https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/b...ramount-skydance-merger-consumers-1235941311/ I guess this is the link.
VARIETY: Paramount-Skydance merger collapsed in the final moments, and will lead to layoffs and austerity measures
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PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW has a few plot similarities to ''Wolf in the Fold''.* And Doohan showed up in both, aided and abetted in MAIDS by William Campbell himself.
(*Roddy McDowall popped up in MAIDS. Hard to say if he'd settle for TOS' guest star fees, though he could have been a contender for Hengist, instead of a photographer, which was what he was...)
No doubt coincidentally, as the film was based on a 1968 novel by Francis Pollini. And the only similarity I can think of is that they both involve the serial killing of women, which is hardly an uncommon plot device in fiction. "Wolf" is meant to be a scary horror story while Maids is a dark sex comedy, so it's an enormous stretch to call them similar.
Our mileage must vary, even though I don't truly drive. Different genres can share similar common plot events, and both stories depict a trio or more of distaff killings. But that's not important right now. Now that I realize there's a MAIDS novel, I must ask you if it's equally, more or less serious than the Hudson movie was. Your answer (if you read the novel) may determine whether I order it from my library-holds department.
Yes, they and hundreds of other works of fiction, so what's your point? If you're trying to imply that Roddenberry was somehow thinking of "Wolf in the Fold" when he wrote Maids, that's clearly wrong, because he didn't create the story, he was just hired to rewrite William Hanley's script based on Pollini's novel, and to produce the film. And of course, "Wolf" was Robert Bloch's riff on Jack the Ripper, a subject that Bloch revisited several times over his career. So in neither case did the original impetus for the story come from Roddenberry.
I've never read it, but here are some reviews on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2332413.Pretty_Maids_All_in_a_Row Apparently it is a satire like the movie, but far, far more sexually explicit.
https://trekmovie.com/2024/12/26/zo...needs-to-get-done-soon-with-more-spock-uhura/
This part made me sad.
It's speculation.
Reckless speculation is 40% of the internet. The other 50% is cat pictures.
This is speculation on my part.
I know, but even the possibility is sad.
Trek is a marquee property for them. I can't see it going away.
No, probably not. Not that it would have impact the fandom in any way, beyond having to rewatch shows not currently being produced (but who would do that?!?)
Also, what it might mean is that they might reduce the amount of money spent and look to tighten budgets a bit until they turn a profit. Which, I certainly recall many fans around here (and elsewhere) calling for because they feel like Trek doesn't need to be the big budget show extravaganza and reducing costs might help the shows.
Paramount+ has reportedly deleted almost its entire classic Nickelodeon cartoon library from its streaming service as a cost cutting measure in it run-up to the merger with Skydance.
I think that current Star Trek shows, except for maybe 'Discovery', are produced with a seasonal budget of 70 to 120 million dollars. Some seasons of 'Discovery' may have been produced with a higher budget. Current Star Trek shows can also be produced with a seasonal budget of 50 to 70 million dollars. But in the current streaming age, while Disney is producing TV series with movie quality visuals for 'Star Wars', it is not wise to do projects with a seasonal budget of 65 million dollars, each with 20-26 episodes per season. Current Star Trek TV series are probably produced with the same or slightly more budget as the seasonal budgets of TV series in the 90s and the last 2 TNG movies. But it is produced with fewer episodes and the CGI of TV series is made by companies that make movie CGI, so current Star Trek shows look this good.
Why do I say this? In order for Star Trek fans to get what they want, Paramount needs to produce a 20-26 episode TV series per season, which is difficult in today's streaming age and competition.
In 2023, we got a cumulative 30 episodes of Trek between Picard, Strange New Worlds, and Lower Decks, and in 2024, we got a cumulative 40 episodes between Discovery, Prodigy, and LD.
But the number of episodes per season for each work except Prodigy was 10. That's what I meant.
You're right about the TV series being canceled, but in my opinion the Star Trek series is as important to them as the Transformers series (which Paramount is likely to lose its Transformers film and TV series production license for in a few years, as it's estimated that Hasbro is not happy with the current state of the franchise due to the last two films not being box office successes) and the Sonic series they produced with Sega.