Should Paramount put a mid-budget Star Trek film into theaters?

Should Paramount put a mid-budget Star Trek film into theaters? There have been so many super expensive flops in the theatres lately, the Flash, Indiana Jones 5, Fast X, etc. I think the old pre-Kelvin Star Trek films made money by not having a massive budget. I liked Beyond, but I thought it spent too much money on effects that did not contribute to the film's story. Wrath of Khan cost 11 million dollars and was amazing. I miss mid-budget sci films (between say 50 to 100 million dollars), it's all blockbusters, and it's getting old, a smaller budget forces a creative team to actually get creative.

 

They're planning to put movies every 2 years straight onto Paramount+, starting with Section 31 and following up with either a Discovery or Picard/Legacy film if rumours are to be believed.

That way seems even smarter than risky cinemas. If Batman can't make money, Trek doesn't have a chance.

 

Yes.

 

I think a mid-budget Star Trek film might work really well in theaters. Plus, if it doesn't, then Paramount can always turn around and slap it on P+ and generate more ad revenue & subscriptions.

 

They should, but there isn’t a lot of imagination for the Star trek stories they come up with, even with re-interpretations and storytelling. We really should have gotten these types of stories over the last decade.

• Kelvinverse Matt Decker and the USS Constellation encounters the Gorn

• Remake “The Enterprise Incident” as The Intrepid Incident, and the Romulan crew interacts with the all Vulcan USS Intrepid crew. Maybe incorporate aspects of “The Immunity Syndrome” to the story.

• A story told from the perspective of Klingons (maybe Kor) that fuses “A Private Little War” with “Errand of Mercy” in the first two acts, and then becomes “Balance of Terror” in the third act against a Federation ship.

• Adapting "The Magicks of Megas-Tu" into live action and reinterpreting “GoD” from TFF as Cytherian and making Star Trek: The Magicks of Cytheria as their response to Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness or Marvel’s Thor series. Maybe add an '80s power ballad to the score, like GotG.

Paramount are just stuck on Khan, the Borg, Section 31, end of the world scenarios, and whatever else they think is popular.

 

Redo Riddick but with Jim Kirk in the lead role. Spock or whoever appears on viewscreen at the very end for beam-up. One main character, no expensive ship sets.

 

Sometimes it feels like Khan is becoming the singular obsession of Star Trek in the way that Weapon X became the singular obsession of X-Men.

 

Only sometimes?

 

It's no different than how Sherlock Holmes adaptations are always fixated on Moriarty.

 

"We want familiar and legacy characters. Except those ones we don't want. Don't focus on those even though they are constantly the highest rated by fans.""

 

Like with anything it's the story.

If the story requires a big budget, then spend the money.

If you just want to tell a smaller story though, then obviously you don't have to spend as much money.

Mission: Impossible -- Dead Reckoning Part One cost Paramount $290 million dollars. Shooting on location was a factor, COVID-19 though played the larger role in that cost. By comparison, Mission: Impossible -- Fallout cost $190 million to make.

Granted, Star Trek and Mission: Impossible are two different properties, but my point is aim big and go big. Or aim small and go small.

For the Kelvin Star Trek movies I would say go big, spend Mission: Impossible money. And if you want to do smaller budget and tell smaller stories, then just put those on Paramount+; I wouldn't put that in the theater.

The Kelvin Star Trek movies were my introduction to Star Trek, so it's "my Star Trek" and I'd love to see it continue (I didn't like Beyond though, I've never even finished watching the movie).

In my perfect world the Kelvin universe would be the Star Trek that's on Paramount+ and not what we're getting now. Kelvin universe TV shows (for the smaller stories) and Kelvin universe movies (for the big "Mission: Impossible"-level stories) would be Star Trek nirvana for me.

Maybe once the strike is over and Paramount takes the time to rethink their Star Trek strategy, maybe they'll just go with the Kelvin universe.

 

I personally think no. 09 did big numbers, so did STID so there’s a hunger for big ST Movies.

These days your average TV episode looks mid-budget movie quality. If I see a ST movie, I want them to go big.

@FederationHistorian

I love the idea of a Megas-Tu live action remake! That’s whacky and it’ll never happen, but I’d love it if it did.

 

We have pretty much had a descendent of Khan or a descendent of someone deeply tied to Augments in every TV show except Voyager & Discovery, which is pretty wild, honestly.

 

There’s a lot from TAS that would be ripe for a retelling in the Kelvin Universe. It they ever got around to making another movie.

 

I still don't think the numbers, whilst decent, were sufficient for the film's respective budgets though. The thing is, despite trek doing relatively well on TV, I don't see the appetite for a movie based on any of the current shows that would justify a 200m budgeted blockbuster. As much as it pains me to say this, as I loved the Kelvin movies, and having proper big budget Trek films on the big screen, a return to how things were with 90-130m budgets if it's to be profitable.

 

If Star Trek isn’t strong enough to fight in the big ring, don’t send it into the big ring then. Don’t make Trek movies. They are rarely good anyway.

 

It's the perfect time for a mid budget Tarantino Trek movie.

 

I would love a random lower tier budget Star Trek film but I just don't see that happening.

 

Yeah, I think as @Richard S. Ta mentioned above, a mid-budget film isn’t going to seem much better than something made for Paramount+, so I don’t see it being enough of a draw to entice people to theaters vs. just waiting for it to hit streaming.