Zachary Quinto: ‘No Guarantees’ For Another Star Trek Film

That too is part of the problem IMO. You need to strike when the iron is hot. Too many years pass for every other installment. As others have expressed more eloquently, there was great excitement for Trek after Star Trek '09. Now, 8 years and two sequels later that seems to have evaporated. And it looks we will be waiting even longer for Star Trek (1)4. How many Star Wars or even Guardians of the Galaxy films will be released in that time?

 

It's true that anticipation will dwindle in the mainstream audience, but I'd rather have a film that is made properly and withstands the test of time, rather than only being able to boast bigger box office figures (which I have real issue with, but that's another argument). My biggest gripe with Beyond is that it was rushed to meet a predetermined release date, and it shows.

As for Star Wars, you can't help but admire how just six feature films (or even three, really) achieved so much with so little. With Disney now churning them out like a factory though, even if fatigue doesn't set in, it does stop each one being special.

 

Yep. Kelvin Trek takes a long time to make. Although if we do get Trek14, it'll be four films in 10-12 years total, which really isn't so bad to get one film every three years. It's the George Lucas rate of returns.

If there is no fourth Kelvin era Trek film, how well will the three films we got stand the test of time? Was it a satisfactory soft reboot? Did the three films do what the studio wanted them to do (make money) and did the three films do what the fans wanted them to do (be awesome)?

 

If you were to ask: Is there a 100% guarantee of a ST4, I would say there is no guarantee either.

If you ask is likely to be made? I would say certainly.

Quinto says he knows a script was being worked on. The CEO is scifi friendly and the studio said the tentpoles would still be there, and as the biggest moneymaking tentpole of Paramount in 2016, Star Trek would have to be on the list. There is also the matter of it already being announced..

 

we have to wait and see.

 

But you have to factor in a lot of things when deciding when and what to make. Actors aren't just automatically available when Paramount finally makes a decision. It seems Saldana, Pine, Quinto and Urban all work pretty regularly and any new production will have to start far enough down the road to account for what they have already agreed to do elsewhere.

Those box office figures are what determines when/if another film gets made. Trek is getting lost in the shuffle as other franchises are producing movies every two years, like clockwork. If Paramount determines the movie franchise isn't viable with mainstream audiences, they will quit making the films.

 

A movie takes a long time to produceI agree modern movie making is very much profit driven and franchise based, but like I said before, there was 4 years between 09 and Into Darkness. Beyond didn't start filming until just under two years after Into Darkness being released, which even taking its pre-production difficulties into account, still gives us a while before Paramount might consider Star Trek to not be viable.

 

X-Men: Apocalypse was considered a similar financial disappointment to Beyond, and yesterday Fox announced a fourth movie starring the young versions of the X-Men cast, X-Men: Dark Phoenix

 

Perceived, maybe, yet it made exactly $200 million dollars more than Beyond against a slightly smaller budget. Though granted it did drop off to the tune of 27% from DOFP.

 

I think I'd like them to stop now.

 

I don't. I want to see more.

 

Well I don't wish to deny anyone more movies, but I know I'll keep buying cinema tickets and Blurays and I don't really want to...

 

Exactly this. And unfortunately Paramount is no Disney, Warner, Fox, Universal, or even Sony*.

(*The order is not random.)

 

Other films series can have years gap between sequels

X-Men - 2000
X2 - 2003
X-Men: Last Stand - 2006


Alien - 1979
Aliens - 1986
Alien 3 -1992
Alien: Resurection - 1997

To name a couple

A long gap between films in a series isn't in of itself a bad thing, rather how the studio(s) manage what they do in that gap. But quite often it's the behind the scenes issues that impact on the final result, Alien 3 for example had a very troubled pre-production with numerous re-writes of the script etc...

But is part of the issue that part of the modern audiance isn't simply willing to wait 3-4 years between sequels but would rather have it 2 years apart. If you look at the MCU some of films in the individual series i.e Thor, Guardians of the galaxy have 3-4 years between sequels. It just doesn't seem that way because you have some characters appearing in other films in the MCU.

 

Beyond made $341.9 million worldwide. It might not have been the blockbuster they were hoping for, but I'd say it's still respectable enough to at least warrant one more sequel, even if it does have a reduced budget.

 

There are never any "guarantees" that a new film in a franchise will be made (Unless you are Marvel or Fast &Furious) but I think that another Trek film will be forthcoming, albeit perhaps with a new cast/setting.

 

This is called "Development hell" in Hollywood. I'd argue the chance for a new Trek 4 is now a coin toss, with chances getting lower the longer the wait is.

Beyond was in that weird position where it massively disappointed expectations and cannot be called a success, while still creating a small profit, and thus not being a failure either. Just a big movie with very small ROI.

So the creators now have to retool the series, but not too much. Which is incredibly hard, because you need to figure out WHY Beyond performed as it did, and I don't think there is one simple answer for that. I think it comes down to the script: If someone has a great idea that immediately convinces the producers, it will be a go. The longer they scramble to find that idea, the smaller the chances of it happening are.

Also: It's dependant on what other projects Paramount currently has ready. If they have a few other blockbusters in line and can do their 14 planned Transformers movies, nobody will give a crap about Trek. If they are in dire need of any bigger movie, chances are good some more people will get assigned to figure out what to do with Trek.

One prediction: If ST4 fails to realize, the Kelvin timeline is dead. The television company already returned to the prime timeline. The Kelvin's timeline' only unique selling point is the cast. If that goes away, the timeline itself is worthless. They're not going to do a Kelvin version of TNG. They either do another reboot (probably the most realistic option), or try to do something completely different.

 

I agree. My thinking is that the film's setting will hinge on the reception to Discovery.

 

I tend to disagree here. Nobody in Hollywood cares anything about television. That's peanuts compared to movie business, DC has made that clear. And certainly no producers care about timelines. It will depend entirely on how ST4's script and box office chances are perceived internally.

Edit: But you might be right if Discovery is a slam-dunk success! That would show the Trek brand still has value.