Star Trek Release Moved To May 8, 2009

According to Variety, the release date of Star Trek XI has been moved from December 25, 2008 to May 8, 2009.

The move is pretty significant as the month of May is usually the biggest box office month of the year and often a huge sign of confidence in the potential of success a movie. For example, Spider-Man sequels, Pirates 3, Mission Impossible III, Shrek 3 and other huge movies in the last few years where released in May. More significantly, currently Star Trek has no new release competition for that date. On and I should mention the expected competition the following week is Angels and Demons, the sequel to The DaVinci Code.

The drawback of the change is that first week of release will be make it or break it for the franchise and any chance of further movies. With the studio's leap of faith with its biggest budget ever ($100 million) for the series combined with its high profile release date, if the movie fails to debut with boffo numbers chances are slim that they will greenlight another.

For you disappointed Trekkies, the extra 5 months will be long, but now that Star Trek is suddenly a summer tent pole movie for Paramount, the attention it be given will probably be unprecedented in the history of the Star Trek franchise which can hopefully only lead to good things in the future.

Note: The Poster pic is me using mspaint to modify the date, not an official new poster form Paramount. If grab, would like credit since don't want to ruin the image with a watermark.