NuBSG's "Blood and Chrome" was an experiment to produce a scifi show without a lot of standing sets to save money. Not in the same look and feel that Trek has, but it could be a way to create a new series with a lower budget that TNG...
While TOS may have been a phenomenon in the 70's and 80's, I don't think it would have lasted nearly 50 years, if it hadn't been for the resurgence that came with the Berman-era and now again in the Abrams-era. Would it still be around, most likely, but no where near to the same degree.
I prefer my productions be professional looking with good acting talent. Stories are important but trying to do Trek on the cheap just to get it on the air is a recipe for disaster.
That's what I read, too. I always wondered whether the reason for the cost overrun in part had to do with the fact that often, such as in the Battlestar hangar, they tended to go above and beyond what was needed, strictly speaking, just because it looked cool or because "they could."
That's not quite how they think though. They look at a time slot, and decide it needs to make at least $15. They look at what is in the time slot currently and see it only makes $10, so they cancel it But, they won't greenlight something just because they believe it will make more than $10, they'll reject it out of hand, if they don't believe it will make at least that $15. So, even though $11 or $12 is more than $10, if that's all they expect it will make is $11 or $12, they won't greenlight it, because they know they can make at least $15 with The Bachelor 12 or Survivor 38 or Big Brother 19 or CSI:XYZ.
If CBS and Paramount just worked together its possible. CBS contribute several tens of million dollars to the next movie in return for sharing some of the revenues and gaining access to all the sets built in the movie for use on a TV show and perhaps Paramount are able to take some profits from the TV show. So easy if they just worked together and the franchise can be better off for it. Yet they won't bother.
Even easier is to do what they're doing: invest a fraction of the cost of a new series into remastering the existing series and make boatloads of money off bluray sales and syndication deals.
Pretty much this. CBS is making money from the franchise with very little risk involved with their current strategy (licensing, remastering).
Paramount has a money making movie franchise. TV always makes less money and Trek TV is a giant question mark if it will make any money. So why would Paramount share their large profits for a share of a questionable smaller profit?
I'm just waiting for the rumor to get started that CBS is going to gut all the original FX work and replace it new FX based on the Reboot Movies.
Neither would work in today's climate, for obvious reasons (people expecting great FX being one of them.) They could make an animated series, though.
CBS do nothing to grow the franchise and bring in new fans. CBS invest relatively small amounts in Trek and seem satisfied with relatively small income from licensing and home video. I will guess that over the last 6-7 years CBS have invested $30-40m in old Trek restorations and marketing of those restorations whilst getting around $20m dollars a year back from those ventures. ($20m was mentioned in an article about Trek merchandising and how CBS would not co-operate with Bad Robot) They are not interested in developing anything new to bring in new fans... so gradually their relatively small amount of $ will shrink over the coming years as fans die or move on. So in 6-7 years, CBS invest $30-40m and get back $120-$140m OTOH Paramount in that same period have developed and distributed 2 worldwide tentpoles after hiring one of the best up and coming directors around and securing Bad Robots services. They must have spent well over $500m dollars by now which is over ten times more than CBS and they will have got back over a billion dollars by now in revenues from the aforementioned movies. Which company is making an effort, taking the risks and ensuring the future of the franchise? I suppose you can look at it two ways: Thank god CBS didn't get everything or else there would be no reboot and the franchise would be well and truly dead by now. Thank god Paramount didn't get everything or else we would have been inundated with too much nuTrek and no love for the old shows? BAH I don't know, but I do love that Paramount are investing so much to grow the franchise and keep it going whereas I hate that CBS are so negative and spend so little because they seem content with a relative pittance from the old shows that cannot be sustained forever.....
This is why I hope Mr. Moonves retires, gets kicked out or is made to see reason. But I don't think that there's a force big enough to do so, or that there's anybody that likes sci-fi (and hates reality TV/crime shows) to take his place as head of CBS. Like it as not, this is what we've got. That would be great if it were true, and would also light a fire under some bean counting executive's ass, that's for sure.