Retweet Friday Report: ‘Angels & Demons’ Unravels, ‘Star Trek’ Survives

Friday Report: ‘Angels & Demons’ Unravels, ‘Star Trek’ Survives:
"Star Trek notched an estimated $11.9 million for its second Friday, and its tally climbed to $116.5 million in eight days. That makes it the highest-grossing Star Trek movie, surpassing Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home's $109.7 million. Taking into account the estimated numbers of tickets sold, though, it ranks eighth, topping Star Trek: Insurrection, and is on the verge of eclipsing Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Star Trek: Generations by the close of the weekend."

Retweet Weekend Report: ‘Star Trek’ Prospers

Weekend Report: ‘Star Trek’ Prospers:

Seeking out new life for the series, Star Trek commanded a stellar $75.2 million on approximately 7,400 screens at 3,849 sites over the weekend (plus an estimated $4 million from Thursday night previews). Paramount Pictures' Star Wars-like treatment of Gene Roddenberry's science fiction franchise resulted in the biggest Trek opening yet, soaring past the previous high of Star Trek: First Contact, which started at $30.7 million or the equivalent of over $50 million adjusted for ticket price inflation."

Retweet First Look at the New Enterprise

Paramount has released the first photo of the new USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) from JJ Abrams‘ Star Trek. Entertainment Weekly has the first look, and for the most part, the new Enterprise doesn’t look that much different from the old Enterprise.

JJ Abrams explains “If you’re going to do Star Trek there are many things you cannot change. The Enterprise is a visual touchstone for so many people. So if you’re going to do the Enterprise, it better look like the Enterprise, because otherwise, what are you doing?”

Makes sense to me, and I think it actually looks pretty cool. But why did Abrams decide to make the inside of the ship look like the Genius Bar at an Apple Store? We’ve included a photo of the old enterprise design below for comparison purposes.

Retweet Paramount Ignores Star Trek Webmaster Program

Paramount has now accomplished two very distinct things with the release of this increasingly large batch of photos from Star Trek. First, the images are great and they have everyone excited about the movie. That’s a good thing and if the new trailer which is supposed to debut with Quantum of Solace looks half as good as these stills, then they may really get some serious buzz going for this film. Second… they’ve managed to piss off just about the entire Star Trek fan site community.

Here’s the thing: Paramount has released all of these photos as “exclusives” to specially chosen, high-profile websites, most of them backed by big corporations who really have nothing to do with Star Trek. Mere hours ago they did it again with two more photos, included with this post, and released in high-res exclusively to Yahoo and Omelete. Meanwhile in the background, they’ve launched a “Star Trek Webmaster Program” and invited 600 webmasters from movie sites and Star Trek fan sites around the web to join, with the promise that the group will give them all first crack at material for the film whenever it becomes available. The group has been in existence since January of this year, and it has yet to deliver any content of any kind. Instead, what Paramount’s Star Trek Webmasters have been given, is a series of messages with links to Paramount’s corporate partners and their exclusives, directing the webmasters whom they had courted with promises of content… to send all of their readers to other websites which Paramount likes better.

Doling out content in the form of exclusives in exchange for well, whatever mysterious payola big studios gets out of it, is of course a fairly common practice on any high-profile film. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the sites they’ve released these exclusives to. JoBlo.com for instance was one of them, and they’re a site I personally hold in extremely high esteem. They, and most of the others involved aren’t exactly known as hardcore Trekkies though. TrekMovie.com was also in the bunch given exclusives, a very well run Trek site… yet a Trek site which has only existed since the production on this particular film started, not one of the hundreds of Trek sites which have literally been the backbone of the internet since the web’s early 90s inception; sites which back in January Paramount invited to work with them, and have since gone out of their way to ignore.

For those 600 Star Trek fan webmasters involved in Paramount’s Webmaster Program, it was only somewhat disappointing when Paramount released the teaser trailer to everyone before them, and mildly annoying when Paramount leaked all of the movie’s first posters elsewhere. But last night the private forum inside the Webmaster Program erupted with polite yet perturbed anger, as Paramount continued to ignore them by releasing photo after photo exclusively to other sites. When community members politely asked why they were being ignored, Paramount’s representatives responded with the equivalent of “take a hike.”

This morning, when those same fan webmasters didn’t take kindly to being yet again given the brush off, Paramount simply silenced them by completely deleting the private message board which had been part of the Webmaster Program, ending what had been a fairly polite but concerned discussion of the matter. In doing so, the studio has made something loud and clear here, and it’s something which I’ve been saying for nearly a year now. Star Trek fans: Paramount doesn’t care if you’re involved or not. They want new fans. You’re old, you’re used up. This is a new Star Trek for a new group of fans, hopefully pretty ones who don’t live in their parents’ basements. You can buy a ticket to see it if you want, just make sure you bring a teenager with you and wear a bag over your head.

There’s another way to handle this, a way to bring in new fans while holding on to the old ones. It’s simple. Don’t release images exclusively to IGN, AICN, or even Cinema Blend. Paramount, you’ve started a webmaster program. Use it. Release these Star Trek marketing materials simultaneously to everyone from now on. No, handing them out to the fan community three days later doesn’t count. Everyone, all at once. What’s the worst that could happen? Even more exposure for your film by having the images displayed across a broader range of sites? Or do you think UGO and Yahoo will refuse to cover the movie unless you give them special treatment? Unlikely. Don’t worry, the cool kids will never know you’ve let the nerds have them. It’s not like the Fast and the Furious crowd is going to visit TrekWeb and find out. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, unless you’re really and truly out to cut the Trek community off. If so, I’ll be the Trekkie in the back row with pointed ears drawn on the bag over my head.

Source: Cinema Blend

Retweet Star Trek Comparisons: Old Trek Vs. New Trek

By now you’ve probably already been blown away by the amazing, first images released by Paramount from their new Star Trek movie. If not, view them here and here. I’ve found myself revisiting them again and again, comparing this new version of Trek with the old one in my head.

Rather than just using my imagination to stack J.J. Abrams’s version up against classic Trek though, I’ve put together a few side by side comparisons, facing off characters and items revealed in the new pictures with their classic Trek interpretations. How does Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk stack up against Shatner's? How different are the uniforms? Those are the questions plaguing this Trek fan, and here are the answers:

JAMES T. KIRK


MR. SPOCK


LEONARD MCCOY


MONTGOMERY SCOTT


HIKARU SULU


UHURA


PAVEL CHEKOV


ENTERPRISE BRIDGE


UNIFORMS / STARFLEET LOGO

Source: Cinema Blend

Retweet Six New Star Trek Photos To Drool Over

Paramount has begun to distribute the first production photos from JJ Abrams‘ Star Trek around the web. Above is a first look at the crew on the Bridge of the USS Enterprise from MTV. Lindelof says that Kirk’s Black shirt is the Captain uniform, and that the red shirt crew member in the background is of no importance (ie Uhura probably replaces her after she dies early on). The bridge looks extremely cool, I can;t wait to see more of it. UGO has the first cast photo of the Enterprise crew (From left to right: Anton Yelchin as Chekov, Chris Pine as James T. Kirk, Simon Pegg as Lt. Montgomery Scott, Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy, John Cho as Sulu and Zoe Saldana as Uhura).

Below is AICN’s photo of Zachary Quinto as Spock (could that be the Vulcan Death Grip? And if so, who is at the other end of it?).

IGN has a photo of Kirk, who appears to have landed in an ice crater on what we assume is an Arctic-like planet.

Below is Eric Bana as the film’s Romulan villain Nero on the bridge of his unnamed rouge vessel from JoBlo.

TrekMovie has a first look at the USS Kelvin, a Federation starship from the generation before the Enterprise. The ship is commanded by Captain Robau (Faran Tahir) with George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth) as first officer. Looks like the ship is under attack and in pretty bad shape.

Retweet Spock and Kirk on Entertainment Weekly Cover!

Entertainment Weekly had a big Star Trek feature, and Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine appeared in costume as Spock and Kirk on the cover. EW also had photos from their visit to the set. Let's all drool at the cover together. Don't you think this movie is going to be good?

Retweet New Star Trek Trailer Goes Live Monday

Paramount Pictures has added a countdown clock on the official website for J.J. Abrams' Star Trek that is counting down to 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern on Monday, November 17th. At that time, the new official trailer will be revealed online, though you can watch it earlier in theaters this weekend with Quantum of Solace.

Opening in theaters on May 8, Star Trek was written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman and stars John Cho, Ben Cross, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Winona Ryder, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, Eric Bana, Leonard Nimoy, Marlene Forte and Jimmy Bennett.

Retweet Star Trek XI Delayed

Star Trek XI will be released on May 8, 2009, depriving Star Trek fans of a Christmas Day movie present.

As reported at Variety, the new Star Trek movie has been delayed by Paramount, who believes that a greater gross potential would be realized in the summer.

The move was part of a major reshuffling to the studio's release calendar as they try to balance out their 2008 and 2009 calendars now that the writer's strike has ended.

Thus far, Star Trek XI has no competition in its new release slot, although it is now due to open one week after 20th Century Fox's X-Men Origins: Wolverine and one week before Sony's Angels and Demons.

Other Paramount movies have been moved, including: Nowhereland with Eddie Murphy which is moving from September 26 2008, to June 12, 2009; The Renee Zellweger horror-thriller Case 39, which is moving from August 22, 2008 to April 10, 2009; and David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which stars Brad Pitt and is moving from November 26, 2008 to December 19, 2008.

To read more, head to the article located here.

Via TrekToday

Retweet Star Trek XI Teaser Trailer

The new Star Trek XI Teaser Trailer is up at The Official Movie Site.