I remember once reading that it was originally intended as a telemovie but the 'dodge' thing never occurred to me. But the involvement of Harve Bennett, who was after all primarily a tv producer, does suggest that it might have been on the level.
It was quite common, at the time, for US telemovies of the 70s and 80s to get a theatrical release internationally. "Buck Rogers", "Duel", "Battlestar Galactica", "Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack", "Cat and Mouse", "Spiderman: The Dragon's Challenge", "Sssssnake", etc...
Had Paramount not been pleased with the way things were progressing on ST II, it wouldn't have got the upgrade to US feature status a few days into production, but yeah, it was a clever way to guarantee keeping the initial costs from blowing out.
Duel only cost $450,000 to produce. Battlestar Galactica: Saga of a Star World was extremely expensive to produce for television, and it cost a little over $7 million to make (and much of those costs were intended to be amortized in the TV movies intended to follow). Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan cost $11 million to produce.
Consider these excerpts from a September 18, 1981 Press Release issued by Paramount (I'm too lazy to type the whole thing out):
Paramount Pictures Corporation will begin production in November on "STAR TREK II," with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy returning to star in the sequel...
"Contrary to all the unconfirmed reports and the inevitable speculation about this project, 'STAR TREK II' has always been intended as a full-length motion picutre for release in the United States and Canada as well as in the international territories," Mr. Eisner commented.
Conclusion: the film wasn't upgraded to being a theatrical feature during production; this happened during early pre-production, likely as a cost-saving measure (read: union-dodging measure), nothing more.
I see alot of people prefering ST09's music over TMP's Music, and this blows me away, I dont understand. TMP set the bar for Star Trek Music, and you can hear its influence all the way to present day(including every episode and movie of TNG). I dont see how ST09 can compete with it at all.
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