The aftermath of the writers’ strike has led to rescheduling of J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek.” While a disappointment, the rescheduling underscores Paramount’s commitment to the movie’s success.
Paramount is pushing back the release of J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” from Dec. 25 to May 8, 2009, saying the pic’s gross potential is greater as a summer tentpole.
Move was part of a major reshuffling to the studio’s release calendar, as well as to DreamWorks’ release sked. A second key change: DreamWorks’ 2008 Ben Stiller summer comedy “Tropic Thunder” is moving from July 11 to Aug. 15.
Dramatically underscoring the need for movie-side execs to review slates following the long writers strike, Paramount on Wednesday bounced six films to new dates and moved two unslotted films to next year’s calendar.
Other distributors were scrambling to complete similar reviews of their upcoming productions to determine what can or can’t be delivered on scheduled dates. In some cases, films will move because of talent issues, but many film projects have been frozen in time when script rewrites weren’t completed before the 100-day scribe walkout.
“Star Trek” arguably was the biggest film moved, with the intended Christmas Day release now set for the first prime date in the following summer boxoffice season: May 8, 2009. But “Trek” appears something of an exception in the mix of itinerant pics, with its shift unrelated to script or cast considerations.
” ‘Star Trek’ is moving to summer because its has so much boxoffice potential,” Par spokesman Michael Vollman said. “It does not need any script tweaks. They’re two-thirds of the way through shooting, and we would have delivered a great movie at Christmas.”
For now, we must console ourselves with the Star Trek teaser trailer, which itself is evocative, with Leonard Nimoy’s voiceover of the familiar words, “Space, the final frontier….”
