Could Star Trek films be moving towards more direct-to-streaming options?
Star Trek has not found the success in recent years that they’ve been looking for. Paramount+ isn’t making money, their film franchise is dead in the water and it looks more and more likey that the franchise will have fewer properties coming out over the next few years.
Trek as a show is far too expensive for the ViacomCBS-owned streaming service, as some shows can cost hundreds of millions of dollars for one season, and with Paramount+ losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year, huge changes are on the way.
Alex Kurtzman, the head honcho of Star Trek, is trying to make it seem like things are stable, by suggesting that a Star Trek: Picard spinoff could carry on in a film, a far cry from the constant talk of a brand new series. Kurtzman spoke to SFX Magazine (via TrekMovie.com) about the concept and claimed it’s possible;
"We talk about that all the time. Is there a movie version? Doing a movie is different – it’s two hours right? So it’s different than doing 10. You know, anything is possible, truly."
Doing low-budget films on Paramount+ may be the best way to move forward
When I think of a show turning into a film franchise, specifically in the streaming genre, I think of the Psych films. Once a very popular comedy-drama on USA Network, the franchise has found a new life as a popular film franchise.
There have already been three films and a fourth is in discussions as we speak. While it may not be a new series, it’s far more affordable to tell a 90 to the 120-minute story than it is to do 10 hours worth of content and spend five times the money doing so.
Star Trek is already an expensive property these days, and unless they scale things down considerably, moving it to a film franchise or mini-series on Paramount+ may be the way to keep making content.