Paramount Pictures is planning to beam its once-lucrative Star Trek franchise back into movie theaters — with a top-of-the-line A-list director and a story line that will essentially be a prequel:
More than three years after the last “Star Trek” movie crashed at the box office, the venerable sci-fi franchise is being revived by the director of the upcoming “Mission: Impossible” sequel, Daily Variety reported in its Friday edition.
The as-yet-untitled “Star Trek” feature, the 11th since 1979, is aiming for a fall 2008 release through Paramount Pictures, the Viacom Inc. unit looking to restore its box-office luster under new management, the trade paper said.
The project will be directed by J.J. Abrams, whose Tom Cruise vehicle “Mission: Impossible III” will be released by Paramount on May 5. Abrams, famed for producing the TV shows “Alias” and “Lost,” will also help write and produce.
Reuters’ report goes on to say that the move will be about the early days of characters James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock, “including their first meeting at Starfleet Academy and first outer-space mission.” It notes that “Star Trek” has meant star money: it has proven to be one of Hollywood’s most reliable cash cows (second only to the James Bond series) “spawning 10 features that have grossed more than $1 billion and 726 TV episodes from six series.”
However, the last flick, 2002’s “Star Trek: Nemesis,” bombed at the box office and the final incarnation of the Star Trek franchise was axed from broadcast TV last year.
Meanwhile, the LA Times is reporting that Trekkies are not jumping for joy yet:
Those of us who are not mega Star Trek die-hards, glancing at the morning’s news it seemed safe to assume that the streets would soon be filled with young men in plastic pointy ears dancing with glee. We assumed that Trekkie reaction to news that one year after the franchise was last seen on the airwaves or in movie theaters Paramount had tapped J.J. Abrams to write, direct, and produce “Star Trek” 11 would be similar to the effect of Zac Efron striding into a bat-mitzvah for a dance. Squeals of delight, fits of hysteria, perhaps some passing out was fully expected.
Au contraire. Trekkies are no longer the innocent, accepting 13-year-olds they once were. They’ve had their hearts broken before and they are wary of being hurt again.
So what’s this all about?
Hollywood sees that it has a potentially profitable franchise that has exhausted previous casts and that nostalgia alone simply won’t do it anymore. Star Trek won’t just survive on the aging Trekkies. (We believe the photo at left is one of them.)
The actors and actresses who made it big in the various Star Trek shows went on to other things — some onto bigger acting jobs, some onto smaller ones or into other creative endeavors. But a built-in Trekkie audience — reliable side income for past cast actors and for Paramount Studios — was always there.
The series’ megastar William Shatner went through more professional incarnations than Shirley MacLaine’s past lives. In most recent times, he has won an Emmy and sold his kidney stone on eBay. Authentic replicas of Shatner’s kidney stone (see bottom right) were available, too.
Hopefully, Shatner will never develop hemorrhoids.
Singer Frank Sinatra went through much of the same vanishing-fan-base phase during his long, successful career: his audience began diminishing, not because they weren’t listening but because many of his longtime fans were dying out. Even when rock was well in force as the dominant commercial music in the late 70s, Sinatra was still recording but not selling as much as he did before.
Similarly, to appeal to The Next Generation of Moviegoers, Paramount must reinvent Star Trek — much as the Superman comics have gone through various successful incarnations (radio show, movie serial, movie cartoon, TV show in the 50s, movie, tv shows about Superman and Superboy — and a new recast Superman flick will be out this year).
Is there life after Star Trek? Clearly, Shatner has had a long career going from serious actor, to self-effacing personality to serious actor again — to human body parts salesman on eBay. He has evolved into a popular cultural figure in his own right.
But one of the most inspiring stories is a work in progress named Wil Wheaton, who had been on the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation when he was a teenager. Wheaton has a hugely successful non-political blog, has written several popular books, has appeared on CSI in a critically acclaimed appearance, has worked with a comedy group, is still going on auditions and is a high profile celebrity poker player.
So there is life after Star Trek — and, possibly, a rebirth for Star Trek in the movies.
Can a new director and a new script with younger actors make it relevant and cool again for younger moviegoers?
I’ll bet you William Shatner’s next gallstone it can.
UPDATE: Can a prequel work? Here’s one view.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.