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Trek isn't exactly a family franchise. More an action one. But James Gunn is a good analogy. He's doing Suicide Squad 2, also an action tentpole. So they are kind of similar.

Suicide Squad is one of those 'adult' superhero properties like Deadpool and Logan. But I guess it also depends on the executives - Sony just seem to have more of a spine, and more respect for their employees, than most.

Suicide Squad is PG-13, Deadpool and Logan are R. At the moment it's not an adult property. Though now that the DCEU seems to have imploded, everything is probably out the window anyways.
I still don't really see Tarantino as the problem right now, rather that the Trek brand has been so mismanaged that it's toxic to investors now. It's all about money in the end.

It's ceased to be about money over the last 12 months, that's the whole problem.

klimov wrote:It's ceased to be about money over the last 12 months, that's the whole problem.

For Paramount it still is. Disney can afford to throw caution to the wind, they're riding high on piles of cash. Paramount is trying to keep the doors open.

darkness wrote:RIP new Kirk and Bones. The alternate Trek timeline has officially been shelved. They were already having problems finding funding for the next film, largely due to the failure of Beyond drying up Chinese money. Then Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth walked. Now that it looks like Viacom and CBS are going to re-merge, the split of which being the reason we had the alternate timeline in the first place, it seems they've declared it dead.

i still haven't watched beyond, it looked really bad, but that first one was so fucking good. it revived a dead franchise. the second one was even ok. so this kind of makes me sad.

TC wrote:i still haven't watched beyond, it looked really bad, but that first one was so fucking good. it revived a dead franchise. the second one was even ok. so this kind of makes me sad.

Beyond is really awful. Not even remotely Star Trek. Of the three films, the first one is okay, the second one pretty bad (don't try to remake a film that was already done once to perfection), but the third one I liked quite a lot. It kind of felt like new Trek had finally found it's footing. That said, I do think Trek is better suited to TV, so I'm hoping if everyone starts playing nice again maybe we can get back to having some proper good old TNG or TOS era Trek.

Well hey, if it's as you say we'll be seeing that Tarantino trek shortly.

klimov wrote:Well hey, if it's as you say we'll be seeing that Tarantino trek shortly.

It really depends on what happens with the merger talks. Viacom loses Trek film rights if they don't enter production on one by a certain date and that date by all rumors is getting close. And the Tarantino film has been developed by Bad Robot, who's deal with Paramount in general is officially over and who's deal for Trek may or may not have expired already depending on who you believe. But if it hasn't it will be soon. So the Tarantino film may get lost in development hell due to those who were producing it no longer having the ability to do so. If the rights go back to CBS they're not likely to want to touch anything Paramount did. And if the companies merge, they it probably depends on what the new corporate structure ends up being. New management tends to usually want to get rid of anything the previous one developed.

Assuming Paramount keep hold of the rights, it's hard to imagine them dropping the franchise altogether. Another Mission Impossible is 2-3 years away minimum and Bumblebee just under-performed. What else do they have? If they want to mix things up a little, the Tarantino project sounds like the best way to do it. Perhaps it may rest on how OUATIH performs in the spring.

Paramount will only keep the rights if the merger happens. Or they magically start production on a Trek film in the next few months (unlikely). So it's all probably a moot point. Given the animosity between Viacom and CBS right now I don't see the existing deal getting renewed.