A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Does Disney own the movie Titanic now? James Cameron’s 1997 film was the most expensive motion picture of its day; its unprecedented $200 million budget was so large that Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment had to team up with two major studios to get his film made and distributed. The two studios that stepped up to the plate were Paramount Pictures (a subsidiary of Viacom) and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation (a division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation). Though it might seem strange that two rival studios would join forces to produce and release a major motion picture, it has happened several times, most notably when Universal Pictures and Columbia Pictures bankrolled Steven Spielberg’s  1941  back in the late 1970s. What usually happens in these deals is that one studio gets the rights for domestic distribution, while the other gets the foreign distribution rights. In the case of  Titanic,  Paramount Pictures got dibs on the lucrative North Amer...

Kirstie Alley as the original Lt. (j.g.) Saavik. Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures via Wikipedia In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, why didn't Kirstie Alley reprise her role as Lt. Saavik? During the pre-production phase of the making of  Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,  producer Harve Bennett and director Leonard Nimoy intended to ask Kirstie Alley to reprise her role of the Vulcan officer, Lt. Saavik, from the previous film,  Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  Bennett, Nimoy, and many of  Star Trek II’s  fans liked Alley’s performance, which had been her film debut, and they wanted her to come back for  The Search for Spock  and, perhaps, other sequels as well. The problem was that when Alley signed the contract with Paramount for  Star Trek II,  the document had no provisions for sequels or spin-offs. Whether this was an oversight on the part of Paramount’s legal division or a reflection of the studio’s preva...

On Quora, Cameron McCall asks: Which came first, Star Trek or Star Wars?  Star Trek, or as it is known today, Star Trek: The Original Series, was created by ex-pilot, World War II veteran, L.A. Police Department police officer, and television writer Eugene Wesley Roddenberry in 1964, sold to Desilu around that time, and approved for a network run on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in late 1965. It premiered (with The Man Trap ) on September 8, 1966 and ran on NBC for three seasons until its cancellation in March 1969. Star Wars began its long creative development as early as 1971, and by 1973 George Lucas, a graduate of the University of Southern California’s film school, had a first draft for a screenplay then titled The Star Wars. After shopping it around to the big studios, including Universal Pictures, he sold the script to 20th Century Fox after finally convincing Fox’s VP for Development Alan Ladd, Jr., who didn’t quite understand the story but nevertheles...

  Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Director’s Edition (2001) Directed by Robert Wise Written by Harold Livingston, based on a story by Alan Dean Foster Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Stephen Collins, Persis Khambatta In December of 1979, more than a decade after NBC canceled Gene Roddenberry’s now-classic Star Trek television series, the crew of the Starship  Enterprise  set forth on its first big screen adventure, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. When a powerful living machine destroys three Klingon battle cruisers on the edge of the Neutral Zone and takes a direct course for Earth, Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) returns to the recently refit USS  Enterprise.  Along with his reluctant first officer, Commander Will Decker (Stephen Collins) and the veteran officers who served with him during the  Enterprise’s  legendary five-year...

(C) Paramount Home Entertainment “Star Trek: The Compendium” Blu-ray Set (2014) Contains: “Star Trek” (2009), “Star Trek Into Darkness - IMAX Edition” (2013) The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the Universe - Dr. Leonard McCoy, “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” The Enterprise Runs Aground When Paramount Pictures’ Home Media Distribution division released the Blu-ray edition of J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” back in October of 2009, it created several editions which varied in price. Some, like the 1-disc edition, were inexpensive but still offered a standard set of extra features like an audio commentary track and a couple of making-of featurettes. Others were multi-disc sets with an additional extra features disc and a third disc with the digital copy and a “Star Trek D-A-C” game trial. Paramount also created  more expensive versions as exclusive offers for Target and other retailers, but in all of them the extras on the feature film disc, including the c...