That's true. Star Trek didn't become popular because of that movie but that movie became popular because of Star Trek.
Star Trek 90210? No thanks.
Earth based Trek show
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That's true. Star Trek didn't become popular because of that movie but that movie became popular because of Star Trek.
Star Trek 90210? No thanks.
Honestly, in today's TV environment, I suspect this idea on CW or a Pay cable premium channel softcore porn-fest like True Blood or Game Of Thrones(?) is about all the hope we have for Live Action Star Trek on TV. Othrwise, our only hope for Trek on TV is Animated. I just don't know if there's enough ratings/viewers available for any other Live Action Trek to survive, beause of the expense to produce it. Sure, there's probably enough people that would watch it, but, not enough would watch it live, there'd be lots of time-shifting (The more "nerdy" you make the program, the more likely your audience is going to be techinally savvy and Time-shift)
If Falling Skies and Walking Dead can survive on basic cable, then Star Trek can survive on basic cable. And the relationship CBS appears to be building with Netflix makes an online only streaming show even more likely.
You ask the average person who enjoyed the last movie the name of it's producer, and they likely couldn't give you Abrams name to save their own lives.
Star Trek in no way is "the stuff JJ Abrams makes." Not in most people's minds.
If you ask the average person, Star Trek is the sci fi action movie they saw a couple years ago with Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, and Zach Quinto. They may not think JJ Abrams, but they are not thinking about Berman Trek either.
Yeah. "Real people" don't give two hoots about Star Trek, new or old. Here's what the average person would say if you did a survey in a mall: Star Trek is some stupid old thing about fat old people in space oh wait there was that movie with Spock wasn't there, that was kinda cool, is there going to be another one?
And then they'll wander off to get some FroYo and forget all about Star Trek until it gets shoved in their face, such as the ad campaign for the next movie or just going to the theater and seeing what's playing. Hey Star Trek. That isn't lame anymore, is it? Let's see that.
Same for a TV series. The audience will be whoever the series is marketed to. If it's on Netflix, it will be marketed to Netflix customers, etc.
There certainly is a core fanbase of people who will see or at least notice anything with the Star Trek name but neither movies nor TV can depend on that audience for survival. The audience needs to be rebuilt, and reconvinced, every single time. That's the way all products are sold, whether they are movies or toothpaste, and that's why millions are spent marketing movies like Star Trek.
Abrams convinced Paramount to make the movie because of the known brand name, but the fact that it was any kind of known brand was more important than what the brand was. Hollywood finds brands and then creates explosion movies for that brand. Battleship is a good example of a movie that is nothing more than the brand + explosions formula, and it did well globally (over 300M total BO) even if it flopped domestically.
Abrams' movie succeeded because it followed the formula of a summer tentpole movie. The Star Trek name itself may have hurt it globally, because it's associated with a franchise with a lot of complex backstory that audiences are not all familiar with.
The movie didn't do as well globally as most of that sort do - more than 50% international revenues is standard now, but the last move was only about 33%. Abrams mentioned in an article a while back that he was disappointed in the global performance. Some zero-content brand like Battleship may actually have an advantage.
Or Amazon/Netflix, which have a motive to invest in an expensive well known brand because they are trying to establish dominance in a new type of business. Nobody else has that motive, being in mature industries. The CW doesn't show a lot of interest in sci fi, certainly not set in space, and premium cable doesn't do remakes of old franchises from free TV. But Netflix does. And getting Star Trek out of the ad-supported ecosystem solves the time-shifting problem.
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