There is an update on the Paramount takeover buzz that kicked off last month with David Ellison’s Skydance Media reported to have made an offer to purchase control of Paramount Global. A change in ownership for the company that owns Star Trek could have an impact on the future of the franchise.
Skydance/Paramount?
Over the last month, it has become clear that Shari Redstone is very interested in selling her controlling interest in Paramount Global, held through her company National Amusements. Starting with David Ellison’s Skydance Media, several potential buyers were reported to have held talks with Redstone and Paramount in December and January, including Warner Bros. Discovery making big news after they entered the mix, but the potential “WarnerMount” merger was met with severe skepticism by Wall Street and industry analysts. However, analysts agree that Redstone and Paramount management are motivated to make some kind of deal due to the large debt load carried by the company, with the potential of a costly downgrade in their credit rating coming this year.
The latest update is that talks with David Ellison have progressed the furthest. On Wednesday night, Bloomberg first reported Ellison had made a “preliminary offer” to buy National Amusements. This was backed up by CNBC reporting Ellison wants to take all of Paramount Global private. Skydance, which is a smaller company, would need additional financing for such a deal. It has been speculated that Ellison’s father, billionaire co-founder of Oracle Larry Ellison, could help provide capital for the deal. According to Deadline, Ellison is “mainly interested in the studio but Paramount won’t sell its crown jewel alone.” Fortune reports Ellison and Redstone have discussed selling off the cable assets (like Nickelodeon, MTV, and BET), but “they have assured Redstone they will not break the company up into several pieces and their primary motive is to give it the resources it needs to compete with its larger peers in media.” However, they also report “The fate of the Paramount+ streaming service is uncertain.”
Paramount Pictures gate in Hollywood
Star Trek’s future
A merger with Skydance would almost certainly have an impact on Star Trek, but Ellison already has a connection to the franchise. As we reported last month, Skydance has been working with Paramount Pictures on the recent Star Trek movies and David Ellison (seen below at the Beyond premiere) is credited as an executive producer. Ellison also has a connection to Alex Kurtzman, who is currently in charge of Star Trek TV for Paramount. Back in 2011, Kurtzman (and his former partner Roberto Orci) held talks to merge their production company K.O. Paper Products with Skydance.
The biggest question would be the fate of Paramount+, home to original and legacy Star Trek TV series and movies. It’s possible that the streaming service can turn into a profit center and remain part of a newly merged company. There are also possibilities to coordinate with other small to medium-sized streamers on bundles, such as Paramount is already looking to do with Apple+. Paramount could look to an even closer content merger like they have done with Comcast in Eastern Europe with SkyShowtime. Under those types of scenarios, the Star Trek franchise could still live on within a Paramount streaming service (or one partially owned and controlled by Paramount).
If Paramount+ were shut down, the original Star Trek shows could be licensed to other streamers, as Paramount Global has already done with Prodigy, now streaming on Netflix. The legacy Trek shows would likely also be licensed. This move back to licensing is already happening throughout the industry. Currently, all 10 TOS and TNG movies are now exclusively available on HBO and Max. Without an in-house streaming service, the newly merged Paramount/Skydance would also likely be open to developing new original Star Trek in partnership with third party media companies. As for the feature films, a more focused Skydance/Paramount could look to finally get Star Trek back on the big screen to leverage the value of their newly acquired franchises.
It’s important to note that there is no agreed-upon deal in place. There are also other potential suitors for Paramount. Late last week, Bloomberg reported the private equity firm Apollo Global Management was considering making an offer for Redstone’s National Amusements. Unlike what happened after the Warner Bros. Discovery news, these latest reports have resulted in a jump in stock price for Paramount Global, signaling that Wall Street sees some kind of deal coming this year. That being said, even an agreed-upon deal will take many months to get approved and implemented. So for 2024, Paramount (and Star Trek) will continue to move forward as planned. Throughout the history of the Star Trek franchise, starting back when it was owned by Desilu in the 1960s, it has seen several changes in ownership, corporate structure, and management. The franchise will endure this latest round of corporate change.
Keep up with all the corporate news that can impact Star Trek here at TrekMovie.com.
Well given Skydance has been involved in all the new Trek movies, and has a comfort level working with JJA, this is good news for the movie franchise finally restarting — once this gets done.
Only if you like JJA films – and I don’t. As far as I’m concerned, his involvement is the kiss of creative death for any Star Trek or Star Wars project.
I’m hoping to see some new blood take control!
I feel the same way about the Kelvin movies, but I don’t think just having the same production company means further movies have to be like those three. They and all ten previous movies are also all still “Paramount” movies, after all, yet they all have widely different feels, styles, sensibilities, strengths, weaknesses, etc. The important thing is the specific people involved.
That’s a separate conversation — I am just saying that this will remove the Paramount brass indecision and waffling elements, and make it more likely we will get a Trek movie.
What, no confidence in the two that are “under development”? <snickers>
No, i’m inclined to drink the Phil Kool-Aid these days – why fight it when you’ve been right all along?
I’m not like some people here who are of course never wrong and double down when they get challenged
Completely agree! JJ verse is everything I despise with leave your brain at the door inane big budget popcorn action movies. They are slightly above the Transformer movies and that’s being kind considering how awful the stories are in both of them.
If they make another movie before 2030, hopefully it will be something new, makes sense and actually thought provoking. JJ has no idea what any of that means.
Bring back Hawley… after he spends a few years reestablishing the ALIEN universe as it was 40 years back, folks should be clamoring for Fargo Trek.
Yes, I’d like to see this as well.
I was very interested when he was named the next Star Trek director. Was he number 7 or 8…I lost count. 😂🙄
I don’t really think it was going to happen but out of all of them his sounded the most interesting because we would finally have new characters in a Star Trek movie for the first time.
I’ve only seen the first few seasons of Fargo but they are excellent. This is the kind of guy they should be attracting to do a quality Star Trek movie and not just the guys who make hardcore action movies. I still don’t understand why they feel they have to go the Marvel/Fast and Furious Trek when TVH proves plenty of people will go watch a Star Trek movie without EXPLOSIONS every 20 minutes or villains who wants to take down the Federation?
Try something new Paramount. We had the same nonsense for four movies straight.
Well, TVH was in 1986. Audience expectations of what they want to see when they go to the movies have changed.
Don’t get me wrong: I’d also be happy for Paramount to try something new but movies really seem to struggle at the boxoffice unless they are Marvel or Fast and Furious (and even Marvel doesn’t seem as big as they used to).
Maybe they should do Barbie in Space ;-)
You could be right and why I don’t really care about the movies in general. They are so busy trying to turn them into big blockbusters instead of just trying to make a good Star Trek movie it’s why so many fans don’t really care about them and the newer fans moved on long ago.
For me, out of the 13 movies, I only love four of them: TWOK, FC, TUC and TVH. That’s it. The others are OK to crap. Because they dumb down these movies to ‘appeal’ to non fans or normies who will never really care.
But they keep trying to turn it into Star Wars or Marvel or Fast and Furious. Those movies can make over a billion dollars and they all have.
But Star Trek is small fry. Whatever they do it’s never going to hit even half a billion. And they seem to know that and why there is still no movie eight years later. And most people stopped caring about JJ verse long ago. When DC, Marvel, Transformers can’t even hit that right now it’s no way Star Trek will get anywhere close. Make a small movie for the fans, stop chasing money you’re never going to get with ‘Star Trek’s in the title
Why Trek is just better on TV because it can just be Star Trek.
“But Star Trek is small fry.”
I wouldn’t say Trek is small fry, but closer to medium fry. ;D
I agree, I think they overshot themselves trying to turn Trek into some big tentpole franchise and clearly they recognize that too. Again, I do give them credit for trying to make Trek a bigger deal beyond just the sci fi geeks and space enthusiasts, but you have to know your limits too and why they seem to have so many issues with the movies. They seem to think they can only go BIG to get non fans excited but I don’t think it ever really worked as they hoped.
Especially when you consider its been now 15 years since the first Kelvin movie but in all that time, they done hardly anything with it outside of the three films. There is zilch merchandise anywhere today, not a single extension of the Kelvin universe in actual canon outside of the movies themselves and not a single show set in this universe. If they really wanted to keep it alive and couldn’t do another movie, there should’ve been at least one show by now instead of all the prime universe shows. There has been a few books and comic books with the other shows but pretty small overall.
To me it proves that Trek just doesn’t have the same pull on the big screen like the bigger franchises. Once no one bought the merchandise after the first movie, that was already a huge red flag this was never going to be the next Harry Potter or Star Wars.
Small screen or streaming though, it at least got the old fans still paying attention and getting a few newbies here and there. Again, probably nothing amazing numbers wise, but enough to continue to at least stay relevant.
I like that!
It’s funny here to see some of the same fans (not you) here who worship all the middle school BS antics and sophmoric stories we get on LDS all of a sudden sudden act so seriously offended by the JJA approach to Trek… and also anyone who also watched the last two episodes of Pic S3 who says how great it was — we’ll that very similar to JJA popcorn/StarWars-like Trek. The hypocrisy is hilarious
Because LDS is a comedy. You understand how comedies works, right? That’s not the same thing as a movie that PRETENDS to be serious but then do ridiculous nonsense as make their main character a CAPTAIN of the flagship even though he was only a cadet and acted like a childish fratboy through the whole movie. 🙄
Was that supposed to be a comedy too? That would actually make sense but still not funny.
What about the last two episodes of Picard S3?
What about them? Because they had action in it?? Lol, this is why it’s a waste of time to try and talk to you. First off I LIKE action in Star Trek. A big reason why I love DS9 because of all the great stuff with the Dominian War. It just wasn’t ONLY about that. They actually told an amazing story with it too.
Picard season 3 had 8 episodes before we got to the last two episodes. That telegraph what we got in the finale and why I loved it. We got actual development through the entire season..
JJ verse pretends to be something more but it’s just a mostly dumb action movies when you have nonsense like the Enterprise coming out of the water in a pre warp planet…. just because. 🙄
Action is fine, it’s when you just make it the main element and sacrifice a coherent story so you could have BOOM in a scene.
I actually thought by not arguing your point on LDS and asking your about the Pic S3 part of my comment that you might give a reasonable response and that we could have some dialogue on this in a normal way???
Lesson learned…back to ignoring you.
🙄
I did. You didn’t like the answer. Get over yourself.
“Lol, this is why it’s a waste of time to try and talk to you.”
I thought you were ignoring me again lol. You have some weird issues. Why you constantly fight with people here.
The point was I was trying to avoid a fight today, and you did your usual dismissive, making fun of me BS.
Bye.
Dude you were clearly talking about me and the only reason I responded to you. Right?? If you don’t want a ‘fight’ then stop calling people out or calling others hypocrites because you don’t like their opinions. 🙄
I’ll post as I see fit. I refuse to reduce myself to your level of personal insults though…not ever.
Um you tried to insult me and now you want to play the victim. Talk about a hypocrite.
You two are such children
HE STARTED IT!!!
😁
He gets personal about it every time, so it’s the same broken record over and over. You’re right, though it is childish for both of us
No, LDS only puts a ensign reporting to her mother (the captain), who reports to her husband (an admiral). Plenty of ridiculous nonsense to spread around, like Nutella.
Yes that’s why it’s a c-o-m-e-d-y! 😉
Do people not watch shows like The Simpsons, American Dad, Futurama or Family Guy??? Have you never watched any of these shows before?
That’s the point bro lol. If you don’t like it, OK, but that’s how animated comedies work.
And are you saying making cadet Kirk a Captain is supposed to be a comedy too?? That would actually make it better if it was true because it would feel less absurd then. 🙄
Turning Kirk into a Captain after being in space for four days and on academic probation is still one of the most bone headed things done in Star Trek. And that includes turning Janeway into a salamander or Spock losing his brain. Maybe the crying Kelpian kid tops it though. Still, it’s just so nonsensical on every level, but whatever.
Totally just beyond stupid and why I never took the movies seriously after that. Just ridiculous writing of the worst kind. But as JJ keeps proving, he doesn’t exactly care about logic or reasoning in his stories just if they look super cool for the teenagers out there.
And I remember hearing in STID they were going to deal with the fact they put an unqualified twenty something year old kid as a Captain of their flagship. They busted him down to first officer for literally a day before he was Captain again. What was even the point??? This is as bad as how Discovery treats rank on that show.
Just so much ridiculous nonsense. 🙄
If you ever watched Rick and Morty, the show Mike McMahan worked on before making LDS, you would see how tame this show is compared to the insane wackiness that happens on Rick and Morty every week. LDS is comes off pretty grounded believe it or not lol.
But yeah, adult animated comedies are pretty absurd by definition. But they are pretty popular considering many of them are over ten or twenty years old now. I don’t know how long LDS will go (hopefully seven seasons…and a movie) but it oddly seems to get more popular every season, not less. But no idea how that translates in ratings. But it’s a sign fans have at least accepted it. I think a lot of people thought it wouldn’t make it past the first two seasons and now it’s on its fifth. So its doing something right.
Bro…I didn’t think it would make it past the first season! 😂
I have said this many times. I truly expected to hate this show like the Upper decks guy. I don’t really like adult cartoons. And Rick and Morty is so crass and cynical I couldn’t believe someone from that show was making Star Trek. Like seriously?? I stopped watching after the third episode. It’s really smart and clever but too off puting for me.
But that probably helped me to like LDS more because I was pleasantly surprised how optimistic it was and then some of the sweetest and most lovable characters was created like Tendi and Rutherford. And then you have the opposite of them with Shaxs and Dr. T’Ana lol. I love them all! ♥️
It’s a loved show surprisingly in the fanbase. But it’s not a show for everyone. No one is forcing anyone to watch it either. Just watch more TNG or SNW or something instead. Problem solved.
If JJ verse was a comedy then maybe people could like it more lol.
What’s funny is LDS does a great send up of how ridiculous the movies have become through the Crisis Point episodes. I take that as equally serious as I take JJ verse movies meaning none at all lol.
I don’t think these are the same people. LD has a vocal fanbase, but it’s a niche. The movies need to appeal to as many as possible. LD never needed to appeal to everybody.
Exactly! LDS is not meant to be taken that seriously. It’s a 30 minute animated comedy. You can completely hate it lol, but that’s what it is. Just watch the other and more serious shows, problem solved. You have 9 other shows to watch.
These movies are what they are too but when that’s ALL we have, it’s depressing because we didn’t just have this either but Paramount thinks this is the only stuff non fans will watch and it’s sad to me.
While that may be true, for the fans who post here, it’s largely “the same people.” That’s where I see the hypocrisy.
And if people want to say, “wait, it’s a comedy,” well would be all well and good if Paramount hadn’t insisted LDS was canon — in other words, everything we see on LDS happens in the Trek future history, comedy or not. Mariner “messing with Armus” happens in Star Trek’s future just as much as V’ger showing up at Earth.
Also, on Pic S3, I will need a lot of convincing to show me that the whole Picard cadaver and Jack Crusher’s superpowers are anymore dumbass and lame than the Magic Blood thing JJ used which so many always bring. up…lol… both are equally dumb, yet there is hypocrisy here with many fans as well, obviously.
“… would be all well and good if Paramount hadn’t insisted LDS was canon — in other words, everything we see on LDS happens in the Trek future history, comedy or not. Mariner “messing with Armus” happens in Star Trek’s future just as much as V’ger showing up at Earth.“
Okay, and… ? Yes, these are both canon events, just like Zefram Cochrane’s warp flight, Kirk preventing McCoy from saving Edith Keeler, the Battle of Wolf 359, Voyager being yanked by the Caretaker into the Delta Quadrant, the Dominion War, Riker and Troi getting married, and any number of other things. Not sure what your point is.
Dude, that is my point!
Assuming, of course, you accept Paramount’s word. I don’t. They’re not a legislature, and there’s no law you have to defer to Paramount.
Does canon mean anything anymore?
JJ Trek is not terribly sophisticated, which is something several of the shows after it picked up on to a degree. That’s not a new thing – Nemesis isn’t exactly cerebral either, but generally I’d say JJ Trek influenced the shooting style of live action Trek while also opening the doors to things like Super Jack and a lot more physical combat (even Spock isn’t above that – he’s introduced to Discovery with a fight scene). There’s room for Star Trek to be more like Star Wars once in awhile, but the 2009 movie pushed things in that direction uncomfortably far for me in some ways, while still getting a lot of character work, casting, and humor right. It worked wonders for the general audience though, pushing a tendency to try to make the films as accessible as possible. I just think it compromised on the sophistication.
All the shows take that on. None of the new shows are as cerebral as 90s Trek’s baseline, but their modern pacing and vibe is more accessible. They are a diverse bunch but still recognizable as Star Trek shows that take more time on characters and issues than the movies ever can or will. I’ve accepted it’s all part of the same canon.
Even though I was never excited about a TOS reboot, I was obviously curious about it and I did think Abrams was a good choice seeing his sci fi geek cred displayed. I knew he wasn’t a big Star Trek guy but that didn’t matter, lots of people weren’t until they got the job. As long as he understood it and learn to care about it enough is all that mattered.
Looking back on it now, I really wish he never did it. I’m sorry, I do agree he did manage to turn people on to Trek who never cared or watched it before, but at what cost? I just don’t think he did the franchise any good in the long term. Especially since the series bombed after just the third one. I don’t blame him directly or anything but it does show these movies were a house of cards. People talk about how Marvel is now failing and people are turning away which is party true, but it still took over 10 years, 20 movies and multiple shows before people started turning away. The Kelvin movies had already hit its peak after just the second one and I just don’t see any movie ever making more than STID, the one fans claim to hate the most. Any of the new fans it did get probably don’t even think about them much today unless they became bigger fans and watched the old shows or films.
I don’t mean to come off so cynical but I look at those movies now and I just see so much wasted potential and money. They didn’t strike while the iron was hot, squandered what could’ve been a pretty exciting premise early and just a ton of nonsensical story elements in all of them.
Of course I’m not saying the TOS or TNG movies were perfect, but they still felt like Star Trek movies. The Kelvin movies tried to be other things to the point of distraction today. And the second British Khan showed up, that’s when I knew it was going to be hard to recover from that so early into the series. They are Trek movies and I think the cast was good but just kind of feel outside of the rest of the rest of the franchise for me today and that include the new shows.
Now all that said, if they ever get around to making another one, I’ll support it, I just hope Abrams is far far away making it. Produce, fine, but nothing beyond that.
I don’t disagree. I will say I was annoyed that Star Trek Beyond flopped because apart from the villain’s motivation and plan being highly unoriginal (and this was the third movie in a row to completely overpower the Enterprise), it did a few more proper Star Trek-y things between the action beats, and got the character interactions down nicely.
It’s Into Darkness that was such an own goal to me. They had so much hubris in inviting direct comparisons to TWOK. But instead of a higher minded film musing on aging, friendship and legacy with a good smattering of literary quotations, we got Magic Blood and Kirk kicking the engines until they worked. The movie was all about shortcuts, (admittedly it was by necessity – we’d only known this cast for about 4 hours), and it’s the epitome of how the movies dumb down Trek quite often, with Abrams being very cavalier and even arrogant about how it comes across.
Reading this, I wondered if anybody started called Cumberbatch’s Khan the FairerKhan at any point in the last decade?
I don’t think it’s hypocrisy; it’s just a matter of watching the shows and seeing different things from what you’re seeing. To me, Lower Decks doesn’t feel remotely like the Kelvin movies, and I’m genuinely mystified that you’d think it’s “very similar”.
Thank you! Everyone else understands that but this guy. There is nothing similar about either. Other than having Star Trek in the title they are night and day. He’s just upset people hate stuff he likes and trying to conflate the two to have a silly argument.
You can absolutely love the Kelvin movies and think LDS is crap or vice versa, nobody cares. None of it matters, it’s just people’s personal opinions. Stop being so triggered over it.
Congrats — taking his WRONG representation of what I said (I said the last two eps of Pic S3 are similar to the Kelvin movies, NOT LDS) and then refuting that false information like you are making a point and I am nuts to say something that I never even said…LMFAO!
You should go into politics — and work on the orange haired freak’s campaign, where telling lies is celebrated. ;-)
IOk fine I made a mistake. Go away now.
You mystification is due to you not paying attention to what I wrote. You are misrepresenting what I wrote — the “very similar” phrase I wrote was very clearly embedded in my comparison between the last 2 eps of Picard season 3 and the JJA movies, NOT LDS. And I stand by that comparison.
I paid attention; your wording just wasn’t clear to me. You wrote:
“ It’s funny here to see some of the same fans (not you) here who worship all the middle school BS antics and sophmoric stories we get on LDS all of a sudden sudden act so seriously offended by the JJA approach to Trek… and also anyone who also watched the last two episodes of Pic S3 who says how great it was — we’ll that very similar to JJA popcorn/StarWars-like Trek. The hypocrisy is hilarious”
… which to me reads as you found hypocrisy in LD fans being “offended” by the Abrams movies, and also by the “very similar” last two eps of Picard. I get that you’re saying it’s those eps of Picard that are similar to the Abrams movies; my point is that if you found hypocrisy in the LD fans drawing a distinction between that show and either of the other things, then that implies you find hypocrisy in them drawing a distinction between LD and the other of those two other things (it hardly matters whether it’s the Kelvin movies or Picard), when I don’t think there’s any hypocrisy there either way.
Nice try — you said:
“To me, Lower Decks doesn’t feel remotely like the Kelvin movies, and I’m genuinely mystified that you’d think it’s “very similar”.”
So you were very specifically saying that I was comparing lower decks to the Kelvin movies. Yet here is exactly what I said:
“and also anyone who watched the last two episodes of Pic S3 who says how great it was — well that’s very similar to JJA popcorn/StarWars-like Trek.”
So I was very clear here that I was comparing the last two episodes of Picard season 3 to the JJ Abrams Star Trek movies… NOT LDS.
So If you are “mystified,” it’s because you either have poor reading comprehension skills, or you deliberately twisted around what I said. Neither option is super great for you to be proud of.. lol
I’m not “proud”, but I literally just said “I get that you’re saying it’s those eps of Picard that are similar to the Abrams movies”.
My point, the actual important thing I’m trying to ask about, is where you see hypocrisy in Lower Decks fans for having negative opinions of either or both of those other two productions, as I just don’t see it as being hypocritical. If you want to argue that we have lousy taste, okay; I might disagree, but that’s a defensible position one can argue with or against. But hypocritical? I just don’t see how that makes sense. What is hypocritical about liking Lower Decks but disliking the Kelvin movies and/or Picard?
All three productions are stipulated as canon by CBS, so everything that happens, comedy or not, happens in Star Trek’s future history. So what I’m seeing here is some fans letting a lot of the silly and nonsensical stuff in lower decks “slide,” while holding the live action shows and movies to a different standard. Secondly, in Picard season 3, I saw many of the same types of questionable and rather silly, Star Wars-like plot devices and story elements happen that I saw in the JJ Abrams Trek movies (with so many of the same fans who love lower decks I see here complained about) — so I’m continuing to scratch my head at not seeing much of a difference in those critiques between the two. So yeah to me there is hypocrisy.
I might be willing to reduce ” hypocritical” to “ironic,” but I have a feeling we’re going to continually have a disagreement on our opinions of this.
correction:
“(with so many of the same fans who love Pic S3 I see here complained about)”
Ha, someone at Lufthansa seems to share your view! At the end of last year, the in-flight entertainment offered the first eight episodes but omitted the last two!
Lol, seems to fit!
Probably a Paramount ploy to encourage people to subscribe and finish the show.
Best Par+ ploy is probably getting Jon Stewart back for a day per week on new DAILY SHOW eps. If nobody puts those shows on youtube, I may have no choice but to sign up there. I need Stewart … badly!
TNG is best a comedy. That’s why LDS has some love, at least it’s honest.
Also agree with this. Less FF Trek, more sci-fi cerebral Trek. That has most certainly been lost along the way.
Pretty sure cerebral, sci-fi Trek went away after TMP…..
Also agree Danpaine. It doesn’t have to be TMP lol, but it could be a little more than just another uber villain trying to blow up the Federation for the fifth time.
It’s like they don’t know how to do anything else anymore. I’ve gotten so bored of the same thing for the last 4-5 films now.
To be fair, it isn’t as if Final Frontier, Generations, Insurrection and Nemesis are Oscar-quality writing, either.
Where did I say I loved any of those lol. And Nemesis is my WORST movie. It’s D-E-A-D last on my list, yes worse than all the JJ verse movies. I go one farther and I never bothered to watch either Insurrection or Nemesis in the theater because how bad I heard they were. Yes word of mouth actually matters. I wasn’t a Trek fan when Generations or TFF came out but probably would’ve stayed home from those too. Actually I still prefer both of those to JJ verse easily. I always loved Sybok lol. Bad movie, but cool dude!
I’m not saying JJ verse is the only dumb movies, but I do believe the dumbest by far and because they keep saying they will make more lol. TOS and TNG movies are done.
And for the record I liked Beyond. Yeah it was really dumb too but it at least FELT like a real TOS movie and had some logic behind it and a really nice send off to Prime Spock.
The first two barely felt like Star Trek at all to me but that’s just my opinion of course. If others liked them, cool! 😎🖖
I just want them to move on. The next will probably bomb anyway.
To be fair, it isn’t as if Final Frontier, Generations, Insurrection and Nemesis are Oscar-quality writing, either.
Agreed. And I still love Trek 2009. It’s STID and Beyond that I thought were misfires.
Trek 2009 isn’t terrible – it does a decent job of passing off to a new crew in a new timeline and had a killer cast that they then went on to royally waste.
Yeah, but it does have a ton of problems. So much of that movie just doesn’t make a lick of sense. But it was exciting and very very pretty at the time and that was probably enough for most people.
And then STID came along and doubled down on the problems. Sigh
Go raise about six billion and make an offer.
Indeed. his Trek movies were generic garbage
This potential merger makes me feel better about the future of Star Trek than the potential WB/DISC merger. David Zaslov has a habit of ruining things just to save a buck.
A couple of thoughts … considering Skydance’s relationship with Kurtzman, and the successes he’s had with the current era of Trek on TV … my guess is they would allow Kurtzman to continue in his current role. If Skydance can give a huge infusion of cash, not only could that secure the futures of Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and the upcoming Academy, it could also pave the way for Legacy (Kurtzman isn’t stupid, he knows many fans want this, and I’m sure he’d love to give Matalas the green light) and future streaming film projects.
As for the film franchise finally restarting … while I’m not a huge fan of the JJ-verse, I enjoyed Star Trek 09 and Star Trek: Beyond. As long as they moved the characters ahead an entire decade (because it would be at least that long before we see it if/when production finally begins), I would absolutely enjoy seeing Pine and Company back on the screen revisiting their characters.
As for the film franchise finally restarting … while I’m not a huge fan of the JJ-verse, I enjoyed Star Trek 09 and Star Trek: Beyond. As long as they moved the characters ahead an entire decade (because it would be at least that long before we see it if/when production finally begins), I would absolutely enjoy seeing Pine and Company back on the screen revisiting their characters.
Yeah, this is where I am at as well!
Thanks for keeping us updated, TrekMovie!
I Agree. Much Appreciated &, No Small Thing.
This is probably new Trek’s best option at this point. I view this as good news.
If this winds up splitting Trek’s new shows up among different services, it will be disastrous. Currently the only reason I have P+ is because everything is in one place (I don’t really care about the movies).
But I will definitely not be investing in subscriptions to multiple services to watch every new Trek show. I’m already planning on skipping Prodigy because I will not get Netflix.
If I have to get Max for SNW, Amazon for lefacy shows, Netflix for Prodigy, Hulu for Academy, I just won’t get any of them.
Well, Netflix is also the streaming home of the “Power Rangers.” Episodes are on the Power Rangers YouTube channel and Paramount+’s corporate sibling Pluto TV.
Competition might actually be a good thing for Star Trek.
Please reread my comment, you seem to have missed a few things. Like all of it.
Besides, this isn’t completion. Do you know what competition is? Maybe pull out a dictionary, I’ll wait here.
I know EXACTLY what I said, I didn’t miss anything you said, and I know what that definition of “competition” is — and I therefore stand by my comment 100%.
If you don’t like my comment, that’s your problem, not mine. And if this would happen and you decide to not get any Trek channels, then it would suck to be you.
Just keep Star Trek away from Zaslav. That is all I ask.
This would ensure that never happens.
Look for Kurtzman to move on from Star Trek for a bigger role at a newly formed company. He has the keys to the franchise but I suspect that he finds it limiting and has bigger ambitions.
Taking the company private would avoid all of those pesky calls filled with word salad that basically say, “Yeah, we’re kinda’ screwed here” which is always followed by a significant drop in the company’s stock price.
Paramount execs will pushed out in favor of Skydance execs in both television and film.
Expect more layoffs but fewer than one might expect with a WBD merger.
What happens to Star Trek? Fewer risks, more familiarity, smaller budgets. If you’re a bean counter, you’re going to look at what Matalas pulled off for season 3 of Picard and say, “We need more of that.” And by “more of that” I mean tighter budgets and higher ratings on the TV side and larger profit margins on the feature side while keeping most fans happy.
I believe he has a long-term deal worth tens of millions so I don’t think that’s happening.
Secret Hideout has a deal which doesn’t preclude him from taking a gig with Skydance. They can also fold Secret Hideout into the new company. Kurtzman is in a win-win position.
I’d rather see him in a no-win scenario. How would he fare with a test of character, especially considering how badly his shows usually handle characters.
Well, look at it this way. If he’s overseeing something else it pulls him away from Star Trek.
Not far enough away, he still was doing all this while misdoing SILENCE OF THE LAMBS with ms. Lumet.
True.
Perhaps he doesn’t believe in the no-win scenario?
;-)
To be honest he might be getting a little frustrated now that they cancelled two of his shows and not making a lot of shows as before.
So maybe what he needs is a merger with a company that will actually give him an infusion of cash? Given their past relationship, I trust Skydance to let him continue on the TV side of Trek.
I don’t think he wants to spend the rest of his career focused on Star Trek.
There was an interview a couple years back … Kurtzman himself said he had a vision for Trek through the end of the 2020s. I’m sure at some point he will want to move on, but he’s given no indication he’s tired of Trek.
“The Mummy” was supposed to take his career in a different direction and things didn’t quite pan out. He’ll have more options with Skydance.
Yeah maybe. I don’t really pretend to know how it works. If it helps get us a Legacy show too then I support it lol.
I have no clue either, just speculating based on the speculation we keep getting lol. This news (if it works out) is far better than Zaslov over at Warner/Discovery getting his hands on Star Trek.
Let Bezos distribute all the tv shows on Prine. You wanna make Trek more popular? Put it on the largest streaming service everyone with a Prime membership has. Bezos is a huge Trekkie and will do right by it. He bough the Enterprise-A studio filming model to put in his Blue Origin office lobby.
I have no idea how feasible or likely this idea is, but I kind of like it.
He didn’t fix it up or plug it in, which is like displaying the Star of India jewel within a closet with the lights off.
Amazon now owns the Stargate franchise thru owning MGM.
Not only are they doing nothing with it, it’s not even consistently on Prime.
I wouldn’t say that Prime was some optimal choice.
Not only is it not the optimal choice, there’s no saying Amazon wouldn’t just license TNG while Max gets DS9 and Hulu gets Voyager.
The Bond moveis are leaving Prime Video in a few days… and they weren’t on Prime during Christmas (this is in Europe/Hungary)
His being a Trekkie is meaningless. He didn’t grab trek before, he’ll only grab it now if he thinks it’ll be a cash cow.
And it’s not like Bezos even makes those decisions. You probably think the POTUS decides the price of stamps.
Bezos isn’t in charge anymore. There’s been a new CEO for a couple of years now. He’s on the board but that’s about it. He’s off playing Zefram Cochrane in real life….
Divorcing his “Companion” sure cost a lot of money — it definitely metamorphized his financial position.
My goodness, how naïve you are. Bezos is still the largest Amazon shareholder, is still on the Board, and is the company founder. If today he decided Amazon should try to get Trek, they’d be calling P tomorrow…period, exclamation point!
You don’t have to let Bezos do anything. If he wants it, he can buy it.
Yeah, that too…and if on a whim he wanted to by all of P, he could do that as well.
You should share this opinion with Michael Hall.
Netflix is bigger – 260M – vs Amazon’s 200M or so, and that could be exaggerated because does every Prime member bother to watch video?
And I’d question Amazon’s interest in Star Trek. Lately they’ve shown signs of being impatient with how streaming is working for them. Their LotR series might have soured them on big franchises. They’re more interested in sports and stuff like Reacher and Road House for the sports audience. Star Trek is no longer a good fit for them.
I’m just happy there is no Disney in sight!
Yet
They don’t have the cash for it, Disney+ and a bad year at the box office last year have caused headaches. The parks and merchandising are doing all the heavy lifting to subsidize all of that.
Still keeping my D stock and expecting an eventual turnaround.
all Disney would do with ST would be “put a chick in it and make it lame”
oh wait….
Disney needs to focus on salvaging their own floundering franchises and not take on another one!
Almost anyone is better, “Sell it or shelve it,” Zaslav.
Regardless of the opinions on the Kelvin movies, being purchased by a company that actually likes the franchise is a plus. And even if they struggled at first, it would only be a matter of time before they found the right creative team to make something great, i.e. when Kurtzman finally found the right mix of people for SNW and Picard S3.
Agreed! 👍
I’d love it if Skydance would realize the movies and series must work together, not run off in their own directions, which fragments the fanbase and causes diminished interest. If Skydance doesn’t want to run a streaming service, and I wouldn’t blame them, then they should license Star Trek series to Netflix for a reasonable rate.
Reasonable because there’s a big value to Skydance of using Netflix’s 260M subscribers as a launching pad for a new series to go back to the big screen. They might need to try out a few series before getting the right one. Maybe SNW can be developed into something for the big screen. Maybe they need to experiment with another approach.
Netflix will be happy to fund these efforts since they don’t have any current franchise with Star Trek’s renown.
JJ should buy Trek
JJ doesn’t have that kind of money. And if he did, he would probably want to invest more in Star Wars productions considering that still makes tons more money. It’s funny how he has no connection to that franchise anymore, but I guess after TROS, no one is begging him to be there either.
Yikes. no.
I really though WB would be a better fit.
They have a ton of debt. Adding billions more would dig them into an even deeper whole.There are no net positives for WBD or Paramount.
Zaslav was trying to come across as the hunter as opposed to the hunted. Comcast has been interested in Warner Bros. for quite some time.
They’d decimate Paramount as an independent studio and Star Trek would be a lesser priority for them than Harry Potter, Barbie, and DC. They don’t have much more money to lavish on content than Paramount does, and have a lot of stingy policies right now.
The smart move which is what I wanted all along is to get allTrek back on Netflix or on Prime
Netflix. 260M subscribers, Star Trek will get exposure to a far bigger audience than on little Paramount+.
Amazon seems more interested in sports and shows for the sports audience like Reacher and Road House. Not a good fit for Star Trek now.
“Throughout the history of the Star Trek franchise, starting back when it was owned by Desilu in the 1960s, it has seen several changes in ownership, corporate structure, and management.”
Yeah, but let’s be honest, it’s basically been the same owner since the late 60’s.
Possibly would result in less layoffs than if they were purchased by a rival company like Warner or Universal something, but there would still be layoffs for sure. Mergers suck.
Linear TV assets are going to be sold off or just shuttered no matter what so that’s a lot of jobs lost.
focusing on part of the article… i prefer when trek is not exclusive to p+… it should be sold and open for others who dont hve p+ to watch. as a kid i found it accidently. that doesn’t happen much in the streaming era as you have to subscribe to p+ to find it. you have to look for it. but before, trek reruns on netflix and other sites really helped launch the new era… people discovered ds9… and voyager… more eyeballs watching the classic shows the better.
As impatient and annoyed as I am with Netflix now. the best thing for Trek is for Paramount+ to be shuttered and Paramount to make more Star Trek series and license them to Netflix. It has 260M global subscribers now.
That’s a great place to use to rebuild an audience for the movies. Make sure at least one streaming series can serve as a launching pad back to the big screen. I love SNW but I’m not sure it’s going to be a launching pad.
Skydance may be involved in the Trek movies but that might not be a good thing. They’ve run aground creatively but is Skydance willing to admit that? On streaming, the situation isn’t too much better. Strange New Worlds is good but can that become a movie franchise?
The situation is frankly a mess and the last thing they need is more incoherence between the movie and streaming efforts. They need a single owner and a single creative director who can turn the situation around.
I’m really starting to like the new Kirk in Strange New Worlds i hope they don’t mess it up. Eagerly awaiting season 3.
I still don’t buy SNW Kirk but I definitely never bought Chris Pine’s bad-boy routine (despite liking Pine in most other things he’s done). I’d rather stick with SNW than the movies, SNW has a lot going for it. Hard to believe it could ever make the leap to the big screen though.