Brent Spiner saw Star Trek: Nemesis' lackluster box office perfromance as a message from the fans

By the time Star Trek: Nemesis released in 2002, the resurrected Star Trek franchise had been on the air for fifteen years, with Star Trek: The Next Generation starting the ball rolling in 1987. The film was up against stiff competition when it opened as Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets had just released a month earlier while the James Bond film, Die Another Day, made its debut only three weeks before Nemesis. Then five days later, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers released. Producer Rick Berman has said it was that competition that may have affected Nemesis' box office numbers which were dismal compared to other The Next Generation films.

Nemesis had a production budget of $60 million and only earned $67.3 million at the box office. On top of that, it was the first Star Trek film to not debut as the highest-grossing film of the week. And while the other films might have had something to do with that, Brent Spiner, whose quote was included in Star Trek All Good Things: A Next Generation Companion, had a different take as to why the film did not draw in the audiences.

"Usually the films opened big, even if they had a lot of competition, but Nemesis didn't even do that. This was a message from the fans that they were done with us. It was unexpected."

- Brent Spiner

It took seven years for new Star Trek to return to the big screen in the form of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009). Since then, Star Trek has been going strong. While fans might have had their fill of Star Trek back in 2002 (Star Trek: Enterprise was ultimately cancelled in 2005 due to low ratings), that hasn't been the case since as some of the newer Trek projects are hitting high notes on the streaming channels.

Whatever the reason was for Star Trek: Nemesis' box office failure, fortunately, it didn't keep the actors from being willing to reprise their roles. Fans certainly hadn't had their fill of The Next Generation crew when Star Trek: Picard's third and final season rolled around as the season was so successful, demand for a spinoff has been going on for over a year. Thirty-seven years since The Next Generation debuted, fans want to see even more of this crew now!