News Paramount confirms BOTH films still in development

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=startrek.htm
I hope not.

 

Star Trek will NEVER make a Billion dollars (without inflation). And that's perfectly okay. Star Trek is not for everyone. As long as inspires lots of people that's perfectly fine. Star Trek CAN absolutely attract mainstream audiences - it already did two(!) times - TOS and TNG were suuuper popular in mainstream.

But at the same time, Star Trek - at it's core - is not what most people want from their mass media - instant emotional gratification - instead, it's at it's best when it's directly contradicting those things - villains that are antagonists rather than badguys, endings that involve a Kirk-/Picard-speech instead of a big shootout, the ending to a conflict with the parties reaching their hands out in peace, instead of blowing up the bad guy.

The Kelvin-movies already moved Star Trek as close as possible into "instant gratification"-territory while still holding some connection to it's roots. But it's difficult, and I think it's absolutely impossible to go even further, without loosing the core fandom - the nitpickers, plane-spotter-type fans and MINT-nerds that keep the franchise alive with their ridiculous amount of consumption (including me).

I think the Kelvin movies are as "big" as mainstream success is possible. What Trek DEFINITELY can is become more DURABLE. More consistent in quality and earning. Get the Trek-thing finally right again - and you can have a medium successul blockbuster every two years. It's never going to earn a billion dollar with one movie. But you could earn half a billion dollar every single time.

 

Regardless of the script, there is a big portion of the audience which will not watch it because it carries the Star Trek label.

Unless there is a fundamental shift in the perception of Trek - and since the Kelvin films didn’t do that to a great degree, I don’t know what can - that will always hold back the potential box office.

 

The issue is a lot of the general audience thinks star trek and star wars are the same or one makes the other obsolete. It's a pervasive mindset. St2009 and stid did well but making people wait for 4 years was a huge mistake. In the meantime, the new star wars movies kind of exacerbated the fact the audience moved on other things and the fact paramount&Co didn't take advantage of st2009 success enough, especially since they only had the movies and the comics and no possibility for TV spin offs or animated series that could keep people interested between movies. It's ironic the success of st2009 probably was in part an inspiration to try to renew the star wars franchise as well, not to mention TV trek. And yet, it feels like, now, everyone but Paramount benefited from st2009 success. Like they let others steal it from them by not doing something on time to keep people interested.

Personally, I also blame their weakness towards 'haters'. These people should know what they are doing and they have professional methods to try to understand the audience's response. They should know that the old fans who complain online are a minority and that trying to please them is the most hopeless thing ever because these people complain about every single new trek thing that was ever made or will get made in the future.
Instead of hopelessly trying to please those people (when you have evidence, btw, that the more they like a movie the more it's a flop anyway ) using nostalgia (that backfires because those old fans will complain. See stid), you should keep engaged the very audience that made the movies successful. You shouldn't alienate them.

I never saw other franchises where the creative team is such a slave of the haters and the studio seems to have no plan whatsoever. In trek, it was mainly Orci and now, I see, Kurtzman with Discovery. They listen to haters online way too much (I thought Kurtzman was immune when he was making kelvin trek, but then I read his comments about discovery and oh man... way to make haters feel important and like they gotta the power to influence you)
JJ gives me the vibe he doesn't give a f*ck about haters and it's the right approach, imo. That doesn't mean he doesn't care about the audience and fans, but he keeps his distance from people online and doesn't want to get influenced by negativity. You need to filter constructive criticism from trolling and hatred of the sake of hatred. Probably he is hated for this reason too because nothing annoys trolls more than being ignored or, worse, getting evidence that they don't exist for the person they are attacking.

 

Tarantino still seems to be confident about 'his' film and granted he has been busy with his new flick so to say TarantinoTrek is stuck in development hell doesn't seem right... now the ThorTrek, that one seems unlikely to happen.

 

Star Trek didn't get the constant love and promotion of the SW or MCU franchise. Because of that studios allowed garbage or lackluster scripts to be churned out. Case in point was the TNG movie era. that WAS the era for Trek to have been a blockbuster on the screen. But they went with a very non-cinematic TNG acting ensemble and assorted usual suspects who , with one exception (and even that looked fairly low budget), treated the whole thing like a series of really long episodes. TNG deserved extra seasons and Trek movie fans deserved something new.

By the time Abrams had the films, he absolutely had to steer away as far as he could from the TNG look, feel, and model. That was never going to sit well with many fans who had absorbed B&B trek into their dna. They were well done movies (I know. many won't agree) but there wasn't the kind of anticipation for them there was with, say, TPM or TFA from that Other Franchise. But its also kind of evident that once again, a studio did not really seem to know how to market the movies or what do with them, though at least they finally had fresh actors and FX that didn't come off a Dollar Tree shelf.

Star Trek has a billion dollar movie in it, somewhere. If Lucas had said "No, I love Star Wars, and I am not going to sell it, and I am not going to make any more. The end," I don't think its inconceivable that Disney might have tried to buy Trek instead. And they might have had a much better success than the Abrams films, though they probably would have hired Abrams, but in my mind there's a Jon Favreau Star Trek we never got to see that had lines around the block for tickets.

I think Tarantino could do it. but I also think it would be a one-off project, much like Ang Lee's Hulk (I'm weird. I really like Ang Lee's Hulk)

 

The thing is Star Trek can't be a Star Wars type of film... that space is taken, it will just be seen as an inferior copycat... It worked like gangbusters in 2009 because there was no Star Wars and the MCU was just an embryo. So it needs to have its own space, Tarantino might do it.... he's also a selling point but it also seems he will be just behind the concept and directing, not 100% working on the script so he can do his one-off but be that the start of a new generation... and a new generation is what is needed, no more looking back, a generation perhaps inate to the movies instead of TV. Tough it would be neat to see a final Kelvin film that kind of re-aligned the two timelines, like we could do a cinematic transition of the timelines so that Tarantino's goes back to the main one.

 

Precisely so.

 

You could also say they forgot the old adage "you can't please everyone all of the time".

Viewers are often very diverse in their likes and dislikes, I might like X about something but someone else might dislike that very same thing. For the most part I enjoyed the Kelvinverse films but that doesn't mean I like everything about them. DO I feel strongly enough to rant and rave online about them, No. That doesn't mean I won't offer an opinion if asked.

I also think the issue can be exacerbated with older franchises as you have people who grew up with different iterations and for some of them isn't <franchise> if isn't X.

The problem is that you only read/hear about at more often or not from those on the extreme sides i.e. hate and love, whilst the overwhelmingly majority whilst they might have grumbles about some elements remain largely quiet(er).

 

This is all quite true. My frustration is how quickly it devolves in to "change is bad" even if some of the changes are still reflective of the base material.

 

I highly doubt a billion dollar Trek movie will be written by Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne, whose iMDB listings don't show any previous writing credits. What I would LOVE to see, however, would be a couple of writers who have HAD a billion dollar movie (just spitballing here, but, let's say Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely of Avengers and Captain America fame) take a stab at a script. Let's not go cheap here. I don't want to see a bottle-episode/movie featuring Pine/Hemsworth Kirk/Kirk team up. I'd love to see a high stakes, high-concept idea.

 

I think the future of Trek should be lower budget in all honesty. Something akin to the Alien/Prometheus movies in scope. I remember Prometheus reminding me of a bad episode of Star Trek.

 

Not Prometheus, but Covenant. That was the Next Gen episode "Datalore" on the big screen.

Budget-wise, I don't think there was much different between them and the Trek reboots?

 

Covenant was half of what STID and beyond cost to make, 90 something million dollars.

 

interesting comparison, since we just learned we are getting an alien covenant 2/prometheus 3 just this week:

star trek: $150m budget, $386m box office
star trek into darkness: $185m budget, $467m box office
star trek beyond: $185m budge, $343m box office

prometheus: $130m budget, $403m box office
alien covenant: $97m budget, $240m box office

 

They could easily release another kelvin film for 120m and it will still do at least beyonds numbers.

 

I think people forget what 'in development' means.

It's not an active production proces. Sometimes someone might say 'hey we still have that script right?' and they might look into it a bit for a few days. Maybe talk with some concept artists here and there. A few producers walk in and out and share some thoughts. Maybe a few words with a possible director. All of that over a period of months.
It doesn't mean there's a room where several writers and producers are actively finishing a script, designing costumes and ships, building sets. None of that.

So, Paramount saying these movies are still in development means two things: Jack and Shit.

 

From Paramount's point of view, they never got exactly what they wanted from the property. They know that there's some positive signs from the new t.v. show, and more on the way. If you're Paramount, why not sit it out a couple more years and see if this group is worth working with CBS on a movie deal? For the most part they'll be less expensive and you've got some longevity to build on.

 

I don't care for Tarantino and I believe his tone is wrong for Trek. Any Star Trek follow-up to Beyond should include Chris Pine's character causing the problem with unintended consequences a la Devil in the Dark, so his arrogance in solving a problem becomes the antagonist (he has to clean up his own mess, or Spock or Bones), not some madman bent on revenge. The Enterprise crew becomes the car crashing into the canyon for his joyride (saving the world). My preference is a disease because of Bones' introduction and the fact they have already done, danger, darkness, silence in the first three films.

Apart from that, he should have to kill his father, and slay the Daddy issue once-and-for-all. Maybe saving his father somehow puts the universe in jeopardy. Perhaps he trades his father for Spock, somehow, and regrets his decision. I'd also like him to find the higher sense of purpose of exploration or go into securing the Federation (Admiral of Starfleet Security, anyone?). Considering the laborious pains to find a fourth script, if they do another, it could go places that end the franchise. The permanent death of Spock or promoting him to Admiral certainly qualifies.

Anyway, with no Pine or script, it's just a paragraph on a message board from a fan. I just think Beyond is a terrible send-off, full of tropes and cliches. It'd be nice to find something that feels creative and relevant, to end this series of movies. Otherwise, this is Nemesis, not VI for a group of actors, that no matter the scripts, did a fantastic job revitalizing a dead property.

 

TOS:
1) TV finale awful (though All of our Yesterdays, the 2nd to last, was quite good). And we got TAS.

2) Movies: VI was Excellent.

TNG:
1) TV sendoff was awesome (All Good Things).

2) Movies: Nemesis & action Picard were poor.

DS9: OK TV sendoff. Though the antagonists went too far into twirling mustache territory.

VOY: Good conclusion.

ENT: Terrible finish. If it had ended one episode sooner, it would have been very good.

Point being, the real ST endings that stuck in my craw are:

1) TNG cast going out on Nemesis. Hopefully Picard can remedy it a little.

2) ENT last episode.

3) Kelvinverse still unresolved (And Vulcan gone).

Hopefully QT can at least close the loop. I liked Beyond. I would love for the other Kelvin crew to have a bow if they want to.