New energy and demand for Trek movies
It has been almost 10 years since the last Star Trek movie, Star Trek Beyond, hit the silver screen. While Trek-related TV shows and streaming shows have continued at pace, investment in movies has tailed off considerably over the last decade. This is quite something for a franchise whose 13 films have created a rock-solid foundation for new TV and streaming content to be built upon. Rumours abounded in Hollywood earlier this year following Cinemacon24 that the latest Star Trek movie was to begin production later this year and be released in 2025 or 2026. An origin story to 2009’s Star Trek, itself a diverging timeline origin story of sorts, the new film would be set decades before the story of the 2009 film and, therefore, would effectively become canon in both the Prime timeline and Kelvin divergence.
With Paramount likely to be under new management by the release of this movie, will it even go ahead now? Could the focus switch instead to a sequel to Star Trek Beyond, looking ahead to new adventures there? When Chris Pine (seen here with Rob Moore and producer David Ellison of Skydance at the 2013 premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness) spoke to Popverse about the possibility of reprising his role as Kirk he said:
“We have a great time doing it. I’m a lot older now, so I would be curious where that next story lands us in terms of what it would be and what we’ve said in the press.”
Or maybe there’s a chance of reuniting all the various strands of Trek under one true franchise again. According to TrekMovie, Skydance CEO David Ellison strongly suggested that he wants to unify brands across TV, film, and interactive media. So maybe this will see all the various shows move closer to being one big happy fleet. Could there be a new movie that will bring Lower Decks, Discovery, Kelvin timeline Star Trek, Strange New Worlds and Picard into one film, cementing them back under one franchise canon – possibly? If you had told me 10 years ago that I would have been crying while watching Picard command the Enterprise D out of Stardock to beat the Borg again, I’d have thought you crazy, proof if any were needed that anything is possible in the Beta quadrant.
The end of Paramount+
It is no secret that Paramount +'s success as a streaming channel has been less than stellar. Even Paramount has been looking for venture capital partners to help keep its flagship streaming service on the right track. This investment will commit the new ownership to look again at the streaming service, saying there would be “a focus on profitability and partnerships in the rapidly changing environment.”
What this new focus ultimately tells them is anyone’s guess, but in the hunt for profitability, Paramount may end up selling the licence to air its titles on other streaming services, potentially mothballing Paramount+ entirely; after all, the new owners need to cut debt, and Paramount+ is currently a debt-making machine.
A more cautious Star Trek brand?
Star Trek has always been a trailblazer when it comes to introducing more socially conscious characters, situations and storylines. Most recently, Star Trek Discovery broke many glass ceilings when it came to gender and sexuality in space. Whilst there is nothing in this potential merger which suggests that this more risky approach to creating new content will stop or slow down, it may well be that refocusing on unifying the brand may well mean that there are fewer experiments with social norms. We could see a return to a more traditional Trek. However, with the success of Lower Decks, which introduced humour and self-parody to the franchise, and Strange New Worlds, which provided universe crossovers and a brilliant musical interlude, it will be hard for the new owners to put this kind of creativity back into the bottle.
What do you think new ownership of Paramount Global might mean for Star Trek? Leave your thoughts below.
WRITTEN BY WoorLord
EDITED BY WoorLord
IMAGES SOURCED FROM Trekmovie.com - Inverse.com
