain if this were to go through.
This is hilarious — like 11 people wanted to see both of those shows…lol
They cancelled projects that never should have been greenlighted in the first place, and avoided spending good money after bad. So what?
Yeah, because so many we’re looking so forward to that one…lol
Rise of the Pink Ladies was cancelled for a traditional reason: not enough people were watching.
I’m aware of what they cut in the last few years and nothing. I saw them not moving forward with was of interest to me.
Cancelling a $90 million film served to illustrate that Zaslav lacked a clear understanding of how to manage relationships with talent and the economics behind recouping costs. Licensing the film to another streamer and making the film available for digital sales and rentals would have resulted in a modest. The millions lost on “The Flash” and “Blue Beetle” far surpassed the $90 million “Batwoman” budget.
Animated and children’s projects were decimated by Zaslav. I don’t have interest in the Scooby Doo movie, but I absolutely wanted to see more Infinity Train or an Amazing World of Gumball movie. The fate of Coyote vs ACME is still up in the air. Only the first few years of Looney Toons are available on Max now. Hundreds of episodes of Sesame Street of all things have been taken off the streamer.
All while Zaslav collects annual paychecks in the region of $250 million. The man is not a friend to creatives, and Star Trek would suffer under his leadership.
None of JJ’s projects came to fruition except for The Caped Crusader.
Batgirl
Lol
Come on now. Tell me you didn’t see the HUGE International backlash to batGIRL being shelved? And you are ignoring it would have been the debut of Keaton’s return as Batman. And if you think no one was excited about that, I reiterate, COME ON!
Not really — a few sites on the internet try to make it huge, but so what. And Keaton’s Batman in The Flash was a total letdown — and a really really bad movie.
Keaton wasn’t nearly the star of flash that he would have been on batgirl. And we all know why flash failed and it wasn’t Keaton.
It wasn’t just a handful of sites and no one blamed Keaton for the failure of the “The Flash”. Where the blame was placed was WB twisting itself into knots trying to save “The Flash” believing it was going to be a massive hit.
I think the next major bomb looming on the horizon for WB is “Dune: Part II”, with the studio misinterpreting the performance of “Dune” at a time when people were desperate for content.
IIRC the early reviews of Flash were so good because there was an original ending that was so much better and had more of Keaton and Sasha Calle. But then OF COURSE WBD in their infinite wisdom said, “we have a good thing here, we have to change this!”
Also, that other issue.
I think Dune Part II is going to be a massive, massive hit.
Really part 1 massively underperformed look at the ROI VS budget. So okay it wasn’t exactly Blade Runner 2049, but it wasn’t a runaway hit either.
The only reason i watched that movie was because of Keaton Batman, and Sasha Calle Supergirl. They completely messed up adapting Flashpoint, which the cartoon did well.
I hate this idea so much if it’s more than just combining streaming offerings. An all out takeover would be terrible for Hollywood.
I’d rather see someone like Apple grab the studios and library and exploit but also safeguard those and then see the broadcast assets go to WBD. Zaslav would ruin the studio, its legacy, its IP. Massive layoffs would compound the ones Paramount is already planning. Disney/Fox was painful enough, this would be worse.
happened before, sort of. anyone remember UPN?
Thats where Star Trek ended last time.
Also WB are treating their DC stuff like, you know, with the constant reboots and so on.
But UPN gave us the Rock in Voyager, maybe HBO Plus gives us dragons in space or something.
Spock did say in the one episode about seeing dragons.
eeh well, UPN was their attempt to build a network without actually having, y’know, a network. Just a loose collection of affiliates that would air stuff, and the affiliates often pre-empted UPN content for local sports or whatnot.
TBH, I think the only way to build a big mainstream audience is off streaming, maybe even off cable, and back onto scheduled, once-a-week terrestrial broadcasting.
I did research on this when I used to work on cable TV technology: we went from having a handful of local network affiliates, to cable TV with a dozen or more channels, to the 500-channel cable/satellite world, and then that fragmented even further with streaming. All of this is trying to chase the same audience into narrower and narrower niches, to diminishing returns from an advertising sales perspective, and streamers spending billions trying to replicate HBO’s premium drama formula.
Now, audiences use search to find their favourite shows, but they couldn’t really care about what network it’s on. The old network standby of the “must see TV” slate of shows whose audiences bled into each other for 2-3 hours vanished.
It’s weird that in theory CBS and Paramount are the same company, but we see very little Trek promotion on CBS itself, which is dominated by its slate of police dramas and reality shows. Is there space (pun unintended) on the Tiffany Network for science fiction? Or would it get relegated to the CW or something?
Maybe a Trek police procedural?
Discovery reruns flopped on CBS, which was odd. Still, I’m a little surprised they haven’t tried Picard or the more family-friendly SNW to fill the gap this season until March when scripted shows start coming back.
Exactly, sort of. The end of UPN meant the merger of Paramount’s network and the WB network into the CW. CW went all in DC with Smallville and Reality with Last Top Model and Trek wasn’t to be seen on Network TV again till Discovery almost 2 decades later.
::grimacing::
Doesn’t WB own the rights to Babylon 5? Weird to think that could be owned by the same firm that owns Trek.
No weirder at this point than Never Say Never Again becoming semi-canon.
Paramount has changed hands a few times over the near sixty year history of Trek. The franchise is a money maker, if the merger occurs, Trek isn’t going away.
It’ll always be around (albeit not continuously). If this happens, I’ll be very interested to see what they do with it. Their track record with the DC Universe overall isn’t highly encouraging, although they do seem to be trying to right that ship now.
It won’t go away but they’ll likely see it as a franchise that hasn’t been fully exploited and is underperforming, much like DC.
Well, if this happens then goodbye Lower Decks and Transformers Earthspark. Maybe Hasbro can save the latter but 😬.
Sorry, how is Hasbro involved?
Transformers is a Hasbro franchise.
I dunno about that. At least in the DC world animation is where WBD always shines. It’s their live action DC stuff that always has the problem. Why WBD didn’t hand over the DCU to Paul Dini years ago I will never know…
I’m not talking about DC though. I’m talking about WBD’s treatment of cartoons in general.
Ahh, well I guess I’m not really familiar with their cartoons outside of DC.
Could this lead the canceled Playmates Toy Star Trek action line back to McFarlane Toys and Spinmaster Toys? Maybe a line of Star Trek comics back at DC again too?
Oh that’s interesting, I didn’t think about Trek calling back under the DC Comics umbrella. I’ve been too scared of emo Superman crashing through the hull of the Enterprise in the next movie lol
Has anyone considered if this merger might lead to Star Trek Attractions at WB theme parks? I would definitely love to vacation in a Star Trek Park along with a Harry Potter Wizarding World vacation!
That’s at Universal.
The franchise they own is Jurassic Park. Jurassic World, and whatever they heck they plan for what happens next?
I’m not giving She Who Shall Not Be Named any of my hard-earned dollars, sorry. (And the cast and creative staff of Trek would probably balk at that, too.)
When it comes to licensing IP, cast and creative have no control over how it is utilized.
Ugh, this would be terrible. WB under Zaslav has been a nightmare, canceling projects left and right, shelving movies that were fully completed, and completely removing shows from all streaming platforms – all in the name of cutting costs.
It honestly wouldn’t shock me, if this merger were to happen, that WB’s first order of business would be to cancel all existing ST shows, and subsequently removing all ST shows from the various streaming platforms. Zaslav hates scripted TV, as it costs too much, and ST isn’t exactly known for being a cheap show to produce.
Zaslav hates costs, period. A friend worked on a Discovery DIY show and they were blaming their OSHA violations on Zaslav demanding massive budget cuts. That’s an overreach considering g these shows have plenty of middle men companies skimming a little at each level of development, but he is setting a tone.
Paramount has started doing the same again, obviously, but Trek is still a crown jewel for it – 6 shows in 7 years, with the live action series having premium TV budgets. At any other big media company with franchises Star Trek falls down the pecking order of priorities.
This is NOT good news. David Zaslav doesn’t give a crap about any of the properties under his control. He is mercenary and axes productions without a second thought, and he’s a horrible person in general. If WB and Paramount merge, this will be very bad news for Star Trek. Expect shows to be summarily canceled, and those on P+ to be taken down.
He’s running a business.
That does not mean he’s running it correctly.
Oh, no doubt that’s possible. I’m just saying that, sadly, making fans happy is not always the best interest of the business.
Sure, not always. But for an entertainment industry it should be at least a top priority.
And he’s doing a terrible job. He’s a classic example of failing upward in this business.
And examples abound. :-)
Indeed!
Not well.
And so are many unqualified, incompetent people who screw up their businesses they’re running. He’s one of them.
I completely agree. You work in this business so I’m sure you’ve heard more than a few stories over the past couple of years as it relates to Zaslav’s running of WBD. Zaslav is creatively bankrupt, finding great success in an industry he doesn’t have a full understanding of. Morale has been low over there for years and this news isn’t going to help.
Very much so. There are a lot of people in my industry right now who are worried. Right on the heels of two major strikes, now this. Ugh.
Things have felt unsettled at WB and Paramount for years and with M&A’s running rampant for the past decade, there are fewer places for talent to escape to. Having worked at both, this is a lose-lose situation.
does this mean bugs bunny can captain a starship?
The question should be: What does Bugs need with a starship?
NERO: There was supposed to be a kaboom. A great big, Earth-shattering kaboom….
FIRE ALL ACME TORPEDOS!!
I say I say I say they’re being installed Tuesday, declares Capt Leghorn.
Exit, turbo lift left.
Wouldn’t be the first time. Daffy’s logged some time in space, too.
No Zaslav anywhere NEAR Trek, please.
Imagine Justice League meeting Star Trek or Transformers.
Star Trek: Space Jam. Coming soon to a theater near you!
Though I never read it Star Trek did crossover with Green Lantern and Transformers already.
What was really fun was TNG doing a crossover with X-Men. Always wanted to get a mint copy of one of those and get Sir Patrick Stewart to sign it for me!
Sounds awful.
I’m really skeptical that this merger would be good for Star Trek, but I do see it being the end of the Kelvin movies in favor of a hard reboot or reboots every few years.
Honestly I think we have seen the end of the Kelvin movies now now matter what Paramount says.
Well, that happened in 2016. If the reported budget for Godzilla Minus One is correct, the suits will be demanding much more cost effective movie making moving forward….
And that would be a good move. ST films have a very limited audience and cheap ST films could be quite profitable, just like (most of) the TOS films.
I don’t think they will ever be happy only trying to appeal to a very limited audience with the Trek films. My concern is that any serious Trek film will no longer be made so that they will only appeal to the easy money of the non-fan masses.
I got in to see Godzilla Minus One this weekend, it’s a helluva movie. They got their money’s worth out of that reported 15 million budget….
LOL I can see it now. A reality show set aboard the Enterprise where everyone sleeps around and backstabs each other.
nah, it’ll be star trek: ncis
The one example given of “pulled after finished” is of course Batgirl, and that’s just a single weird example I wouldn’t make into a pattern.
They tried to do the same with Scooby-Doo meets Krypto and Coyote vs. ACME, but had to reverse course after John Cena and James Gunn almost left their contracts, multiple studios canceled meetings with WB, and an anti-trust investigation was launched. Batgirl was just ‘the one they got away with.’ They have verifiably tried to do the same with at least 2 other movies (possibly more).
I stand corrected.
How about “no” and let’s leave CBS/Viacom/Paramount it’s own separate company.
Paramount is on the block. If it isn’t WBD it will be someone else but WBD falls under the category of worst case scenario.
Well that’s true. Discovery apparently bought Warner Bros. just to destroy it.
I don’t want their CEO anywhere near Star Trek.
Maybe Superman can spin the earth backwards in time and then prevent any merger?
But here’s the thing: Discovery didn’t actually buy Warner Bros. AT&T acquired Discovery and controls 71% of WBD, handing the day-to-day over to Discovery’s Zaslav. AT&T wanted to be the majority stakeholder without the headache of running an entertainment company. Assuming a merger of WBD and Paramount, AT&T would still have a majority stake in the new company.
Wait… What now? AT&T kept Warner? They bought Discovery?!?!?!
Dude! I’ve been lied to all this time! No wonder why my cell plan didn’t drop my free HBO Max subscription.
I was seriously wondering how bad of a shape that WB was in for Discovery to be able to buy it. Now I know. I was way off base.
Time to reread about that merger/buyout/madness.
Oh lord that’s even worse! Leave it to a Duopoly like AT&T to act exactly like a Duopoly.
Honestly I know it won’t happen but I wish it were Apple. That’s a company with literally the most money and who actually cares about quality over quantity in streaming. Also, Star Trek invented the iPad LOL
You’re assuming Shari Redstone will see this, slap her forehead, and wonder out loud what in the world she was thinking about?
So a potential DC/Trek crossover. Batman and Superman meeting the Enterprise. Would be weird. Although if you ask me I’d say to stay as far away from that Zaslav guy as you can.
They’ve already done crossovers.
Green Lantern, The Legion of Superheroes.
I mean, they also did Planet of the Apes, but that’s a different story.
I don’t follow the comics here in my country so am not familiar with most of them.
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek
In the comics Star Trek has pretty much crossed over with everyone but Barbie and if this goes through I can totally see that happening lol
I can see it too! Except intellectually, they are not at the same level. The Barbie movie was much smarter than the latest Star Trek movies.
Seriously.
HA, I can see it now. Amanda Grayson is the great great great great granddaughter of Dick Grayson!
Multi-generational sidekicks….
In 20 years Paramount Warner will be bought by Taco Bell. This will then start the Netflix Taco Bell War.
Oh, a Demolition Man reference? If so, I approve.
LOL I don’t have a clue why that reference pop into my head.
LOL in hindsight Demolition Man wasn’t that far off!
these things drive me crazy… how many times have we seen a successful company then there’s a buyout or merging that gives the top rich people even more money and the result is firing lots of people… then selling off parts… then taking on heavy debt… and eventually the company is just gone. before all this nonsense warner brothers was a successful company and now they are dying with debt. it’s all insane and the losers are movies and tv biz and fans who will get fewer choices and fewer voices.
Paramount Global isn’t doing so well either.
WBD and Paramount are both carrying billions in debt so it’s a merger of necessity.
Nooooooooooo. Only if the Warner CEO and everyone there in the front office is kicked to the curb.
Warner Bros vs Disney has been a rivalry for 100 years now. Bugs Bunny vs Mickey Mouse, DC Comics vs Marvel, and now inevitably Star Trek vs Star Wars.
DC, WB characters and Star Trek are all hugely popular but they’ve never been able to match the success of Marvel, Disney or Star Wars. The rivalry between Marvel and DC is very real, the rest not-so-much.
WB already had their paws on SW with Clone Wars. They didn’t buy Lucasfilm Disney did. I’m still convinced it wasn’t just Disney willing to pay more Lucas never forgets or forgives. He resented they recut THX 1138, he hated they killed the dream of Zoetrope.
Well, at least this will finally put Kelvin ST 4 out of its misery.
Can we petition Apple to start a bidding war?
Who’s this “we” you speak of? Open up a change.org petition, that worked really well for the new Legacy show…..
paramout has had a bad year at the box office so this is no surprise
NO! Not Zaslav! Anyone but WBD. Other than Trek DC is my fav franchise and he is already screwing up that one :(
I wish we could somehow endow Trek with Zaslav immunity so he can’t arbitrarily chop it up. I’m not against this merger by any means, but I am against Zaslav and anyone with his trigger finger even looking at Trek. Here’s hoping he leaves us alone.
Zaslav is a real villain. This is bad news. I can imagine a small Star Trek production being completed but never being released.
It would be fun to see a Looney Toons / Star Trek mash-up. Captain Bugs Bunny, Engineer Wile Coyote, Communications Porky Pig, Security Taz, etc.
To quote another franchise, I have a bad feeling about this.
It will be sad to see the once-great Paramount studios be milked for all its worth and thrown to the side of the road like a dead carcass. All so Shari Redstone can make a few more billion or so. In retrospect, I don’t think the Redstone family have been good stewards of Paramount or CBS. I certainly don’t expect Zaslav and his ilk to respect creatives or beloved franchises. I canceled my Max subscription accordingly.
This is a great idea, and RickyTV welcomes it. WBD would be much better stewards of the Trek brand than Paramount has been in the last two decades. Not to say Paramount hasn’t had some success with Trek, but boy did they drop the ball so often!
The same studio that didn’t due anything with Babylon 5 for 2 decades due to ONE single executive who did not like the shows – JMS has confirmed that the only reason the animated film was made is becuase this executive had left WB.
To be fair, there are many people who do not like Babylon 5.
I actually think that is a good reason to do something with it. If you reboot a great show – fine. But if you think you can reboot a show that has been deemed mediocre by some and good by others, it may be worth to try again and turn it into something great and ambitious. (One can dream, right?) Case in point would be Battlestar Galactica.
It has a smaller fan, audience base
Yes, because they’ve been great stewards of DC and didn’t run Harry Potter into the ground with a terrible series of prequels. There is zero evidence they’d handle the creative aspect of Trek better than Paramount, and they’d almost certainly deprioritize it compared to its other franchises.
We’d lose a big 5 studio in the process and thousands of jobs. Just look back to the Fox/Disney merger and point out any benefits to consumers that outweighed the massive layoffs and removal of a competing studio with its own agenda.
The FOX thing didn’t work out for fans, tons of blu-rays are out of print of FOX films and Disney has no intention of reprinting or repressing them. They are content for them to be streaming only if at all. Never mind everyone saying well buying Fox means the original Star Wars trilogy is coming. 8 years later it hasn’t happened.
So many movie websites were filled with people just psyched about that and the fact it meant bringing X-Men movie rights back under Kevin Feige. The myopia was pretty incredible.
Paramount…A Gulf + Western Company….A Viacom Company….A Warner Discovery Company? Hard to imagine this is a terrible thing for Star Trek since it’s a big part of its value and one of the big reasons to buy it. Even if they decide to part out Paramount, Star Trek is likely to remain a wanted asset. I would personally like to see Star Trek sold to Disney which loves large IPs and knows what to do with them. Star Trek might go on a hiatus during all of this, I’m sure this likely means the wrap up of most currently produced shows, but since we were heading that way soon anyway, I think they are ripe for a reboot in a few years. One thing is for certain however, the Legacy series is very dead and the leadership at Star Trek is likely out.
How is that for certain? Are they not producing results? Paramount+ has only two sources of top 10 shows: Star Trek and Taylor Sheridan. Why would any new regime mess with that if they stay consistent?
We have gotten 6 Star Trek series in 7 years from Paramount/CBS. Is that not enough for us? Do we deserve more? Apart from the quality being variable and a lack of movement in cinemas, it’s hard for me to imagine how anyone could do better for us than that, especially a company like WBD which is infamous for penny pinching and mismanaging franchises.
But you brought up Disney which managed to oversaturate Star Wars and Marvel, deal a major body blow to Pixar with too many Disney+ releases, oversee the first Indiana Jones flop at the box office, and produce successful but vapid remakes of its animated movie IP. If that’s the shining example of a company that knows what it’s doing (amidst its worse run at the box office in years) then Hollywood is doomed.
They would mess with it if they feel that Star Trek hasn’t been fully or properly exploited. The mindset of a studio exec is that someone else can always do better and typically if its one of their own.
There’s a fine line between exploited and over exploited, not that studios know the difference until they have to reboot after running something into the ground.
We could probably do with the movies coming back but apart from giving up on Paramount+ and licensing the franchise to a bigger streamer, I’d have a hard time arguing Trek needs new stewardship – studios don’t care about quality as much as revenue. Secret Hideout-produced Trek has dabbled in everything – mature programming, legacy continuations, two cartoons targeting different audiences, with a young adult series and tv movie with Yeoh on the way. All have performed well within their remit, and Prodigy was still able to be licensed to an outside company. Anything that’s not really taken off like gaming, toys and merchandising, is something that hasn’t ever been at the same level as bigger franchises anyway. The revival of Trek on TV only looks like a success story over the last 7 years. I don’t see anyone messing with that, but if it were WBD in charge, they would try to cut costs. That’s bad.
And the success is difficult to measure because of the platform that it’s on. It’s questionable that SNW would have performed as well as “Yellowstone” had it been a Paramount Network original and not a Paramount+ original where it would have been accessible to more viewers.
A Deadline article suggested that one possible scenario is having James Gunn oversee Star Trek as he is with DC. What they may ultimately want is a more focused approach to IP.
That idea is the purest of speculation, of course. A bit ludicrous to add more to the man’s plate, especially when he hasn’t even produced box office results for them yet as overseer of DC films.
And I’m always saying Star Trek has been nurtured and protected as a Paramount IP. We can grumble about how crappy UPN was or Paramount+ or the quality of Kurtzman’s shows or JJ Abrams’ movies etc but the point was that Trek was prioritized and continually being developed as a top franchise. That could stop happening the same way elsewhere. The thing in its favor now is the optics of having so many successful shows. Success for P+ is different than elsewhere, but it should stave off calling for heads of this worst case scenario merger happens.
The actors strike hurt ‘marvels’, not issue of its quality
That’s something of a hot take. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania flopped with full court press tour. Barbie and Oppenheimer were runaway successes with major publicity but no proper actor PR. The Marvels had such a precipitous fall from grace at the box office, you’d be very hard-pressed to spin it as all being down to actors not being on talk shows and social media reminding people it existed.
Apart from Guardians of the Galaxy and Black Panther, there’s been a discernible drop in averages for critic and audience reviews as of late, with The Marvels being the third worst-performing Marvel film on RT (with the lowest films all coming in the last 2 years). And the sheer number of shows and movies has been relentless. I think there’s as strong a case for franchise fatigue with Marvel as you’re ever going to see.
‘Barbie and Oppenheimer’ got plenty of cast promotion ahead of release, something ‘marvels’ did not get.
and the latter got 85% audience rating at RT.
while GoTG v3 and ‘spiderverse 2’ will be in the top 10 for this year.
and ‘infinity/endgame’ and ‘no way home’ were plenty popular with audiences and critics
I agree with what an analysis said. Both companies have the same problem with Paramount probably needing WB more. Instead of having two companies with the same problem, you will have one company with same problem. The only true benefit is you can combine Paramount Plus with Max who are both losing massive amount of money but would be cheaper to run as one than two.
“A combined Paramount+/Max is seen as a “better rival” to Netflix and Disney+”
Hahaha that’s delusional thinking. The streaming wars are over. Netflix, Amazon, and Apple won; the latter two mostly because they have a ton of money from non media products or services.
These legacy movie studios need to focus on becoming smaller content producers who lease their content to other streaming platforms. Either do that or sell to one of these three.
They’ve mismanaged DC this doesn’t give me warm feelings.
They mismanage so much. Honestly, people need to realize the grass is not greener on the other side.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Oh wait, wrong mega(lomaniacal) entertainment empire, er, studio.
>;>}
I’m totally fine with whether or not the merger with Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global would come into fruition. However, I do call for new leadership at both media companies.
Share prices for both companies have dropped since speculation began. Hope that makes them think twice. It really makes so little sense for a massively debt-ridden company to take one another one in the same boat.