The 10 year memorial on J.J. Abrams' rebooted Star Trek

[Tony Stark]

Oh what could have been....

10 years ago today I went to an early showing of the rebooted Star Trek. I loved this movie and it's probably my second favorite Trek movie after Wrath of Khan. It seemed like there was a bright future for this franchise but between Abrams' divided loyalty to the franchise and the split between Paramount and CBS/Viacom creating a strange rights situation, what started out with a ton of promise crashed after impact.

The studio waited 4 years to produce the sequel mostly due to the insistence of keeping Abram's at the director's helm which pushed the project out to 2013 because his next project was working on his original 80's Spielberg-esque sci-fi throwback film Super 8. During this time period, Marvel was still working with Paramount before Disney bought them out at the end of 2010, but they had licensed to release both Thor and Captain America films under the Paramount distribution deal. Also Paramount was basking in the Financial success of the Transformer films. While Transformers Dark of the Moon was panned by critics and audiences alike there is no doubt that it was a huge financial success for the studio grossing over 1.1 billion at the box office at a time when billion dollar films were fairly rare.

But probably the worst news for what seemed like a promising start was when 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness came out. While the film had decent critical reviews, and had an "A" cinemascore, the film under performed studio estimates over an early Wednesday release where it was expected to make up to 100M over that time and 80M over the 3 day weekend. The film only made 83M over the 4 day opening.

The rest is a sad tale of Abrams abandoning the franchise for the 2015 Star Wars film and action director Justin Lin taking over for Star Trek Beyond which only made 158M in it's domestic run. The studio had plans on a sequel that would bring in Chris Hemsworth who had a brief pre-Thor appearance as Kirk's father in the 2009 film, but negotiations broke down between Paramount and Hemsworth and Pine who found new star success in 2017's Wonder Woman.

Other mitigating circumstances probably also effected the future of the reboot, from the tragic death of Anton Yelchin, Zoe Saldana finding stardom from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. Another big factor was the split rights between Paramount/Bad Robot, and CBS/Viacom, where CBS wanted to make a new Star Trek show for their upcoming streaming service, but it could not be related in anyway to the 2009 reboot series, even though the art direction in the show was clearly influenced by the Abrams series.

So what started off with such promise is now dead. Actors have moved on, and the franchise never really had a chance to establish itself because the studio put too much faith in Abrams who really didn't care about the franchise, and no one from the studio stepped in to ensure the sequels were getting the attention they deserved.

Perhaps there will be another crack at rebooting with the original crew of Kirk Spock and Bones which despite all the iterations of Star Trek seems to be the one that people care for the most. Even on Star Trek Discovery, they brought on Spock and Captain Pike.

But in all the movies I've watched this is the franchise that is the most disappointing to me because it had such promise that was squandered by studio execs who didn't know or understand what they had.

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

I haven't really followed the behind-the-scenes news of the new Star Trek movies - although I've seen the first two - but that makes pretty sad reading.

 

[Mandon Knight]

Love all 3 of the films, I just love ST full stop. The universe, the whole shebang. JJ is a bigger SW fan, he's admitted that and did ST to get to SW. I'm a far bigger ST fan than I am SW but I understand his reasons, he's a fan of ST but is passionate about SW, Paramount have not known how to handle Trek for years, and then when they do get it together, they drop the ball, having said that the 'breakdown' that we are in around the 4th 're-boot' film is to me, down to the greed of the actors, not the studio.

 

[Tony Stark]

Love all 3 of the films, I just love ST full stop. The universe, the whole shebang. JJ is a bigger SW fan, he's admitted that and did ST to get to SW. I'm a far bigger ST fan than I am SW but I understand his reasons, he's a fan of ST but is passionate about SW, Paramount have not known how to handle Trek for years, and then when they do get it together, they drop the ball, having said that the 'breakdown' that we are in around the 4th 're-boot' film is to me, down to the greed of the actors, not the studio.

I guess I can understand that, but from my understanding the idea with bringing Hemsworth back was to garner his star power, and from my understanding he made 15M from doing Ghostbusters which was a total flop, so Paramount should have known what they were getting into. I am a little disappointed that talks broke down with Pine, because ST definitely gave him a presence he didn't have that probably got him the WW role. Not to say he should take any offer but you have to believe they could have come to something amicable.

 

[Mandon Knight]

Yep, it's Pine I put the blame on for this next one not becoming a working production, particularly when other cast members kept their same salaries.

 

[Tony Stark]

I haven't really followed the behind-the-scenes news of the new Star Trek movies - although I've seen the first two - but that makes pretty sad reading.

Yeah I think the big lesson here is, strike while the iron is hot. I too like all the films as Mandon said, and you look at the reviews they were all pretty good, but in a time era where you have Marvel Studios putting out films every year, along with all the other competition that is out there, Paramount just took too much time letting this develop.

One of the things that was very controversial at the time but in retrospect looks like pure genious, was the weekend after Iron Man 1 released Marvel Studios announced Iron Man 2 for the first Friday in May 2010. Favreau at the time did not want this, he did not think it would be enough time for him to get the film ready, he wanted 3 years. Feige and MS told him they are making the film in 2010, and he was either in or out. This ultimately lead to Favreau declining directing Avengers and just remained as a producer. Viewing from today all worked out as it should have, and that decision at first had a lot complaining of studio interference, and when IM2, while not a terrible film, certainly didn't live up to people's expectations, a lot of people pointed to it as a "rush job".

This is a case where the studio just sat back and let Abrams do whatever he wanted and Star Trek was not a priority, and certainly the 4 year layoff between films when in that time frame you had 5 MCU films, 2 Transformer films, The Twilight films, The start of the Hunger Games franchise, the continuation of the Fast and Furious films, the start of the Hobbit films, and the last 3 Harry Potter films. That's just too much competition and some of those franchises were well established by that point.

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

Yeah I think the big lesson here is, strike while the iron is hot.

Star Trek was not a priority

Absolutely. It's a real shame. All the leads were spot-on in their respective roles. You'd think with Star Trek's proven fanbase and the public's embracing of their new cast they'd have been pushing ST like crazy.

Wasn't Tarantino in talks to make an ST movie?

 

[Drizzle]

Can't believe it's been ten years since it came out. It was really the first piece of Star Trek media that generated my interest in the franchise. Even if Into Darkness didn't live up to expectations and Beyond was good but still a bit underwhelming, I still think the Abramsverse Trek films make for a nice little trilogy.

 

[Tony Stark]

Absolutely. It's a real shame. All the leads were spot-on in their respective roles. You'd think with Star Trek's proven fanbase and the public's embracing of their new cast they'd have been pushing ST like crazy.

Wasn't Tarantino in talks to make an ST movie?

It's baffling to me, but I think it goes to the fact they gave Abrams too much control, Bad Robot basically produced the whole product, Paramount was simply a distributor.

As for Tarantino he is saying that his script is still a possibility but the bigger question is the state of the rights. Star Trek Discovery is ran by CBS/Viacom, but Paramount still has the rights to produce movies under the Bad Robot contract, so I'm not sure how Tarantino's own production company would be involved. It would be the first time ever Tarantino developed someone else's IP.

 

[STARMAN]

I love Star Trek 2009. Loved it in the theater and watched it several times at home. One of those films I enjoy as pure entertainment even if there are criticisms for the lack of philosophical intellect and the SW vibes sometimes running through. It left me feeling good about the new cast and where they could take things. The momentum so quickly ran out of steam.

 

[DarkKnight88]

Yeah that 2009 film is very good. It’s still the highest grossing Trek film, even with inflation.

 

[Consona]

2009 was pretty entertaining, Into Darkness awful, the third one meh. Keep JJ from Star Trek... and Star Wars.

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

As for Tarantino he is saying that his script is still a possibility but the bigger question is the state of the rights. Star Trek Discovery is ran by CBS/Viacom, but Paramount still has the rights to produce movies under the Bad Robot contract, so I'm not sure how Tarantino's own production company would be involved. It would be the first time ever Tarantino developed someone else's IP.

Thanks for the update

 

[Heretic]

Chris Pine is not to blame for a new movie not being made. He has a contract stating that he will be paid a certain amount, and the studio does not want to pay him that amount.

The "problem" is that Star Trek is not Star Wars. The concept is not designed to be a billion dollar per film franchise. But the studio wants it to be...so they made films as if it would be. And it's not. That means that the people in charge of this franchise don't understand the property the have. I'm not blaming an actor for a contract that a multi-billion dollar company wrote and agreed to.

 

[Mandon Knight]

As the ST series' and films are my favourite 'franchise', I am greatly saddened if all this means we don't get a film for many a year, (can't imagine the QT film being relatable or seen as being relatable to existing films, even if it is 'canon').