We have another Star Trek production update from Toronto, this time for Star Trek: Section 31. Filming started in January for the streaming movie and now, according to an update from one of the actors, filming is complete.
That’s a wrap on Section 31
The news of the end of filming came on Wednesday from actor Robert Kazinsky who was one of seven new cast members announced on January 30th, when filming had started. Kazinsky shared an image on Instagram of what looks to be his wrap gift from the production with a personalized note, a rose, a bottle of wine, and the seatback from his Section 31 set chair. On his Instagram story, he wrote “That’s a wrap. Our trek is ended… for now.”
Kazinsky wrote a longer message in an Instagram post, calling filming Section 31 “one of the greatest experiences of my life” and saying “I have few bigger heroes in my heart than Star Trek and for the first time in my life a hero exceeded my wildest hope.” He also went on to praise director Olatunde Osunsanmi as “the finest Captain I’ve sailed under” along with applauding star Michelle Yeoh, who is returning to her Discovery role as Emperor Phillipa Georgiou.
View this post on Instagram
Kazinsky appears to be a genuine Trek fan. Of the Section 31 production, he said:
As someone who has been watching a Star Trek show my entire life, who restarts as soon as I finish like so many others I know, to be a small part of that giant constellation is the fulfillment of a hope that I felt the first time I ever heard the words “Space, the Final Frontier”
I hope you guys like what we made for you. As a die hard Trekker I think you’ll love it.
The English actor may be best known for a role in the Pacific Rim film. He recently appeared in the Russo Brothers-directed Netflix film The Gray Man. He also had a small part in Captain Marvel.
Robert Kazinsky at the Captain Marvel premiere (Getty)
More cast revealed
Kazinsky also gave a shoutout to the previously announced members of the cast: Omari Hardwick, Kacey Rohl, Sam Richardson, Sven Ruygrok, Humberly Gonzalez, and James Hiroyuki Liao. But he also tagged three additional actors not included in the original Paramount+ release: Joe Pingue (Station Eleven), Miku Martineau (Kate), and Augusto Bitter (EZRA). Just like the other seven, it isn’t known what roles any of the actors besides Michelle Yeoh are playing.
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- Joe Pingue
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- Miku Martineau
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- Augusto Bitter
Michelle Yeoh’s Oscar shoutout to Star Trek
According to our previous reporting, production on the Section 31 movie was originally set to run for six weeks, wrapping up on March 13th. It looks like things took another week to finish up. They probably lost a little bit of time for star Michelle Yeoh to attend the Oscars on March 10th in Los Angeles. On March 12th, the 2023 winner for Best Actress shared a picture on Instagram of her presenting at this year’s Academy Awards along with the message “My Vulcan salute to my Section 31 and Star Trek family and ‘heart’ to all I love and who care for me ♥️ on Oscar stage.”
View this post on Instagram
Little is known about the plot of the Section 31 movie. Here is the brief official synopsis:
In Star Trek: Section 31, Emperor Philippa Georgiou, joins a secret division of Starfleet tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets and faces the sins of her past.
Official announcement image
Production on the Section 31 movie was completed in parallel with production on the third season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which just began filming the 7th episode (of the 10-episode season) yesterday. Both productions are shot at different studio locations in Toronto, but both also share the same AR Wall virtual stage. The Section 31 movie was shot primarily on the Pinewood Studio stages that were previously occupied by Star Trek: Discovery.
Paramount+ has yet to set any release date for either the Section 31 streaming movie or season 3 of Strange New Worlds.
Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com
Well, it’s not so much that the production is done, but principle photography is complete….
Hopefully we have a winner here.
Phil, I imagine it must be a tough pill for your swallow that a Star Trek movie actually got completed after so long? I feel you pain, man!
Been saying for a bit now that we’d likely see a feature made direct to streaming before one hit the big screen. This doesn’t bother me in the least.
I said the very thing two years ago now lol.
And it’s probably easier to greenlight a $20 million TV movie vs the ridiculous money they spent on the Kelvin movies.
In the Kelvin movies 20 mil probably wouldn’t even cover the cast costs.
Is that $20 mil number verified? That sounds low.
I’d read somewhere that PS3 was a 100MM expenditure, which works out to about 10MM per hour. I doubt they made S31 for 20MM, but given the similarities of the productions, maybe 30-40MM is a reasonable guesstimate.
Yeah, around 35 mil sounds more likely.
To be clear I have no clue what the budget is I was just making the point it’s probably not $150 million either lol.
Yeah it could definitely be more than $20 million. I just assumed that would be the bare minimum.
Picard season 3 was a very talky show and no way did it cost 100m for the 10 episode season. Season 2 of SNW cost quite a bit more I would say, there was more location shooting and the CGI was much better overall.
Yeah but the cast salaries itself probably added to that budget and why I can see that season being that much.
Not sure.
No it wouldn’t and not a shock why they’re currently dead in the water 8 years on.
Yeah. Completely mismanaged IMHO. Even Chris Pine said you can’t make a Trek movie with a Marvel budget and expect Marvel returns. Trek is just not that kind of franchise.
Easy for him to say given his, Zaldana’s and Urban’s costs are A-lister high.
If you said to him, “hey Chris, we want you and the others to take a 50% pay cut to help let us make the make the next movie for closer to $100 mil,” I think we know what the answer would be…lol
Also, “Marvel returns” ain’t what they used to be.
lol dude that’s exactly my point!! 🖖
Exactly why the movies are dead lol. They are just too expensive with this current cast and just don’t make enough to justify the costs. And the last one bombed with the possibility the next one could do even worse.
Heya Tiger! Ya. That’s what I am saying. I’m confused now. I think we all agree?
No we all agree. And most importantly I think Paramount agrees. 😉
And remember they asked Pine to take a pay cut back in 2018 and he declined to. That’s certainly his right but why I don’t see another one ever happening unless they can cut it way down.
HA! If you and I and TOS can agree at the same time, then Paramount has to pay attention!!!
If they could get slight pay cuts and do it for $150 mil, the numbers could work. Especially given that $150 mil today would be equivalent to like spending $100 mil on a movie a decade ago.
Yea, the agreement among all of us is race and nice. :-)
PS: Also, just have then use the SNW Enteprise sets. I would be fine suspending my disbelief in the interior changes, and would hope they would use the SNW Enterprise exterior VFX as well. Some fans would bitch, but I could easily live with that — and there is probably $15 mil in savings!
I mean I don’t think any of them are hurting for money so the smaller pay might work if the agents shut up lol. But it’s not just their pay IMHO. They were using like A+ graphics from like ILM and all kinds of production costs. They never learned the lesson that the best Trek movie ever, Khan, costed a fraction of TMP because it had an amazing story.
I’m guessing Robert Kazinsky’s character was in the Amazon with Philippa’s mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.
An iconic line for the ages.
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Almost as bad as the tee shirt bots plaguing FB….
Perhaps if you cut back a bit on the toking your spelling might improve?
What’s toking?
An older urban term for smoking a joint.
Oh oops.
I really hope they don’t make this some stupid ‘Mission Impossible style’ Kurtzman-Trek abomination.
Actually I think Yeoh described it exactly as that in an interview.
I’m OK with it but I was hoping for something a little trippier like a time travel/multiverse type of story. But maybe that will come into play too.
I’d be up for that format, but only if it were based on Assignment: Earth, not S31. I’d happily watch a Gary Seven & Isis series, and it isn’t completely beyond the realm of possibility given it was mentioned in Picard.
My concern is, “will it say something about our world today?”
It better! That’s been Star Trek’s thing since the very beginning, with the Klingons and Romulans representing Russia and China during the Cold War, “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” TOS S3E15, and numerous others across all of the later series.
Coming in with low expectations but will give it shot. I’m in the minority but im not a fan of Michelle Yeoh as an actor despite being an Oscar winner. Have always found her acting to be rather wooden. I also strongly dislike the character she plays. So a bit of double whammy. Also think Section 31 was too heavy handed or over done on Disco.
BUT, I have a strange hunch that I will enjoy this movie for some reason despite all of that.
We will see.
You really need to check out her and Jackie Chan in Police Story III: Supercop. Just superb!
Hate MU Georgiou with a passion but always liked her in other things.
I have to admit, I walked out of Crouching Tiger (LOL Tiger!) when I was a kid. But I have always loved Michelle!
I can’t stand that movie, but not because of her. I have an issue with that brand of martial arts films where people’s movements clearly disobey the laws of physics — all of those BS jumps of 20 feet, etc. etc.
Ya it was like the whole flying thing and everything. I get it was supposed to be very artistic and stuff like that but it just wasn’t my style. Still tho Michelle is awesome.
As a huge martial arts and action movie fan Yeoh is basically a goddess for me in that regard. So I’ll try to watch anything she is in. Also if she brings in more international fans to Trek, I think that will be for the better in the long run.
Heck yeah. What Yeoh does in movies like Crouching Tiger and Memoirs of a Geisha is incredibly underrated – she displays effortless grace and subtlety belying huge interior character work. That’s not easy at all, and the fact that it’s balanced with her doing truly magnificent physical acting as well, and I have always been in awe of her. But EEAAO was just a brilliant showcase of all she is capable of, and for decades she’s had an uphill battle in Hollywood to get the kinds of roles people who look and talk like her sadly aren’t considered for nearly enough. Her now getting to reap the rewards of her hard work warms my heart.
I will always maintain she wasn’t used properly on Discovery until her last two episodes. I don’t doubt there’s more soul searching for Georgiou in this movie, but now that they’ve gotten past the main jump of her redemption arc, such as it was, that does free her up to be more than a deliverer of awkward snark.
Those films aren’t bad, and are pretty much creations for western audiences, but some of her older Hong Kong martial arts films are much better IMHO.
.
Supercop was my introduction to her, but we were all about her movies in my household – a martial arts star from Malaysia? Hell yes. HK films definitely let her run wild. The Hollywood films have been all over the place but also nice in that they let her flex acting muscles, even if they did often pigeonhole her as the elegant wise and reserved character. And then of course just seeing an Asian woman at every age she was being so visible and powerful has been fantastic.
100%. !!!
Are you Malaysian, out of curiosity?
American, but half-Chinese, half-Caucasian. My mother and her siblings are all ethnic Chinese but Malaysian born.
Wow, that is quite the endorsement.
Extremely excited!
OMG, only Michelle Yeoh’s character is shown on the poster with none of the crew/staff? I can’t handle that. It’s so not fair and I am so tired of the focus being on her. Why does it always have to be about Georgiou? This is just awful! They should just call it “Star Trek: Yeoh.” What an effing disaster!
/s
I know you were being sarcastic but I would 100% watch Star Trek: Yeoh!
Make it Yeoh. :-)
TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT all managed ensemble shows. Strange New Worlds manages it, so does Prodigy. Why can’t Discovery? (or Star Trek
MarinerLower Decks recently)This from the person who claims all the time here that they want new and different types of Star Trek shows.
Make up your mind?
TOS was not an ensemble show. it starred William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and LATER Deforest Kelley. Till the movies the rest of the cast were co-stars.
Yea, I meant to mention that as well.
Ok cool.
Agreed. TOS was mostly about Kirk and Spock with McCoy having a bigger role in seasons 2 and 3.
Yep. I don’t wanna get into certain disputes among the TOS cast but frankly it’s why sometimes I think a certain Captain has a point.
TOS was not an ensemble show.
VOY would have done well to focus a bit more on its top characters (Janeway, Seven, The Doctor) and a bit less on the likes of Neelix, Kess, and Harry Kim. The dull extended plotline about Tom and B’Elanna and their baby — which took the edge off both characters — didn’t help, either.
Hey, were you the person here a couple of months back who predicted Dune 2 was going to disappoint at the box office?
Awesome. Going to be interesting!
Real Star Trek is back.
I know, right!
Semi optimistic about this. Please don’t suck.
Same here Tiger2. There are so many great possibilities with this movie, let’s hope the writers have actually learned something and have come up with a great Star Trek story. With the exception of Michelle Yeoh, the cast is completely new and hopefully that new slate means there is no baggage from the past. We shall see… fingers crossed. Any word on when it will hit the small screen?
Yeah they have a chance to do something really special here so I’m hoping we get it. As you know never been a huge fan of the character but mostly because she was treated like a one dimensional caricature on Discovery. Hopefully that will change here.
And while no clue on when it airs my guess is it will be this year now that filming is over and post production on TV movies has a much smaller turnaround. Maybe in the fall?
And if SNW season 3 won’t air until next year they really need something else to attract fans if it’s only Discovery and LDS airing this year.
Michelle Yeoh is a top-notch actor, and I thoroughly enjoyed her performance as Capt. Georgiou in the DISCO pilot and that Short Trek where she contacted the Kelpians. Moreover, now that she is the lead, the writers may shed some of her Mirror Universe character’s caricatures (hissing, cannibalism, etc.). If they can pull that off, I could see this movie emerging as a winner. Let’s keep fingers crossed!
At the very least we know the talent is there. Now we have to see about the story and execution! Still bummed Alexander Siddig is not involved tho.
While highly doubtful he could still be in it.
Remember we didn’t know Seven, Troi, Riker or Data was in Picard until the first trailer arrived
Again I don’t think he is but I suspect we may see some familiar characters just the same.
🖖🤞One could only hope!
It would be more akin to hiding the actor that played Voq to avoid spoilers.
I’ll be watching this mainly because I absolutely love Michelle Yeoh. the Star Trek franchise lucked out by capturing her interest at all. I hope it’s worthy of her time and energy.
Right? Trek hasn’t had this much casting luck since Whoopi Goldberg!
Michelle Yeohs Character was the worst thing about Discoverys first three seasons. She might have done stuff she’s good in but she made Discovery a worse show. And that is saying something.
I don’t get why you would give a spin off to her of all people.
Lol
No Discovery made itself a worse show. She wasn’t in season 4 and it was still pretty bad.
I didn’t like her character either but you can’t blame the show’s shoddy story telling on one character alone.
I’d rather have a film about Georgiou Prime. She was interesting.
NuTrek has this infuriating habit of creating interesting new captains and then killing them off.
I wasn’t a fan of her Mirror character but even though this is the same character they almost completely reconned her to be more of the Captain Gergeau than the Empress one.
It was less of a retcon and more of a character growing beyond her original (MU) form. Georgiou went from villain to anti-hero. I don’t think she can ever become a full good hero, but she is definitely someone I hate to love. Plus, the only real anti-hero we’ve previously seen in Trek was Garak. His crimes, while not as widespread, were definitely on the same level, yet he’s beloved by the fandom anyway.
I absolutely see your point! Redemption in a story is always attractive. But this is SUCh a leap! Going from practically cannibal to defending those you used to eat??
This doesn’t interest me but I do have respect for Yeoh. I hope everyone who likes her character really enjoys this.
Maybe I will like it but really hated what they did with Section 31 on Discovery.
I’m glad it’s just a single film as opposed to a series. This way if it’s terrible we can give it the one watch, move on and forget about it. Like the Kelvin films, kind of – 😃
Same. I became much more excited when it was announced a movie and not a series.
I mean here we literally have an Oscar winner leading her own Trek film. When did that happen last time? If she can bring a whole new demographic to Trek then that will be a quite good end result of this film.
Patrick Stewart in another world would have chosen his movie roles a little differently and had at least an Oscar nod by now. His not even having an Emmy I can’t really put on him though. He’s put it all out there, and aside from maybe a couple shows not seeming to be worth it (unless he just loved making them of course), it’s on Emmy voters for not doing right by him.
I think we are all aware that other than a couple of the creative arts awards both the Oscar’s and Emmys are very biased against Star Trek. It’s almost a miracle TNG got even a nomination for Outstanding Dramatic Series in its final year.
Sadly I think that just goes for any Franchise at this point. Lord of the Rings was the rare exception to that rule.
Ya. That’s true for the “Star” franchises. But look at all the game of thrones type shows that are even more “out there” no issues with awards there 😡😡😡
Stewart at least should have gotten an honorary Oscar by now, heck I’d give one to Shatner too.
hopefully it comes out on standard clear blue case blu-ray so i can see it
Looking forward to this, with a grain of salt. You can never be to careful, especially when Discovery director is involved. I hope we don’t get too many “camera spinning around 2 people talking” moments :)
Huh – in Kazinsky‘s pic, it’s spelled “Section Thirty One” (stylized with a Starfleet delta in place of the “o” in “Section”), while everything else I’ve seen has shown the title using numerals for the number. Do we know yet whether it’ll be “Star Trek: Section Thirty-One” or “Star Trek: Section 31” (or just “Section Thirty-One” or “Section 31”, à la the first two seasons and two episodes of Enterprise)?
I’ve noticed similar adjustments in production imagery of other shows and films. I think it’s just a concept they were testing out when they made the graphics for the backs of the chairs. DC’s Arrow had a different logo during production of the first season but was changed by the time the show began airing, as did ST Voyager. It’s similar to projects having a code name displayed on the production materials instead of their final titles.
i prefer prime Georgiou just cause i feel like michelle ‘hams it up’ too much and plays it cheeky with the mirror universe Georgiou. prime Georgiou would have made for a great ST show
having said that i’m looking forward to this one and hope it leads to more tv movies for ST
Cautiously optimistic, but wish we knew a little bit more. The synopsis referring to Section 31 as “secret” raises my expectations a little, as I was disappointed in how Disco made S31 common knowledge and the use of black badges was just a bit too obvious for a clandestine division of Starfleet, but we won’t know until the film itself lands.
I’m very interested in the first trailer for this. Given this is the first streaming movie in the franchise, I’m wondering how much (if at all) this will visually differentiate from the other live action series and the first trailer will be our first look at that. I also wonder if a few theaters will have screenings a la anticipated series premieres.
I could see “select cities” screening the film the night before (or a couple nights before) just to provide the experience. It would also allow Michelle Yeoh and her cast mates to come out and hype it up even more before it drops on P+.
I hope we love it too…
Well, that was fast. Hopefully, the finished product will be a treat to the fans.
I hope this opens doors for more Star Trek TV streaming movies.