Are they?
CBSAA/Paramount+'s original idea was to have five Trek series running back-to-back, so that in any given year there would always be a show on screen without any hiatuses. Look what happened with that idea: The flagship show was prematurely cancelled,
Paramount only budgeted for five seasons of DIS from the beginning. And they might have been open to more if the show was more popular and less expensive to make. Unfortunately, outside of being a launching pad for other Trek shows, DIS was bungled and it never became the popular show it should have been.
the Section 31 show was changed to a TV movie,
Compared to where it was before, having the same starts and stops as Star Trek 4, and almost never got off the ground.
the Picard show only lasted three seasons,
PIC was always intended to be a deconstruction of Picard, not be a 24th century/25th century show. And there weren’t going to many seasons anyways. SirPat signing on for as many seasons as he did was largely luck.
If you wanted S4 and S5, then maybe PIC should have launched the P+ streaming era, instead of DIS.
Prodigy was cancelled and completely removed for tax write-off reasons,
They probably presumed that PRO had the weakest fanbase, and was thus the most expendable for the tax write-off. And were proven wrong.
and the future of SNW and LDS is unknown after their third and fifth seasons, respectively.
With the Paramount-WBD merger talk, and it being known what projects have been cancelled for tax write-off reasons under WBD, and even what franchises are getting soft reboots under WBD, uncertainty is understandable.
t might not be the same type of franchise fatigue Berman-era Trek suffered from, but the end result is the same: less Trek. Not to mention the constant disappointments from Paramount for the last eight years about a new theatrical film that still shows absolutely no sign of happening. And now with the rumors of Zaslav getting control, there's a giant wild card now sitting atop any future Trek TV productions.
Star Trek managed to get on with only one show on the air for years, the mid-90s and the early-20s being the exception. I think Star Trek will be fine at its current reduced output for now.
Well, if Paramount+ wants to spend their money making yet another vanity project for Stewart, that's their business. But if they haven't even been able to get a theatrical film off the ground in 8 years, what makes Stewart so sure it will happen with him?
A combination of star power + how much Paramount willing to spend on Stewart vs spending the whole Kelvinverse cast, not counting money to spend on Cumberbatch and Hemsworth to reprise their role in a Kelvinverse film.
And conceptually, a Picard-centred movie is a lot less controversial than the S31 movie, meaning people will be guaranteed to show up.
Unless they're just humoring him with a 'script' for some made-for-TV thing like S31 that will also most likely not get made under Zaslav.
The merger, if it happens will take years to finalize. The film will likely be out before then. SirPat isn’t getting any younger, so the film will likely be fast tracked.
