StillPaisleyCat

Despite a rebuff of an initial offer to buy Warner Brothers - Discovery, David Ellison is continuing to talk about it.

Meanwhile, WB-Discovery CEO Zazlav looks to be trying to split off the linear business and market the studios, IP and library.

Lots of interesting comments in the interview.

One that stood out to me:

The Duffers emphasized that they don’t plan on becoming prolific producers of a large stable of shows and films. “We don’t want to become like Bad Robot,” Matt Duffer said, name checking J.J. Abrams’ production company. “Ross and I are incapable of juggling that many things.”

“Media conglomerate putting together majority cash offer for WBD backed by ultra-rich Ellison family, reports say”

The Wall Street Journal, this Guardian article and other business news media are reporting that the rumoured Warner Brothers - Paramount merger is back under consideration — this time with the deep pockets of the Ellisons.

One can see it as a worthwhile investment for the Ellisons regardless whether the motivation is acquiring IP or media control.

Disquieting for Star Trek franchise fans nonetheless.

Treklit has some great offerings. The Relaunch universe books in particular developed coherent serialized storylines and a group of strong authors. There is also a deep library of standalone books from across all eras of the franchise.

By contrast, serialized Star Trek is struggling onscreen. Of the current era, only Prodigy has excelled in serialized storytelling.

So, why not look to the books? Not just to lift an idea like Control or the end of the Borg, but to actually tell a coherent narrative across a season or season?

On Netflix, Prime and Apple, it’s become established that successful streaming shows are often based on novels and novel series. Those streamers have come to understand that novelists, not scriptwriters, excel in laying out long form storytelling, and resources are often better put in having the screenwriters adapt than create from the whole cloth.

Reading a recent interview with Mick Herron, author of the critically acclaimed and popular Slow Horses on Apple, with a second show based on his other books launching this fall, I was struck by the interviewer’s assertion of this truism.

I thought about several of the non franchise shows I enjoy and how many of them are more or less faithful adaptations of books.

I was also struck by the thought that both Skydance and Paramount are quite capable of producing excellent book adaptations for Netflix and Apple. Murderbot is a very current example.

So, what’s holding back Star Trek from exploiting the Vanguard series or the Starfleet Core of Engineers books?

Why insist on giving showrunners resources to keep retelling franchise stories with legacy characters and tropes?

Why not exploit that IP that Paramount already owns by adapting the best of decades of TrekLit?

During a panel with Picard season three showrunner Terry Matalas and Todd Stashwick (Shaw), were questioned about a ‘30-page outline’ for the Star Trek Legacy concept.

Reportedly, Michelle Hurd (Raffi) mentioned this during an earlier panel.

It sounds as though there’s nothing new in terms of interest from the executives about the concept, just fan interest and an ongoing campaign. Matalas and Stashwick are focused on the upcoming Marvel limited series Vision Quest in which Stashwick stars as the Paladin.

What’s interesting to me is that the more I hear about Matalas original pitch, the more I dislike. Matalas confirmed that it would have a Klingon focus.

While I loved the deep dives into Klingon lore in the 90s, I would prefer something new in the 25th century even a show featuring legacy characters.

As well, Matalas confirmed that they proposed that Shaw would a holographic recreation rather than revived by Borg nanites. We don’t need another grumpy hologram now that the Doctor is back in both Prodigy and Starfleet Academy.

I would find Shaw’s journey as a victim of the Borg with survivor guild to someone who accepts that his own life depends on Borg technology as much more interesting, compelling and new ground in terms of a character arc.

Edited to correct Michelle Hurd’s family name…

Variety reports that “Brian Robbins Calls Paramount-Skydance Merger ‘Bittersweet’ in Memo to Staff Amid His Exit as Co-CEO”

David Ellison, the founder of Skydance, will become chairman and CEO of Paramount. Andy Gordon, who leads the West Coast office of RedBird Capital Partners, is set to take the role of chief operating officer and chief strategic officer. RedBird teamed with Skydance to acquire Paramount Global for $8.5 billion.

Looking at how Paramount, since 2021, has failed to deliver on a new Star Trek movie, arguably wound down three successful shows prematurely, it’s difficult to see that this leadership team has done well by the franchise.

Looking at the apparent expeditious compromises Paramount leadership and Shari Redstone were willing to make to clear the way for the sale, I’m willing to look forward to see what comes next.

We picked up some good deals from the promotion this week.

Several Star Trek licensed games are on Steam, now at a significantly discounted price for the annual Star Trek Day celebration.

These include the MMP Star Trek Online, but also single player games Star Trek Bridge Crew and Star Trek Resurgence (a choose your own path role play game).

We’d waited until Resurgence came to Steam, because we did want to buy it from Epic, but decided to be even more patient and wait for a sale so we could get it for our teens as well. I’ve been playing in parallel with one of our teens and debating the impacts of our very different choices.

I have had Bridge Crew since 2022, but we got copies for the teens yesterday. One is into it. It requires running an Ubisoft account synched to Steam which can be annoying, but otherwise G2G.

Having reached my exasperation on the total lack of information from Bell Media on a Canadian release, I asked @GoodAaron@mastodon.social if he or the Hagemans could share any information. Here is his reply on Mastodon.

It’s great to have EPs who will engage with us.

I’m still gearing up my recipes for a Star Trek Prodigy Soirée for the premiere!

In case you haven’t seen this, CBS entertainment sponsored a social media influencer to develop watch party ideas for the Prodigy Season 1 finale Supernova Soirée .

I’ve been experimenting and building on some of these ideas for the premiere of season two. One of Canada’s favourite ice cream brands has this interesting suggestion for A triple-berry yogurt sorbet float punch that seems very Star Trek Prodigy themed.

More departures of former Viacom senior executives from Paramount Global in the wake of Baklish’s firing.

The Directors Guild of Canada (Ontario) ‘Hot List’ compilation of Ontario-based production information has been updated with a new CBS Studios show ‘Ivory Tower’ to begin Accounting & Art Department preproduction in March.

While all TAS episodes had some kind of moral lesson, S1 E10 was an outright criticism of substance use.

M’Ress and Scotty, unwittingly exposed, end up enamoured then incensed with one another. One is never sure how different that is from a Caitian’s usual romantic style.

Chapel comes off badly in this one. As Spock puts it “A few moments of love, paid for with several hours of hatred.” It’s all the more poignant given SNW’s deepening of their backstory.