Things are really heating up regarding the potential sale of Paramount Global, who own the Star Trek franchise.
Is Paramount ready to (Sky)dance?
Multiple outlets, including Bloomberg, the New York Times, and Deadline are reporting that Paramount has begun exclusive negotiations with Skydance for their bid to purchase the media company. This means that for the time being, they have rejected the earlier Apollo/Legendary Entertainment bid, which the Wall Street Journal and Variety report had risen to $26-27 Billion for the entire company. Skydance CEO David Ellison has been meeting with Shari Redstone, who owns a controlling share of Paramount Global’s voting stock, and has also met with Paramount Global’s special committee that assesses potential merger deals. Paramount Global stock shot up 15% in late trading on Wednesday after the reports of a tentative deal.
According to the reports, Skydance would first buy out Redstone’s National Amusements before taking over all of Paramount Global, without splitting it up. The exclusive window gives Paramount and Skydance 30 days to finalize a deal. As Paramount has been subject to takeover and sale interest, Redstone has shown preference for working with Ellison and Skdance, who have a pre-existing partnership that includes co-producing multiple feature films, including the last two Star Trek movies. Ellison is credited as an executive producer for both as well.
Skydance’s David Ellison at the premiere of Star Trek Beyond in 2016
As of now there are no details on what would happen to Paramount+, currently the home of streaming Star Trek originals. If Skydance were to take over all of Paramount Global, that would include the streamer. Recently, Paramount Global has set 2025 as the target year for the streaming service to turn a profit, which would potentially be around the same time as a complex deal like this could be completed.
For now, this is a developing story, but we will continue to monitor the latest business news and what it means for Star Trek fans.
Keep up with all the corporate news that can impact Star Trek here at TrekMovie.com.
Oh, thank god. Had it been Apollo, that would have been an unparalleled disaster for Star Trek, and for most other studio projects.
Why? I’m not saying you are wrong, I just don’t get it.
The short version is that Apollo only wanted pieces of Paramount. They would have shuttered most of the company.
I feel Kurtzman is going to be promoted. Ellis is his mentor and friend.
Secret Hideout is a contracted company to Paramount, not owned by it. Skydance could hire him, or sever the SH contract, but there’d be no promotion….
A valid point. I always thought Ellis was an investor in Secret Hideout because the company launched after Kurtzman ditched Orci and the offer to join Skydance. If there’s a shakeup do you think Kurtzman could be put in charge of overseeing parts of the merged entity? Or given total say and control over Star Trek and the power to bypass Paramount+?
Impossible to speculate on that. No one knows what the new corporate structure would look like, or how any of the IP’s would be managed at this point. Kurtzman could be in the thick of things, or perfectly happy with his current contract. Whatever value Paramount has is in it’s property holdings, IP catalog, and their networks, not in how they are managed.
Kurtzman works for Secret Hideout, not Paramount. That means he wouldn’t work for Skydance. He’s Secret Hideout’s founder, in fact, so he’s a contractor at Paramount, not an employee. As such, he can’t be promoted since he doesn’t work there–he’d have to be hired first.
Great news. Kurtzman will be Lord of the Dance.
I assume you’re referencing Donna summer, not Michael flatulence, and I sincerely do hope it is his last dance.
Lord of the Dance. The Irish dance show.
I would hope that Kurtzman gets promoted . Then there could be a chance he would then hire Matalas to replace him as Star Trek production head. Although there is an equal chance he would hire Goldsman, so there is a risk.
In order to promote him, they would actually have to hire him first.
The WSJ story is behind a paywall. Did Apollo just bid up for the property they previously wanted, or for the entire company? That’s a helluva premium if they did.
The 26 billion was for the everything. Per Variety, they don’t know if they have the means to finance that bid. They also report that the Shari would prefer a bid that isn’t going to stripout the core business.
Thanks. I did pick up that it was an all cash offer. Considering Apollo’s MO, I can see why Ms. Redstone preferred to work with Skydance.
Apollo wanted everyone at Paramount to learn to play the lute.
The more I hear, the more I think this is one of the better options. Just the fact that they want to buy all of it, rather than sell some things off, gives me hope. My least favorite option was WB Discovery after what’s happened since those companies merged, but from what I heard about Apollo, that didn’t seem much better. If this goes through, here’s hoping for the best for Star Trek’s future (and any other Paramount shows and franchises I enjoy).
Well yes and no. We don’t know how they feel about 100% of the business. Just the core assets. But that leaves plenty of room to still get rid of pieces of the overall company.
Can we please remember that P+ is not the exclusive home for Trek streaming? Netflix is streaming Prodigy. That sets up a huge president for the rest to do the same.
And HBO has the movies
Yuppers, forgot that too.
And internationally it never was exclusive to just one site the way Marvel and Star Wars is everywhere on Disney+.
For a brief moment it did seem like they were going to consolidate all the shows once they brought Discovery from Netflix (Smart move there… not) but they have seem to be that interested getting the others back from Amazon.
I truly believe in a few years the classic shows will end up on other services again.
Wow, I forgot that part too. OOPS on me!
In Israel (a non-P+ country) Netflix recently brought back the 5 legacy shows
Skydance iikes Trek, so that would be good news for the franchise IMO
And they like the team that makes the current shows
Skydance, give us a “Star Trek+” streaming service and online community with EVERYTHING Star Trek. Yes, including Prodigy, but also including every documentary, DVD Special, and outtakes, plus shows like Ready Room and Short Treks. And everything on the Star Trek website and magazines. All the way back to the 60s. Photos. Blueprints. Design sketches. Renderings. Pay some of the good YouTubers out there to make exclusive stuff that fans actually enjoy. Make it a must-have streaming service for anyone interested in Star Trek.
The main content, like the series and movies, can of course also be on some Paramount-Showtime-Skydance+ streaming service. I don’t care. I just want ALL of Star Trek in ONE place. And I mean EVERYTHING that there is. ALL OF IT.
Is that too much to ask? Am I the only one who would love to have such a place?
That sounds like a horrifying prospect.
You give Paramount Global a business interest in being the best place for Star Trek content and community online, and I can guarantee step one will be shutting down everyone else to decrease competition. Just look at what happened with the Warhammer 40K fandom when Warhammer+ launched.
Yeah, that’s way too much to ask. There’s no prayer that what you described would ever turn a dime of profit.
DC tried doing that and it failed miserably so I don’t think brand specific streaming would necessarily work in the long run. It would just be too niche and not enough people would sign up to turn profit.
MGM also actually tried that with Stargate a while. Was the only place for anything SG — for about a year before it died a slow and unwatched death.
Star Trek wouldn’t be any different. It’s just a slightly bigger niche in a genre.
Oh god. Lets hope that the ships will not be changed to Kelvin timeline looks.
(Picard voice) Agreed!
To me, this is the better option. Skydance has a previous relationship with Kurtzman, so I feel like they would just let him keep doing his thing on the TV side of things. I could be wrong, but what we know about this potential deal sounds a heck of a lot better than the one with Warner/Discovery.
Yes. I’m still biting my fingernails, but not as hard as with, say, Warner.
Skydance is the “devil we know” in terms of a potential partner.
I have yet to read the other offers, but Skydance has produced Trek. (I’m not going to debate how good it was.)
I’m glad it (might) keep Paramount interests under one roof.
There were a couple of interesting stories on business pages today in regards to the sale of Paramount. This could turn into quite the shitshow because of the premium attached to Apollo’s bid. If Skydance gets the company, they will be made to pay for it.
Look. I don’t care who buys what. Just please, for Christ sakes.. GIVE ME STAR TREK DEEP SPACE 9 in HD
That’d be asking for way too much. We’ve been wanting that since they remastered both TNG and TOS, and they keep saying no. I doubt they’ll say yes anytime soon.