Star Trek Would Have Been Canceled Forever If Not For Disney Icon
Normally, fans don’t think about Disney when they think about Star Trek (at least, not until the House of Mouse completes their Borg-like assimilation of every smaller company). However, it’s very likely that this franchise would have been canceled forever if not for one very prominent Disney icon.
Specifically, Star Trek only branched out into feature films because future Disney president Michael Eisner was president of Paramount and realized how popular this sci-fi franchise really was.
Legendary Disney Executive Saved Star Trek
The Disney veteran became president of Paramount in 1976; once he was in this position, Star Trek soon became a major focus for Michael Eisner. He told the New York Times that previous Paramount presidents “made a mistake” not creating a feature film because the insane popularity of Original Series reruns meant that a movie would have a built-in audience. “The project should have been done in 1975,” he said.
The Pivotal Choice To Revive The Franchise
As many fans know, Star Trek nearly had a live-action sequel show to The Original Series rather than a film, and some sources claim that Michael Eisner personally nixed these plans. The television project was known as Star Trek: Phase II, which was announced by Gene Roddenberry in 1977. Had the series been made, it would have had a budget of $3.2 million, making it the most expensive show in television history at the time.
Roddenberry and Paramount seemed very serious about Phase II back then. Casting had begun, 13 scripts were written, and the pilot had two different versions: one written by Roddenberry and one written by Phase II co-producer Harold Livingston. Eventually, these two Star Trek pilot scripts were shown to Michael Eisner, and he made the command decision that the franchise should continue on the big screen rather than the small screen.
Tossed Out Star Trek: Phase II
As reported by Den of Geek, Livingston claims that it was the strength of his Star Trek: Phase II pilot script that influenced Michael Eisner’s decision. He remembers the Paramount president declaring that Roddenberry’s script felt more like a TV script and Livingston’s felt more like a movie script. Producer Robert Goodwin was in that meeting and didn’t remember these exact words about the two scripts, but he agreed that Eisner was sufficiently convinced he now had a script good enough to bring Trek to theaters.
Gave The Greenlight To The Motion Picture
Interestingly, the Star Trek script that won Michael Eisner over had the same basic story as the finished Motion Picture. Roddenberry’s original story outline (the same one Livingston based his script on) involved a NASA probe returning to Earth after it gained sentience out in the stars. The core story of the film, of course, was about a Voyager probe returning after gaining immense powers and intelligence in its cosmic travels.
Pivot To The Big Screen
While some fans think Star Trek: Phase II might have been a success, we think Michael Eisner made the right call to pivot this franchise into film. These movies cemented the adventures of Captain Kirk as a pop culture phenomenon, and the success of the films led to the creation of The Next Generation in 1987. Star Trek is more popular and prominent now than ever before, but that might have never happened without the help of this future Disney icon.
