In a new interview, Meyer also discusses making the best film of the franchise on the smallest budget.
No one can question how crucial Nicholas Meyer has been to the Star Trek franchise. Without his tireless work on the sequel Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), who knows if the beloved science fiction universe would have expanded so far over the last 60 years, let alone been so successful. Thus, it might surprise some fans to discover that Meyer “didn’t get” The Original Series "at all" when he was invited to helm TWOK nearly 45 years ago.
While appearing at this year’s Italian Global series, in which Meyer served as the IGS President of the Limited Series Jury, The Wrath of Khan director said (per Variety): “And then they went looking for a writer. And they had script after script after — they had five drafts of script. I had seen Star Trek on TV, and I didn’t get it at all.”
Meyer, who also enjoyed immense success thanks to directing Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), continued discussing The Wrath of Khan by saying:
“I missed everything that was interesting about the show: the idea that people of different races and genders and cultures could come together to do something good... that blew right by me.”
The Wrath of Khan is unquestionably the high watermark for the 13 feature films comprising Star Trek’s big-screen series. However, what’s surprising here is that despite all the sequel’s success, TWOK cost less to make than any other movie in the franchise.
Meyer also discussed The Wrath of Khan’s smaller budget, which is reportedly a full $12 million (per The Numbers). Meyer explained: “They said, ‘Can you make a movie better than the first movie for half the money?’ And [producer Harve Bennett] said, ‘I can make five movies for it.’ And by the way, our budget was like $11.2 [million]."
$11.2 million or $12 million, The Wrath of Khan is by far and away my favorite Star Trek film. Unlike The Motion Picture (1979), its sequel delved into serious, hard-hitting drama. The character development was also next-level intriguing, and Ricardo Montalban gave the performance of his career, all of which helped TWOK reap critical and commercial success, to the tune of $95.8 million worldwide in 1982.
Adjusted for inflation, that number would be $332.7 million in 2026, and that’s even more money than the new Supergirl film ($107.3 million) has accounted for globally at the time of this writing. Fascinating!
Are you surprised Nicholas Meyer “didn’t get” Star Trek "at all" given how successful The Wrath of Khan was? Share your thoughts and comments with us on the Redshirts Always Die Facebook and X pages.
Live long and prosper, Trekkies!
Add us as a preferred source on Google