Star Trek is now all under one, exclusive, roof.
Back in the summer, we touched on the story of Star Trek films being removed from Paramount+ due to licensing issues. We still don’t really know what happened with that, some went to AMC+ and two were left on Paramount+. We had a theory about possibly a rights fee exchange, where Paramount+’s parent company ViacomCBS leases out the films to another service. In doing so, ViacomCBS gets paid for the use of their films at a higher rate than their own respective service could generate.
This would be something similar to what the WWE did with NBC’s Peacock, where the WWE shut down their own streaming service and leased out their library to Peacock, as it would net them more of a profit for their content.
That may have been exactly what happened, but whatever the reason was that ViacomCBS let those Trek films go, it really doesn’t matter now; as they’re all back. Paramount+ now has all of their films and series under one hub for the first time in some time.
One possible reason the Star Trek films are back
This may have something to do with Brian Robbins taking over Paramount Studios in September, and wanting to make sure that all of his Star Trek properties were under one roof. It’s unclear who would have dominion over streaming service rights for Star Trek films; be it the head of Paramount+ or the head of Paramount Studios.
Regardless, it looks like Robbins’ takeover of Paramount Studios probably had something to do with the return of the Trek films.
With the rumor of new Star Trek films being planned out in advance, it’s extremely likely that Robbins, and Paramount Studio executives, wanted to make sure that all of Star Trek was in one place so fans could flock to the soul source.
This may also mean that Star Trek could see their films streamed on the Paramount+ service instead of just being in the theaters. That’s just conjecture at this point, however.