New Paramount Studio Co-Chair Dana Goldberg revealed that she and Paramount plan to prioritize both Star Trek and Top Gun.
At a media gathering earlier this week following the close of the Skydance-Paramount merger, Goldberg declared, “Star Trek is a priority across the company.”
It’s unclear what that means, but Paramount does reportedly have a new Star Trek film in development with Andor director Toby Haynes attached to direct and Seth Grahame writing. It is being produced by Simon Kinberg and J.J. Abrams.
Additionally, it has another film with Captain Kirk and Spock with Abrams producing and Steve Yockey writing as well.
Aside from Star Trek, the company also plans to continue its Top Gun franchise after the success of Top Gun Maverick. Goldberg stated, “Top Gun is a priority for us.”
On that front, Ethan Krueger is writing a script for the third film. However, there has not been much progress on the film given Tom Cruise was focused on the most recent Mission: Impossible film.
While Goldberg shared what some of the company’s film priorities are, Chair of Direct-to-Consumer Cindy Holland shared what her strategy is on the streaming front. “We want to entertain all audiences around the world. On Paramount+ today, we have a really great foundation, which is the Taylor Sheridan universe. We also have incredible CBS next-day, live sports, a lot from the cable networks, franchises like Star Trek, so many series. We’re seeking to expand that and make sure that we’re offering programming for everybody not just occasionally, not just for the one thing they came to watch but ultimately and hopefully a year round and a daily habit for all audiences.”
However, she made clear that straight-to-streaming movies are not a priority, “Streaming movies are not a priority for me.”
With Holland wants to expand the amount of content on Paramount+, CEO David Ellison shared it would be increasing its budgets for originals. “We’re starting at a great place on Paramount+, but one of the most important metric when it comes to streaming is engagement. And to get the required engagement, we simply need to have more content. That means more stories, more series, more films, more sports to make sure that we can deliver those experiences to audience, to have them spend more time on our hub.”
What do you make of Paramount’s plans?
Methinks Paramount should find writers with original ideas and cease with beating dead horses into the ground.