“The conversations that I have had is, ‘Hey, we finished writing it,’ and everyone said, ‘Yep, we love it.’ And then we turned it in, and then it was Christmas…. The business is in an interesting place right now… Who knows?”
This seems to be just one more thing in development that hinges on the decisions David Ellison will make about the next decade for the franchise, or at least the next five years.
Now that some of the new things that Ellison had been counting on to anchor Paramount+’s schedule (i.e. anything new from Taylor Sheridan) are complete nonstarters, perhaps there’s some room for some new Trek.
Also, the relationship between Kurtzman and David Ellison goes back to when Kurtzman was a writer and Ellison was a producer on Into Darkness. There’s no sense of negativity between them.
While Ellison hasn’t hesitated to finally cut the JJ Abrams movie contract that failed to meet deliverables, Kurtzman has delivered what CBS and Paramount wanted on television. There’s no reason to believe that they couldn’t come to a meeting of minds but there may be some of Secret Hideout’s long term EPs that might be let go in the process of a shift in direction.
On top of that, the Ellison regime didn’t change the personnel directly in charge of CBS Studios (though they did change the people in charge of Paramount+, which is also relevant).
There’s also the lingering question of Kurtzman himself. He signed a five-year extension…five years ago. Not a peep regarding a renewal.
I’m not sure that it’s entirely accurate that there’s no hints of a renewal for Kurtzman’s and Secret Hideout.
In the recent SFX magazine piece for Starfleet Academy, the Kurtzman quotes hinted vaguely at “Lots more Star Trek TV is in development”.
“There’s quite a few exciting things in the works right now, but I’m not going to say more than that!”
TrekMovie observes that, ‘The SFX article noted Kurtzman was “tight-lipped about future projects,” adding that the interview was done before the announcement that[ Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley are developing a new Star Trek film.’
Thinking back to the last 5-year extension, Kurtzman was asked to map out proposal for Star Trek’s television rollout for 5-7 years forward.
Clearly, he was given clearance by the new ownership to pitch stuff towards another extension. Whether there’s any uptake is to be seen.
I just keep coming back to the previous Paramount+ and streaming heads stripping the schedule back to the point that animation was being eliminated and the live action schedule was dominated by Taylor Sheridan.
Now the new owners have a large and prestigious animation studio and Sheridan refused to renew.
Meanwhile WB is fighting back against Skydance’s takeover effort to go with Netflix’s offer.
If I had to guess, Paramount+ will see more new Star Trek animation and live action as complementary to the darker whatever that the creators of Stranger Things will bring.
Kurtzman may get another but shorter extension until the movie franchise gets off the ground, but will be fenced to the 32nd century, animated shows, and shows from the 23rd and 24th century that won’t write new canon.
“Hint” was probably a poor choice of words, when I really meant that a renewal hasn’t been announced.
There’s a newer TrekMovie piece, just out this afternoon, that cites a new interview with Kurtzman in an industry journal.
It also notes that a large number of of new Paramount senior executives came out for yesterday’s premiere screening.
There’s a newer TrekMovie piece
Oh, thanks for this - I think I’ll share the original!
Edit: Never mind, it’s paywalled. I guess I’ll share the trekmovie version 🙄
