Star Trek Losing Paramount Home?

David Ellison’s Skydance Media does seem like the top candidate for the Paramount Global takeover now, though reports say several potential buyers are in the wings. Redstone and Paramount are also eager to sell because Paramount holds a large amount of debt. Ellison is the only one who has reported going further in acquisition talks to put in a preliminary offer for the current home of the Stark Trek franchise.

It would be an interesting acquisition since David Ellison’s Skydance Media is a smaller company than Paramount Global, meaning there would need to be some significant financing to close the deal. Speculation says that Ellison’s father, who co-founded Oracle, may be in the mix for additional funding. While reports say that Ellison is mostly interested in the Paramount studio for franchises like Star Trek and other major IPs, it seems Paramount is only interested in selling to someone who wants to buy the whole company.

So, if the Skydance and Paramount Global acquisition goes through, what could that mean for Star Trek? It seems likely that things will be progressing mostly as normal because Ellison already has pretty significant connections to the franchise. Ellison is listed as an executive producer on the recent films, and Skydance has been an active partner in their production.

Ellison also once had talks with Star Trek TV head Alex Kurtzman about acquiring his KO Paper Products production company. With Ellison’s ties to the movie and Kurtzman, it seems like things should be business as usual. If anything, maybe Ellison can start fast-tracking those films that have been very slow to move forward.

The most significant change could be the possible nixing of the Paramount+ streaming platform, which currently houses new and old Star Trek shows and movies. While Skydance could certainly keep the Paramount streaming service running, some discussions and accounting would likely be done to decide if it will remain in place post-merger. Streaming services can take a while before they start turning a profit, so Ellison might leave the streaming business behind.

However, that doesn’t mean that the Star Trek shows couldn’t live on elsewhere, as evidenced by Prodigy’s recent move to Netflix. Licensing the legacy Trek shows to different platforms would likely be a profitable move, and it’s not hard to imagine a company like Netflix welcoming ongoing Trek shows to the platform with open arms. Max also has all of the Original Series and The Next Generation films, so that’s another potential landing place.

For now, this is all speculation. While the potential acquisition of Paramount Global and the Star Trek franchise may have taken some small steps forward, nothing hasn’t been signed in ink. In any case, we’ll keep you updated as this potential acquisition continues to take shape, whether through Skydance or some other company.

Source: Trekmovie.com