News The ongoing next Star Trek movie thread

I'd be all for Long Treks on Paramount+, but they'd be glorified 2-parters rather than a real movie.

So long as the TV division is making them money, I don't think they care about risky movies to be honest. All the announcements are just to pander to investors probably without real designs on making anything. Just look at the last announcement that the Kelvinverse crew were coming back and the cast were as surprised as all of us. And then after that they gave us a date with no other details, and then the date slipped and slipped. If they were serious, contracts would have been locked down first. They'd have a cast and director in place, and an experienced movie director instead of the TV ones they'd been announcing since 2018.

 

This.

 

Fine. Since you insist, here's what I would do for ST4. There is nothing general about it. As said, it makes sense in my head.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tNsfIE2gZ9yzZNqbvmXHUqxc09nPBkKN/view?usp=sharing

 

That a movie is in development hell is one thing.

A movie I'm looking forward to for a long time, Arthur C. Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama", is in development hell for 20 years now. (Morgan Freeman was supposed to produce it, now Alcon Entertainment, the production company that made "The Expanse" and "Blade Runner 2049", and Denis Villeneuve are attached to the current iteration of the movie. Let's see.)

But what is happening to Star Trek 4 is something else.
- Five days before the release of Star Trek Beyond, Paramount announced Star Trek 4, on the official Star Trek website, and that Chris Hemsworth would return as Kirk's father. The movie didn't materialize.
- The announcements of half a dozen directors/writers. No rumors. Official announcements.
- And then the blunder from early this year. Remember that?
Paramount announced, during an investor event (There was an entire segment with JJ Abrams and Star Trek 4 at the Investor Event.), that the JJ actors would return, without informing the actors. Paramount had not even started negotiations with the actors.

https://boundingintocomics.com/2022...aught-unaware-by-announcement-of-fourth-film/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/m...el-reveal-surprised-its-own-stars-1235097557/

That is not normal "development hell".

1) Every movie/show since 2009 relies on legacy elements/references/nostalgia bait/memberberries.

JJ movies/Kelvin Timeline: Reimagined Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the Enterprise.

DIS: Set 10 years before TOS with Spock, Spock's sister, Sarek, Amanda Grayson, Harcourt Fenton Mudd, Pike, Number One, and the "original" Enterprise.

SNW: Pike, Spock, Number One, and the "original" Enterprise. With the addition of more legacy characters (Uhura, M'Benga, Nurse Chapel), and a relative of legacy characters (Khan Noonien Singh).
SNW had two original characters, and one is dead now.

PIC: Sequel to a legacy show, named after a legacy character.
S1 was about the offspring of another legacy character.
S2 return of more legacy characters (Guinan, Q)
S3 has even more legacy characters. Reunion of all the legacy characters for the legacy show.

Lower Deck: One giant memberberries show. It's all about the references.

Prodigy: In the marketing for the show, Janeway, another legacy character, is often at the center.

2) What do you expect when the two shows that rely the most on memberberries (SNW, LD) are the two shows that get the most praise from the fanbase?

The fanbase can't say "OMG, SNW and LD are the bestestes shows ever" and then complain that there are no new shows that don't rely on nostalgia.

What do you expect?

The TV division is indeed very profitable for Paramount. It would be nice if the streaming division would be profitable as well, but it's not.

 

The parts about actors being announced without their consent/knowledge was weird, but everything else is pretty normal development hell.

Actually, Lower Decks's particular concern with the experiences of low-ranking crew members and its focus on Starfleet as a dysfunctional hierarchy is pretty unique. Edited to add: Plus, y'know, its status as an animated situation comedy. End edit.

Funny how people who actually know what they're talking about don't agree.

https://www.vulture.com/2022/05/cbss-success-and-the-case-for-paramount.html

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/04/p...ibers-as-other-streaming-services-fall-short/

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...ibers-earnings-report-advertising-1235191826/

Is Paramount+ as big as Netflix, Disney+, or HBO Max? No, but it's profitable, and its subscriber base is still growing. Netflix, by contrast, is losing subscribers while having to deal with a lot of debt, and HBO Max is famously bleeding content right now as its parent company tries to cut costs to deal with its debt. So I think what we're seeing is the biggest guys are plateauing or going down a bit, and medium-sized streamers like Paramount+ are growing their subscriber base. I expect we'll see a new equilibrium emerge over the next year or two.

But either way, Paramount+ is making money.

 

Launching P+ they expect to make losses for the first few years as they establish themselves. That's buisness, but one easily turned into a talking point of absolute failure by those so inclined.

The big question is, if they're failing so badly, why do they keep making so much more? This ain't a charity for nerds.

 

I'd say development hell is common enough for something new and just starting.

Not for an established franchise actively trying to get a sequel going with movies already under their belt.

 

The past three years have been far from normal.

 

Nah. Hollywood has a long history of stuff like this happening even with established series. Superman, Batman, James Bond, and more -- this stuff is hardly unprecedented.

 

Anyone remember Tim Burton's Superman?

 

Wrong.
You are 100%, irrefutable, undebatably wrong.

The exact opposite of what you are saying is true.
Paramount's streaming division is not profitable. They are not making money, they are losing money.

Paramount's streaming division lost $456m in Q1 2022 and $445m in Q2 2022.


https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...t-stock-analysts-streaming-losses-1235192656/

https://deadline.com/2022/08/paramo...amount-streaming-content-spending-1235084972/

Do you even read the articles that you are linking and comprehend what they are saying?

Paramount's TV (and movie) division is profitable.

$1,380m profit in Q2 2022 for the TV division:


DtC (streaming) division:
https://i.imgur.com/utdtA37.jpg

TV division:
https://i.imgur.com/odJ1PJu.jpg

 

Cool. When will they stop producing content? I expect any day now, right?

 

This has been troubled since well before the pandemic. Chris Pine didn't drop out when Paramount broke their contract because of a pandemic.

I still wouldn't say this is the same. Those delays (which are rarely even this bad) was between reboots and fresh starts. Kinda like what I posted earlier, new WAY more often comes with development hell much easier than direct continuations.

(Edited because multiple quotes on this phone is awful)

 

Indeed, but as noted by others it is hardly the first large franchise to struggle. The pandemic just made it more difficult, and the appeal of sending more money after it probably sounds pretty unpalpable and the lack of certainty of making that money back makes it even more questionable.

It sucks, but as many have noted, the time between films, as well as the several false starts have pretty much made it so the film would be less than profitable.

 

Nothing changed since 2018 when the Chris' bailed. Paramount didn't want to spend money from day 1. Time didn't change a thing besides delaying an official cancelation to this series.

 

I stand corrected! That's interesting -- these articles didn't turn up when I googled. I wonder if Paramount is just going to rely on CBS to subsidize Paramount+ until the streaming market reaches an equilibrium then? The Deadline and Hollywood Reporter articles do talk about supply chain issues affecting things and about Paramount expecting streaming losses to turn around after 2023.

Yes. And none of them said anything about Paramount+ losing money.

Edited to add:

If Paramount+ is losing money but is also steadily gaining subscribers at a time when other streamers are losing subscribers, it's worth considering that Paramount Global's instance that its investment in P+ content (including the new ST shows) will pay off in another year or so isn't necessarily unfair. We definitely need to bear in mind that the entire entertainment industry is in a state of flux right now between the rise of streamers, paid VOD streaming, the ongoing decline of the exhibitor industry, and the ongoing effects of the pandemic.

Basically -- yeah, I was wrong, things are worse than I thought they were for Paramount+ (and therefore for ST), but also let's not rush to declare it all a HORRIBLE FAILURE just yet.

 

I mean, they could have reworked it to be cheaper. But, yes, they didn't want to spend money. The pandemic made that worse. That's all I'm saying. I think pre pandemic they might have figured something out. Now? Nope. Sad but true.

 

Agreed, I really liked this cast and would have loved more with them. Beyond to me felt like they were just finding their groove in a way.

 

Well, I have to hand it to you -- you got very specific! There are elements I don't agree with, but I credit where credit's due -- you developed a full story outline there and have a well-articulated artistic vision. Which is more than Paramount has been able to figure out for itself yet!

Honestly I find myself wondering if Star Trek's natural niche is well-suited for the modern U.S. film industry. We've entered an era where movies are generally either intended to be blockbusters with giant budgets or they're low-budget fare. Star Trek has a history of trying to do big-budget blockbusters, underperforming, and then coming back and being successful as mid-budget movies -- TMP underperforming relative to its budget then TWOK being really successful as a mid-budget movie; all of the films from TWOK to NEM surviving as mid-budget movies; ST09 being very successful, but then its sequels underperforming. Mid-budget just seems to be ST's niche in film, but with the industry just not doing mid-budet stuff -- the projects that would in the past have been mid-budget movies often just end up on cable or streaming these days -- I really wonder if the problem is that ST is just no longer sustainable as a film series.