Star Trek Beyond World Premiere at SDCC

Wednesday night the world premiere of Star Trek Beyond at the San Diego Comic-Con. Not entirely sure how it can be the world premiere considering premieres had already been held in multiple locations around the world but in any case it sounds like it was a grand event. The night started with some stand-up from Conan O'Brien before introducing the cast. A moment of silence for Anton Yelchin who died last month. Said Abrams, "As wonderful as this is to be here with all of you, and to be celebrating the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, there is something wrong tonight. There is something missing tonight, there is someone missing tonight. Anton Yelchin should be here. Anton's parents are here, Irina and Victor. We love their son and if I could ask everyone ot have a moment of silence for our dear friend, Anton."

After the silence the San Diego Symphony played a medley of Star Trek theme music as a light show and fireworks exploded over head. Later Zachary Quinto acknowledged the passing of Leonard Nimoy saying "I Just want to take a moment to honor him, to acknowledge him, to celebrate him and to love him. We all carry him with us in our heart, tonight." From there the crowd got to watch Star Trek Beyond on an outdoor IMAX screen (a first for a premiere) while a 90 piece orchastra performed the film score live (also a first).

More details and pictures from the premiere can be found here.

Rihanna's Sledgehammer Music Video for Star Trek Beyond

The music video for 'Rihanna - Sledgehammer (From The Motion Picture "Star Trek Beyond")' has been released. It shows zero footage from the movie, but does use the CGI swarm ships while opening and ending with some nice shots of the USS Enterprise. The lyrics for the song indicate, it was not written for or inspired by the movie with a two year old tweet from the artist suggesting its actually a track that didn't make the cut for her album Anti.

This is an interesting marketing ploy by Paramount and Rihanna. Paramount is hoping the single will (likely) be successful resulting in it promoting the film nearly every time its played while Rihanna (and her studio) gets paid by Paramount for doing the video, promoting the song and earns revenue from single sales while not having to pay out any money towards its production or release. We will find out the weekend of July 22 if this helps lead to a huge opening weekend for Star Trek Beyond.

Star Trek Into Darkness US Premiere Galleries

Tuesday night was the US premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness that was held in Hollywood, California. Most of the cast was there (except Benedict Cumberbatch who is doing Sherlock I think). Star Trek cast from movies past that showed up included Leonard Nimoy, Levar Burton, and Jennifer Morrison. To view pictures from the event click here and here.

Star Trek Into Darkness Talk Show Circuit Videos

Since Star Trek Into Darkness is just days from its US premiere on Thursday, the cast has been making the talk show circuit starting early last week with appearances on the Jimmys' Shows, Today Show and others. Tomorrow will be the US premiere of the movie in Hollywood so that should result in more mini-interviews from the red carpet. To watch videos and the casts upcoming schedule head over to TrekMovie.com.

Early IMAX Tickets Sell Out, Star Trek Officially Opening Day Early

I mentioned this last week, but now its official - Star Trek Into Darkness is opening on Thursday, May 16 instead of Friday. The decision was already communicated to theaters last Wednesday but for some reason Paramount waited until today to make the announcement. I guess they wanted to goose the PR press by using the early Wednesday 8:00pm IMAX sellouts to make people more curious about seeing the film early. Any case press release below, check your local theater to see what the times are for next week.

Star Trek Into Darkness London Premiere Pictures, Video

Yesterday was the London premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness. The movie is now officially out in most of Europe. Next Tuesday is the US premiere party and then the next evening the movie will begin unreeling in theaters in North America. On hand for the London premiere was almost the entire cast except for John Cho. If you are interested in gallery from the day, you can find it here and here. As for the red white carpet press interviews, it is the usual sales "see this movie" pitches but if interested more can be found here.

Star Trek Into Darkness Berlin Premiere and Interview Videos

Over the weekend, Star Trek Into Darkness cast was in Berlin, Germany for the Star Trek Into Darkness premiere. On hand for the premiere was Alice Eve (sporting some uber-bangs), Simon Pegg, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Chris Pine, and JJ Abrams. You can find pictures from the premiere here and here.

In addition TrekMovie has found a few video interviews worth checking out that includes an interview by "Spock" (not Quinto) from Starfleet HR, cast interviews from the Australia premiere, and an hour long "master class" (aka Q&A) with JJ Abrams that is held in French so hard to here his answers over the translator. You can find those videos here.

Lindelof, Pine, Quinto Talk STID; Moscow Premiere

In new articles from the LA Times and i09, Star Trek Into Darkness leads Chris Pine (Kirk) and Zachary Quinto (Spock) comment on their characters while writer Damon Lindelof spoke about some of the challenges they had in writing the script. Below are the highlights. The io9.com has video of interviews with Quinto and Lindelof while Hero Complex has few more still images from the movie. In addition the Russian premiere of the movie was held Thursday in Moscow with JJ Abrams, Pine, Quinto and Alice Eve in attendance. Click here to check out a gallery of photos from the red carpet.

Highlights

Star Trek Into Darkness World Premiere Pics and Video

Early this morning, US time, the world premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness was held in Sydney, Australia with JJ Abrams, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban representing the cast and crew. For the rest 10 days or so members of the cast will be popping up in various cities around the world for that country's premiere as Paramount is determined to try and get the Star Trek franchise the international audience it really has not had before. Images from the premiere can be found here. A CBS report from the premiere is here with more below.

Star Trek Into Darkness CinemaCon Footage Description

Monday was the beginning of CinemaCon, a convention of theater owners in Las Vegas that has the Hollywood studios previewing their summer movies and future plans. Star Trek Into Darkness got its presentation done on the first day as two scenes from the movie were shown after being introduced by film stars Chris Pine, John Cho, Alice Eve, and Zachary Quinto. A summary is below with the full description at TrekMovie.

- Little more of the opening nine minutes shown that details more on how Kirk violates the Prime Directive, resulting in the Nibiru natives praying to the Enterprise.
- In second scene is Kirk confronting Harrison in Sickbay about a larger Dreadnaught Class starship (that is Federation built but not controlled) off the Enterprise's bow.
- Kirk and Harrison perform a space jump to reach the other ship, where Scotty is already on board trying to get the airlock opened.
- Space jump sequence (as teased in trailers) has the tension ratcheted up by Scotty dealing with opening the airlock while not being sucked while a large security guard confronts him while the Kirk's spacesuit face plate begins to crack putting a clock on everything.

Star Trek Into Darkness UK TV Spot, Promotions

A new TV spot has aired in the United Kingdom to promote Star Trek Into Darkness that is just a touch under a month from being released there. I would estimate a good 50% seems to be new scenes so worth a look. On a related note, Best Buy is holding a contest for their Reward Zone members for chance to win different Trek stuff with the grand prize being a trip to the May 14th US premiere of the movie in Hollywood. Details for that are here. Also JJ Abrams is running his own "contest", in this case the winner being those who get their questions picked for the STID director to answer. The chance to submit questions ends on Monday April 15th for the interview that will be posted on April 30th. To submit questions either head to the XBox Facebook page or submit question via twitter with hashtag #StarTrekonXbox. (via TrekMovie)

Star Trek Into Darkness US Premiere Details, Motion Poster and New Trailer Next Week

TrekMovie.com has posted new details on the marketing plans by Paramount to promote Star Trek Into Darkness in the United States. The plans include a May 14th US premiere in Hollywood, a new poster (not the one below), a new trailer with Oblivion and more. I am sure more is coming when consider Paramount has around a 10 person main cast, plus JJ Abrams, plus writers that can be used to promote the movie in various locations around the world at the same time.

As for the new trailer, it is expected to be released on April 19th with the Tom Cruise movie Oblivion. Since theaters have discretion on what trailers they attach to what movies, that can be hit and miss (my local theater never does for instance). No details on if it will contain new content but the estimated length is 2 minutes and 25 seconds. With the new trailer will be the final domestic poster for the movie. There is no indication on when that new trailer will debut online. Before all that, the main leads of the movie will be at the MTV Movie Awards presenting an award. Since the award show mostly exists to raise awareness of summer movies for the tween to 20s crowd that advertisers desire, something has to be in the works for the show, even if its just a new TV spot. Below is a timeline to keep straight the current known plans.

Last but not least is the new motion poster that is more or less a 9 window animated gif built from scenes in the most recent international trailer.

Star Trek Into Darkness Premieres Start in Australia

According to TrekMovie, one of the premieres of Star Trek Into Darkness is set for April 23rd at the George Street Event Cinema in Sydney, Australia. I am not sure if this is considered the "world premiere" (first time final movie shown to general audiences or at least local celebs) or just the Australian one. The word "premiere" is actually an overused term to help promote a movie with the cast who spend the day fielding questions from the various news agencies in that particular city. Star Trek is no different in the practice with a mini-world tour of premiere's planned. The Moscow, Russia premiere is set for April 25th, Berlin, Germany on April 29th, and London, United Kingdom on May 2nd. No date set for the US premiere but since we are getting the movie a week after the rest of the world and the cast will be making the TV talk show circuit, I assume it will be sometime in the May 9 to 13th range. Considering the Abrams' cone of silence, the premieres and the interviews that come with them will at least provide a somewhat entertaining exercise in watching how many different ways they can answer the same 10 or so questions while giving different sounding answers that reveal nothing about the movie. For any Australian readers, Empire is offering a contest to win 25 double passes to the Austrlian premiere. Click here for details.

Star Trek's Earth Hour Event in London

In a bit of creative marketing for Star Trek Into Darkness, Paramount and the WWF (yep the soap opera wrestling company) joined together for Earth Hour in London on Saturday. The Earth Hour event began at 8:30 London time as Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, The London Eye (the giant Ferris wheel) and others going dark. At the end of the hour at 9:30 quadrocopters flying in formation created the Starfleet logo over the city as it performed a 360 spin. The logo was approximately 118 feet off the ground. The height of the logo is around 308 feet (so around 30 stories tall). A video of the display is below. (via StarTrek.com)

EW Star Trek Into Darkness Cover Story and Images

Entertainment Weekly has released images from their feature article that will hit newsstands on Friday (and available via Apple's Newsstand App now) to go with their covers. As usual with a JJ Abrams production nothing specific is revealed but below are the images and highlights from their cover story. One thing of note that has captured the attention of the blogosphere is EW's title to promote the issue as "Voyage Into The New Star Trek Kirk & Khan" that has since been changed to "Kirk and Spock". Some are seeing it as an accidental reveal of a key story point that Benedict Cumberbatch's real character name is Khan Noonian Singh. While I am on the bandwagon that this a true story point in the film, it has not been officially confirmed by anyone associated with Star Trek Into Darkness and I don't believe EW knows either. It was just an easy title to promote the issue and nothing more.

Highlights:

Entertainment Weekly Star Trek Into Darkness Cover

Hitting newsstands Friday will be Entertainment Weekly's cover story on Star Trek Into Darkness with two "Collector's Covers". The article will have interviews with Abrams and the cast as they discuss the movie while likely revealing nothing specific.

Star Trek Into Darkness Early Preview Announcement

Paramount has released the news that fans will get a chance to buy sneak peak previews to Star Trek Into Darkness for Wednesday, May 15th at 8:00PM, two days ahead of the official release. The press release (below) is unclear but I assume this is a sneak peak preview and not a new official release date so 12:01 midnight showings on May 17th are probably still in effect. The details are vague on participating theaters but the STar Trek App is available in the iTunese and Google Play stores.

Press release:

Star Trek Into Darkness App Released

Paramount has released the free Star Trek App to help promote Star Trek Into Darkness from Apple's App Store and soon for Android. The app will also get a worldwide release but only some countries have it. The app lets you view the trailers, posers and images released for the movie, provides news update, access contests and has interactive elements. The plan is to add content as get closer to the movies May 17th release date. The app also includes missions that grant you rises in ranks to Starfleet Admiral as you complete them. The plan is even after the movie is released it the app will be used for home video release and future movies (which is why called Star Trek App and not the Star Trek Into Darkness app). If have an iPad or iPhone head over to iTunes to check it out.

Star Trek Into Darkness Promo Video

Below is a short promo video for Star Trek Into Darkness with JJ Abrams and some of the cast running through some sale pitch lines for the flick. Nothing info wise thought. Speaking of STID, don't forget that the 2nd trailer is set to debut during the second quarter of the Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday. Not sure when it will appear online after that but in the last few years most trailers appear online almost immediately after the initial airing. Other trailers expected to air include World War Z (during pre-game), Fast & Furious 6, Oz the Great and Powerful, The Lone Ranger and Iron Man 3 (no air time estimates for any of those). The average cost for 30 seconds of ad time is $3.75 million. The high cost is due to the Super Bowl being the most popular program of the year in the United States with the average audience estimate being in the 90+ million range (so almost 1/3 the population of the USA).

Star Trek Into Darkness Super Bowl Trailer and AR App Coming

Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Paramount announced their Star Trek Into Darkness Augmented Reality app for iOS and Android that will first major use with the February 3rd Super Bowl XLVII trailer for the movie. Considering a 30 second ad is costs around $4 million, its safe to assume the ad will more more then just a retread of the first trailer.

According to StarTrek.com, users will be able "to engage an array of Star Trek Into Darkness-related materials by employing their real-life surroundings to auto-complete integrated missions by utilizing geo-location recognition, audio scan and image recognition functionality powered by Qualcomm Vuforia. The audio scan function can be turned on to automatically recognize and reward users for watching Star Trek Into Darkness content on TV and in other media, while the geofencing function will enable location-based experiences and the image scan function allow users to interact with images viewable or printed in the real world." The free app is expected to be released by the end of January. You can also click here for a CES sweepstakes to win tickets to the Star Trek Into Darkness premiere and get early access to the application.

Press Release: