Star Trek 3 Probably Get a Budget Cut

A new article from The Hollywood Reporter suggests that studios are going to attempt to do some belt tightening on their mega films after the multiple near failures they experienced this Summer. Moves that could impact the budget and locations for Star Trek 3. It used to be that a $200+ million dollar film would at minimum break even under most circumstances but that is no longer the case after The Lone Ranger, RIPD, After Earth, White House Down and host of other expensive movies failed to meet expectations. Rather then blame an entirely too crowded Summer schedule that probably broke the budget of the average family of four (or even one), the lesson the studio's learned seems to be spend around 20% less to make each movie.

In general its probably not a bad idea to cut budgets as it seems "fix it in post" is leading to lazy storytelling. I still wouldn't mind returning to the old days where it was one big blockbuster about every two weeks with smaller films clustered around them. It created a pace that a movie fan could keep up with and didn't break the bank in the process (average movie ticket = average cost of a DVD buy three months later). This summer I had to throw in the towel and just give up on trying to keep up with not only the sheer volume of movies but the expense and I am usually up for going every single weekend.

In regards to Star Trek 3:

Paramount also will look to save money on another Star Trek -- a franchise, but not quite in the top tier. This summer's $190 million production Star Trek Into Darkness has earned over $462 million worldwide; its international haul has exceeded expectations at $234 million, but domestically, its $228.5 million hasn't matched the first film. Whereas the first two were shot in L.A., the next will be filmed in a more tax-friendly location. "We're making it for what it should have been shot for last time if we had made it outside of L.A., which we would have done except that [director J.J. Abrams] didn't want to," says a studio source. "That was a $20 million issue." (Abrams, busy with Star Wars, is unavailable for the third Trek.)

In short, the new director will have to be willing to film in tax incentive friendly locations and I suspect a budget in the $125 to $150 million range. That sounds worse then it is considering the old (often better) Trek films were made on $50 million and less budgets. As usual, at the end of the day the story is king and the budget just makes it easier to tell the story. A bigger budget doesn't really mean a better story with better characters. If the core isn't there, a movies' problems were just more expensive but still there regardless of budget size.