News WB/Paramount merger talks

[Campe]

It's not taken seriously.

The difference, for me, between Lower Decks and Picard Season 3 is that while the later relied heavily on the nostalgia factor. I would argue that as the series has gone on, the prior has made the "memberries" which let's be honest, it never took seriously with anyway, less important than the characters and their relationships as the series has gone on. As we wait for season five, the characters have real, relatable relationships. Even Mariner, who had a huge development at the end of season 4 which really gives context to her actions in the previous episodes. Also, you don't NEED to have seen every episode of every series to enjoy Lower Decks, but it adds some context to the humor. Picard Season 3 absolutely relied on knowing the ins and outs of these characters and their relationships in order to be effective. Let's be honest though. At the end of the day, no one who doesn't like Star Trek isn't going to watch either of them, but just something to consider there.

 

[James Cole]

You don't need major Universe or Federation ending threats to fill 10 lousy episodes. You say it like 10 episodes is a lot. Not where I came from. Lots of serialized cotemporary are quite successful without the crutches Trek has been leaning on. It can be a story that only impacts the characters fans have loved since 1987. That should be MORE than enough to keep people involved. Having a Big Bad, heaps of nostalgic callbacks or an End of Civilization plot is never, ever mandatory. That's a curse from the movies.

I actually agree with you on not needing End of Civilization plots or movie Big Bads. But I'd argue the nostalgia in PS3 is earned. But YMMV.

I would if I actually watched it. But after 5 minutes, I found myself wishing I was watching something else. So I did just that.

So did I eventually with DISCOVERY and SNW. FWIW though, LOWER DECKS improves greatly by the end of its first season. Seasons 2 and 3 are mostly great, and season 4 is at least a watchable muddled mixed bag.

I got tired of getting the one word "no" responses, links to videos and other snide comments from senior members telling me why I'm wrong. SNW love is strong, every episode is an A+, even if it is an incredibly uneven series.

Many people here are very partisan about their respective favorite shows.

Plus there's the survivorship bias. Many that hated early DISCOVERY and PICARD season 1 likely gave up posting on this BBS.

I could invest massive amounts of time in my life to posting about why SNW sucks... but I'm not going to change the mind of an SNW fan, and they aren't going to change my mind. So why bother?

 

[Campe]

Plus there's the survivorship bias. Many that hated early DISCOVERY and PICARD season 1 likely gave up posting on this BBS.

There are plenty of people around here who have hated Discovery since day 1.

 

[FederationHistorian]

NuTrek is expensive to produce under current arrangements... cut the dozens of executive producers and have people with better writing and production track records come in and you should be able to cut a third of the budget with no one being the wiser. The California Film Commission filings show THE ORVILLE was produced for a lot less... it's third season was only $60ish million under COVID.

I heard Picard and Disco each had 30 executive producers. So, I supposed it makes sense to cut the number of producers involved.

 

[fireproof78]

That's a curse from the movies.

I blame Khan.

I got tired of getting the one word "no" responses, links to videos and other snide comments from senior members telling me why I'm wrong. SNW love is strong, every episode is an A+, even if it is an incredibly uneven series.

They're not. SNW is a great series but it being A+ is not even close to what I would put. On average, it hits B, with the occasional A, if I am inclined towards ratings (I rarely am).

And it's ridiculous to assume such. No series is perfect, and SNW is no exception. Neither is Picard. They have their ups and downs that work for some, don't work for others. Picard Season 1 rates higher for me. Why? Because it unpacks more of the Romulans than ever before. It works within the actual consequences of the past lore rather than resetting the board. Season 3 rates higher earlier on than later on because it actually shows the characters moving forward and there being actual consequences to choices. Later on, it floundered a bit. So, the Season ends up Average.

Though, I'm constantly told that I'm wrong for disliking vast sections of TNG so I get that snide part. But, then I speak fluent "No."

Yep Picard season 3 was steeped in the deepest nostalgia pool yet. But Discovery needed Bernham to be related to Spock. They had to bring in Pike. Pike, once he got his own show, had to bring TOS legacy characters. As you say, Prodigy has Janeway and Lower Decks is apparently nothing but an animated ComicCon.

Again, it's a matter of what do you do with it. I think Pike is fruit worth exploring. Others do not. I think that Picard has completely unearned table reset at the end. It started out extremely promising, and had to use the Borg. HAD TO use the Borg because otherwise...I don't know. People don't respect Star Trek's lore? Picard as a character ceases to have meaning? I don't know. But Picard v. Borg is no longer the duel of the century.

There are plenty of people around here who have hated Discovery since day 1.

And continue to deride Kurtzman and Discovery and even JJ Abrams for some nonsensical reason regardless of current output.

It's obsessive.

I could invest massive amounts of time in my life to posting about why SNW sucks... but I'm not going to change the mind of an SNW fan, and they aren't going to change my mind. So why bother?

Because I would love to hear it. I will change zero minds here. That is not the purpose of my postings. I don't care if you believe opposite of me. I really don't. But, I do love and care about people and want to learn new perspectives. Bring it on!

 

[Lord Garth]

But Discovery needed Bernham to be related to Spock.

I think Burnham and Spock didn't have to be foster-siblings. Burnham could've been raised by a different Vulcan family and it wouldn't have changed the major beats of the story. But...

They had to bring in Pike.

... yes. Once you make Burnham connected to Spock, and it's set 10 years before TOS, that brings in Pike and the Enterprise.

Pike, once he got his own show, had to bring TOS legacy characters.

Yes. If the intent of SNW is to close the gap, then TOS characters have to be brought in.

In the same vein, if Picard has to save the day, and he's retired and doesn't have the pull he used to, he has to turn to friends and people he knows... which takes us back to TNG characters. If the Crushers are in trouble and they need someone to save them, Beverly is going to reach out to the person she knows can actually save her.

Picard was an Admiral (not retired) for only four years, he was at odds with them about the Romulan Evacuation, and they let him go. When he turned to Starfleet Command for help back in S1 he was told "the sheer fucking hubris." So, he can't go to who he worked with when he was an Admiral, besides Raffi. It's safe to say those bridges were burned a long time ago. Most of the people he can turn to are who he knew from the Enterprise, Raffi, and Seven. Anyone from the Stargazer (his Stargazer), if they're still alive, are as old as he is, as we saw.

I'm not against characters appearing again if it makes sense to the story that's being told. In Picard Season 3, I think they justified getting the TNG characters back together. It doesn't even happen right away. It takes eight episodes to get everyone back together. Then it takes another episode to get them back on the Enterprise-D. Nine episodes. It's not like PIC Season 3, Episode 1, Scene 1, they're all back together and back on the Enterprise. It took time to get to that point and they took the time to show how that happened.

Having a Big Bad, heaps of nostalgic callbacks or an End of Civilization plot is never, ever mandatory. That's a curse from the movies.

Considering that their goal was to make Picard Season 3 like the movies, except in a longer format, I think that's fair game. If that hadn't been their intent, then I'd agree with you. But I judge things by what they were trying to do and how well they did what they were attempting. I'm not going to fault PIC S3 for using tropes from the movies because making it like the movies was the point.

Going into the Far Flung Future, Discovery probably ditched most of their crutch, which is great. I may be wrong, because I stopped watching in at the start of year 4, so someone can confirm or refute that.

I can confirm that. Discovery Season 4 has the absolute least callbacks of any season of Star Trek in this production era.

I think the fourth season might be my favorite. It's down to S1 and S4, both of which I really like, but for very different reasons. I'll sort it out by the end of the re-watch I'm in the middle of in the lead-up to Season 5.

Discovery Season 3 is my least favorite season of the series but that's not because of the jump into the Far Future. It has to do with some choices I really didn't agree with, some wasted opportunities, and they tried to do too much in too little time.

I hate the character choices of SNW, but I just accept it as someone else's version of the characters and try to enjoy it for what it is.

Similarly, I enjoy Picard Season 3 for what it is: "TNG done in the style of a TOS Movie".

As far as SNW, how you see it is how I see it. I don't see SNW as a natural prequel to TOS and never will. I consider it a different version of the characters (if someone's going to try to pounce on the Canon Argument, don't even bother, just agree to disagree). I don't dislike the series, but it didn't hook me. I just don't care much for episodic television these days, and it's not something I've been drawn to in 20 years. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[Campe]

The nice thing is: There is a Trek for everyone. Which, again, if they make Legacy, that's fine for me. It gives another part of the audience their Trek. And that's okay by me. I have mine with SNW. I'm happy right now. Well, except for the long wait with the "Hegemony" cliffhanger. But I'll live.

 

[fireproof78]

Picard Season 3 absolutely relied on knowing the ins and outs of these characters and their relationships in order to be effective. Let's be honest though. At the end of the day, no one who doesn't like Star Trek isn't going to watch either of them, but just something to consider there.

Thinking back on it, why Lower Decks worked for me from the get go, and why others might not, is because Mariner is very much a character reacting to Starfleet. Now, you don't have to know the ins and outs of every bit of Trek lore to understand her. She has her demons and she grows with it. The characters, despite the memberberries and lore, move within the lore on their own. They feel like people reacting to the absurd things happening in Star Trek. It feels a bit more grounded in a way, that these things are ridiculous and they see some of them as ridiculous. It's also a comedy so I take the references far less seriously that other shows. The framing device is far different.

Contrast with Picard Season 3, and really all of Picard, and it is far closer to Generations and First Contact, since it relies heavily on past lore to the point that the pieces and personal history have to line up perfectly to make full sense. It becomes more exclusionary in it's approach because if you don't know all the details, you are not just missing out on a joke but on actual story context.

 

[eschaton]

The logic is that Trek is expensive to produce. And seeing as WBD is focused on finding $3B in savings, and live action Trek costs $100M per season or per movie if it head to the big screen, WBD might just cancel shows or theater releases in the name of savings.

Its also worth noting that WBD cancels animation a lot. Not just obscure ones, but those involving icons like Batman. Meaning even LD is not really safe under WBD.

I think it's important to distinguish here the belt-tightening that all of the major studios are doing now with what happens with a merger.

Every studio right now is bleeding money. Hence they're in retrenchment mode - raising prices on streaming services, adding ad tiers, cutting low-viewership projects from their services entirely, etc.

But if we're talking about a merger, one has to prove to investors that there's growth potential on the other side. Trek is, far and away, the most successful aspect of Paramount Plus, except arguably the Yellowstone franchise. Even considering it's an expensive product, it's also the single-biggest brand. It's nuts to retire Trek, for the exact same reason it would be nuts for Warner Brothers to retire DC, Game of Thrones, or Harry Potter just because they're expensive to produce and have had some big flops in recent years.

If WarnerDiscovery doesn't make money off of Trek in the Paramount merger, how do you expect them to make money? How do you expect them to not simply lose more money, even faster? After all, these sort of transactions always result in higher debt loads, which requires stronger cash flow to stop eventual bankruptcy.

 

[johnjm22]

The whole industry feels like it's on the precipice of change. And of course that will affect Star Trek.

There's going to be a lot less money to go around for both movies and television.

Secret Hideout and Bad Robot charged Paramount/CBS a ton of money to produce ST content. I think the studio wanted it to be like the MCU but it hasn't worked.

Streamers are losing money, and movie after movie is tanking.

I think 200M budgets are going to start disappearing. We're already starting to see movies pop up with much smaller budgets that look as good as much more expensive movies.

Star Trek probably needs to get produced at half the cost it is now, or it's probably not viable.

 

[fireproof78]

Secret Hideout and Bad Robot charged Paramount/CBS a ton of money to produce ST content. I think the studio wanted it to be like the MCU but it hasn't worked.

What's the price tag? How much is in a ton?

Streamers are losing money, and movie after movie is tanking.

Indeed, and it is a problem affecting all of them. Not just some problem with Paramount or Trek.

 

[johnjm22]

What's the price tag? How much is in a ton?

The price tag is the budget. The production company is making the movie/show for the studio at that price.

The reason they always say producers are the richest people in Hollywood is because if the production company charges the studio 185M to produce a movie and they make it for 100M, they're keeping that extra 85M.

For example, we don't know what the Kelvinverse movies actually cost to make for Bad Robot, but we know how much Paramount paid Bad Robot to make them.

 

[fireproof78]

The price tag is the budget. The production company is making the movie/show for the studio at that price.

The reason they always say producers are the richest people in Hollywood is because if the production company charges the studio 185M to produce a movie and they make it for 100M, they're keeping that extra 85M.

For example, we don't know what the Kelvinverse movies actually cost to make for Bad Robot, but we know how much Paramount paid Bad Robot to make them.

I will take your word for it then. Never heard that phrase or price tag.

But, then, other people's accounting is not my interest.

 

[eschaton]

The whole industry feels like it's on the precipice of change. And of course that will affect Star Trek.

There's going to be a lot less money to go around for both movies and television.

Secret Hideout and Bad Robot charged Paramount/CBS a ton of money to produce ST content. I think the studio wanted it to be like the MCU but it hasn't worked.

Streamers are losing money, and movie after movie is tanking.

I think 200M budgets are going to start disappearing. We're already starting to see movies pop up with much smaller budgets that look as good as much more expensive movies.

Star Trek probably needs to get produced at half the cost it is now, or it's probably not viable.

Kurtzman Trek budgets are massive for TV, but not one of them has come close to $200 million for a season. $7 to $9 million per episode is most typical, meaning something like a $70 to $90 million per season (now that no show gets more than ten).

Is this too much? I'd argue kind of yes. Escalating the average TNG budget for inflation, something like $3-$5 million per episode seems more feasible, though we have to remember these shows had 2-3 times more episodes than the modern series as well, which means the costs per season are actually pretty comparable.

I think it's also worth noting that while the budgets are massive by the standards of TV, Kurtzman Trek budgets are small by the standards of modern genre shows. Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, The Witcher, Stranger Things, Rings of Power, basically every single live-action MCU and Star Wars show, spend way, way more on an episode than any modern Trek series (sometimes many multiples). Indeed, Kurtzman is known within the industry as someone who delivers product on time and under budget, which is why he's developed a great reputation with insiders.

Looking around, it seems The Orville cost about $7 million an episode for Season 1, which was at the lower end of modern Trek budgets.

There's simply not a lot of evidence to suggest modern Trek budgets are bloated, by genre standards.

 

[Mr Awe]

The whole industry feels like it's on the precipice of change. And of course that will affect Star Trek.

There's going to be a lot less money to go around for both movies and television.

Secret Hideout and Bad Robot charged Paramount/CBS a ton of money to produce ST content. I think the studio wanted it to be like the MCU but it hasn't worked.

Streamers are losing money, and movie after movie is tanking.

I think 200M budgets are going to start disappearing. We're already starting to see movies pop up with much smaller budgets that look as good as much more expensive movies.

Star Trek probably needs to get produced at half the cost it is now, or it's probably not viable.

It's not just "feeling like it's on the precipice." It's already over the edge. The money for new projects has already plummeted. Shows have been cancelled. And that includes Trek spinoffs.

This is not something that will happen. It's already happening.

And Trek series don't get $200M per season.

We're past peak Trek before we even knew it!

 

[HotRod]

Shows have been cancelled. And that includes Trek spinoffs.

What Trek spinoffs have been cancelled? Unless you're referring to Discovery?

 

[Mr Awe]

What Trek spinoffs have been cancelled? Unless you're referring to Discovery?

Well, I can't give you a name but think of it this way. We're going from 3 live action series running consecutively to just two (SNW & the academy series). And recall that originally they wanted Trek on all around the year, requiring more than the three series.

So it's not so much cancelled but more never greenlit in the first place.

S31 was originally going to be a series but that might have more to do with Michelle Yeoh being harder to obtain!

 

[Lord Garth]

The nice thing is: There is a Trek for everyone. Which, again, if they make Legacy, that's fine for me. It gives another part of the audience their Trek. And that's okay by me. I have mine with SNW. I'm happy right now. Well, except for the long wait with the "Hegemony" cliffhanger. But I'll live.

Even though we've ended up on opposite sides of the argument, I agree with your sentiment and share it. Most of us have our piece of the pie, and I'm happy that other people have theirs to enjoy, as I have mine.

As far as the merger and how it effects Trek going forward: I think it's not going to have any effect on Streaming Trek. Star Trek Movies are a different story. Maybe we might finally get something on the film front. No idea what, but maybe something.

 

[James Cole]

Looking around, it seems The Orville cost about $7 million an episode for Season 1, which was at the lower end of modern Trek budgets.

THE ORVILLE received California state tax credits, so the budget is public record. Season 1 had $ 40,026,000 in qualified expenses (12-13 episodes), S2 $ 69,169,000 (13-14 episodes), and S3 $ 64,230,000 (10 episodes).

Someone should try and dig up if the Ontario provincial government or the Canadian federal government publishes comparable figures for their tax credits.

 

[FederationHistorian]

I think it's important to distinguish here the belt-tightening that all of the major studios are doing now with what happens with a merger.

Every studio right now is bleeding money. Hence they're in retrenchment mode - raising prices on streaming services, adding ad tiers, cutting low-viewership projects from their services entirely, etc.

But if we're talking about a merger, one has to prove to investors that there's growth potential on the other side. Trek is, far and away, the most successful aspect of Paramount Plus, except arguably the Yellowstone franchise. Even considering it's an expensive product, it's also the single-biggest brand. It's nuts to retire Trek, for the exact same reason it would be nuts for Warner Brothers to retire DC, Game of Thrones, or Harry Potter just because they're expensive to produce and have had some big flops in recent years.

If WarnerDiscovery doesn't make money off of Trek in the Paramount merger, how do you expect them to make money? How do you expect them to not simply lose more money, even faster? After all, these sort of transactions always result in higher debt loads, which requires stronger cash flow to stop eventual bankruptcy.

You also forget that WBD can just recast for a lot of these shows and movies, making them cheaper to produce. With Trek, the fandom likes their legacy characters as is. You aren’t making Legacy if you decade to recast Seven of Nine with someone younger than Jeri Ryan. With younger actors recasted as Riker, Worf, Geordi, etc. for guest appearances.

There's simply not a lot of evidence to suggest modern Trek budgets are bloated, by genre standards.

Compare budgets of The Orville and Star Trek: Picard, based on Qualified Expenses in California.

S1
The Orville: $ 40,026,000 (12-13 episodes)
Picard: $ 75,574,000 (10 episodes)

S2
The Orville: $ 69,169,000 (13-14 episodes)
Picard: $ 101,249,000 (10 episodes)

S3
The Orville: $ 64,230,000 (10 episodes)
Picard: $ 100,517,000 (10 episodes)

Obviously Patrick Stewart is a bigger star than Seth MacFarlane, and that has to be accounted for when comparing the budgets. But Picard has a bigger budget than The Orville even in its first season, when the rest of the cast - save for guest appearances from Jeri Ryan, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, and Jonathan Del Arco - are generally unknown to the audience. And The Orville had a few known names of their own in Adrianne Palicki, Scott Grimes, and Penny Johnson Jerald as part of their main cast. And The Orville is also under the umbrella of Disney, which isn't shy in spending money.