There are those who will argue that Star Trek: Nemesis failure at the box office was not the film itself, but when it opened. Released on December 13, 2002, the tenth feature film had just 5 days to itself before The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers opened on December 18 (but it was really four, as there was midnight shows on the seventeenth). It opened with a nearly $20 million take; healthy, but the lowest gross since Star Trek V.
By the next week, the film lost 60% of its audience and was called a bomb. The film also tracked very low with critics and fans, continuing the schism that began nearly a decade ago with the Trek fans.
It has been suggested that the film -despite some flaws - could've succeed if Paramount released the film in February, thusly ensuing a minor hit, and it might've kept the film franchise going with little or no question.
Since then, Paramount has been rather -understandably -quiet about producing an 11th film in the franchise. And couple it with the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise after 4 struggling years, the recently announced folding of Star Trek Communicator, the official magazine of shows, and a possibability that StarTrek.com may go dark soon, the studio seems to consider the franchise is in dire straights.
Director Bryan Singer has now said that he would be interested in directing a new feature film. But until a regime at Paramount sees the 40 year-old franchise as viable again, the directors interest seems moot, to say the least. Besides Singer, who is a long-time fan who had a cameo in Nemesis, is still finishing up Superman Returns in Australia before he either makes The Mayor of Castro Street or his long-planned Logan’s Run remake his next project. So, that could be a year or more before cameras could roll.
The second hurdle is where should the franchise go. Long time show runner Rick Berman, who seems to be still holding the franchise reins despite very obvious and damning evidence he has no idea what to do with it, has said in almost every issue of the the now folding magazine, that an eleventh feature is in "very early" stages of development; something that's been going on for nearly 3 years. He has also mentioned that the current plan would have a movie set before the TOS, much like the Star Trek: Enterprise. This feature would not, however, be a continuation of that failed TV series. Instead, it would feature a whole new cast -a sort of reboot of Star Trek.
But for many fans, including me, this seems to be a dead end. If Enterprise proved anything, the fans do not care about the forming of the Federation -or at least, Berman and Brannon Braga’s boring take on its beginning. It seems that they either bring back TNG cast or -unlikely considering its storyline - a feature film from DS9. Or hey, maybe even the cast of Voyager.
While the cast of TNG were disappointed with the failure of Nemesis, with the exception of Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner, have all said they would return. But, they all agree that while Nemesis was bold in its attempt to recapture the fans who enjoyed Star Trek II, some the actors have gone on record to lay the movies failure on director Stuart Baird, who was new to franchise and who admitted he had never seen a Trek film or the TV series. Paramount’s obvious hope at the time was to bring in "new blood", but Baird’s ham-fisted direction, along with a script that was in need of several rewrites, doomed the film to become the most hated since Star Trek V.
Now, it seems, Patrick Stewart has gone back on saying he would never play Picard again. The actor recently said that he would reconsider a return (and this came out about the same time Singer said he would like to direct) but even he would be busy for more than a year, as he heads off to England for a 14-month commitment to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre after finishing X Men III.
And now that CBS as axed Spiner’s Threshold, the actor who played Data will be needing a job.
But do we need another TNG film, or would it be better to launch another Star Trek series set on Enterprise J or H? To me, going back -ala Enterprise -is not a viable option. Bringing back the TNG cast -and mixing, maybe, some cast members from DS9 and Voyager - could be a better way. But, it would need a good script and a director who has some familiarity with the franchise. And maybe better yet, a Trek series set 150 to 200 years after TNG. Maybe at a time when the Federation is rebuilding after a destructive war with the Borg or some other species.
Again, everything hinges on a script and a competent director. Bryan Singer has a proven track record and since he is an unabashed fan of Trek, he could be the one to return the series to the silver screen. Plus, Singer has directed Stewart in the first two X Men films, so they have a working relationship. But one needs to understand that Trek cannot go backwards. It needs to take this franchise forward, much like TNG was the next step in Trek's evolutionary life. Fans want a story full of action, but at its core it needs what the late Michael Piller told his writers, that he... "encouraged the writers to try to find the human elements, the moral and ethical dilemmas."
Trek -and many other TV shows and movies -feel this is not what appeals to mainstream American's. But to paraphrase Field of Dreams, if you write it correctly, people will come. And if you underestimate them -which happened on Nemesis and Enterprise - they will go to another source.
Anyone hear about the new Battlestar Galactica?
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