I'm hoping for production budget of at least $100-110 million, combined with a marketing budget of around $50 million.
The reason I'm hoping for such a comparatively large production budget for a Star Trek movie is so that the producers have the funding available to deliver the full scope of the script on screen, something the majority of Trek movies have struggled with.
A lot of the previous films have failed to generate big box office returns simply because there wasn't anything in them that the general public could latch onto or care about, while the last Trek movie to generate decent box office returns (First Contact) did have something the public could latch onto - the Borg. Unfortunately, it didn't quite have the financing behind it to make the most of them, and came off looking just a little bit cheap.
Nemesis on the other hand had the money necessary to realise the full scope of its story on the screen, but the story was an ill-advised mish mash with nothing for the general moviegoing audience to give a rat's ass about. Had it depicted the Klingons instead of the Romulans, it might have pulled in more than $43 million at the box office.
If Paramount wants Trek to break out of the geeky, low box office return rut its largely found itself stuck in for the past 20 years, they really do need to be willing do something BIG to get the film noticed by the mainstream - and by big I mean an action epic with ridiculously overdone effects, not philosophical musings on the nature of the human condition or half-assed retreads of things that have already been done. If they manage to get it right, it should do quite well - Star Trek has proven time and time again that if its done well, it can and does put bums on seats.
The move doesn't need a ridiculous $258 million Spider-Man 3 sized budget, and would never get one anyway, cos it would have to generate box office returns of $800 million+ worldwide to justify the investment, but a $100 million budget should be manageable, assuming the film manages to crossover into the mainstream and generate $150-200 million at the box office in the US - a tall order, but not entirely unheard of... remember that (adjusted for inflation) Star Trek IV pulled in around $190 million.
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