Star Trek is committed to its film universe.
Since Star Trek: Beyond, the Trek film franchise has been dormant, fueled by nothing but rumor and innuendo. The J.J. Abram-led Trek films did well to start but by Beyond the franchise had again fallen into the doldrums financially. While the films weren’t doing terribly in the box office, the folks running everything felt the franchise should be higher up in the box office charts, especially with the return of Star Wars to the big screens at the time.
Enter the new head of Paramount Pictures, Brian Robbins. Robbins is the new leader for Trek films and he spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about upcoming Star Trek films.
One of the things that were evident from the interview was the new structured and organized approach to the film franchise, almost mirroring the Marvel Cinematic Universe approach to film making; planning out each film in advance so that one leads to another.
That appears to be the new direction for Trek, as Robbins told THR;
"The idea is what do we do next for the franchise that’s going to work for the next five and 10 years, not just one movie at a time like Alex has talked about. That’s what we really have to figure out."
This may not be the best idea for Star Trek
Trek has always worked best as a television show. Considering how many “bad” Star Trek films there are, the idea of doubling down on films is a concerning one. Right now the Trek brand is in a state of flux and fans are very split on the content.
It’d be fair to say that the Star Trek television shows haven’t all been hits and that ViacomCBS, Paramount, and Paramount+ should all get their ducks in a row with the streaming side of things before trying to build a cinematic universe of Star Trek films.