45 Years Ago, Star Trek Proved That Even A Box Office Hit Could Feel Like A Flop

(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)

"It was not a good working situation." That's how associate producer Jon Povill described the situation behind-the-scenes while working on "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in the book "The Fifty-Year Mission: The First 25 Years." Director Robert Wise was told he had control over the film. Creator Gene Roddenberry was also told he had control. What Paramount had was a long-awaited movie adaptation of a wildly popular TV show. On paper, that was a good thing. In practice, it was messy in every way.

The end result was both a box office success story and a financial blunder that only served to disappoint fans. It also allowed "Star Trek" to thrive as a franchise in all new ways for years to come, including several other movies and an eventual TV revival in the form of the much-beloved "Star Trek: The Next Generation." It is one of cinema's premiere examples of a mixed bag. It is also a shockingly relevant cautionary tale in modern Hollywood's franchise-obsessed era.

In this week's Tales from the Box Office, we're looking back at "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in honor of its 45th anniversary. We'll go over the film's long development journey, why the production was a nightmare, why the original budget ballooned well beyond what Paramount intended, what happened once the movie hit theaters, what happened in the years that followed, and what lessons we can learn from it all these years later. Let's dig in, shall we?

"Star Trek: The Motion Picture" centers on a massive alien presence that enters Federation space and destroys three Klingon cruisers. As it heads towards Earth, Admiral James T. Kirk returns to the helm of a newly updated U.S.S. Enterprise, along with quite a few familiar faces, setting a course to meet this mysterious threat head-on.

It's worth adding some historical context here. "Star Trek" went off the air in 1969 but found massive success in syndication after the fact. Paramount and Gene Roddenberry then began developing a new series referred to as "Star Trek: Phase II." That never came to fruition, but the idea of continuing "Trek" as a feature film was floated along the way as well, with a messy, long development process ensuing.

Film novelization scribe extraordinaire and writer of unofficial "Star Wars" sequel "Splinter of the Mind's Eye," Alan Dean Foster, wrote a teleplay based on an idea from Roddenberry for what became "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." The idea was expanded and turned into a feature-length screenplay by Harold Livingston ("Mannix," "Fantasy Island"). But his script was really more of a rough guideline, as the film was rewritten relentlessly during the tumultuous production that ensued once Paramount Pictures got behind the project.

Paramount announced the film to the world in March of 1978, then it was off to the races. Robert Wise, of "The Sound of Music" and "West Side Story" fame, was hired to occupy the director's chair. While he didn't seem like the obvious choice, he came with a lot of experience. After much convincing and negotiating, all of the principal players from "Star Trek: The Original Series" signed on to reprise their roles, including William Shatner as James Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Spock.

The pieces were all in place. Paramount even gave the film a healthy budget of $15 million (to begin with anyway). It all seemed promising. It's just that putting everything together proved to be a bit of a nightmare. 

Problems sprang up pretty quickly, in no small part due to the ambitious nature of what everyone was attempting with the film — specifically, its visual effects. It's worth remembering that when George Lucas' "Star Wars" became a wildly unexpected, record-shattering hit in 1977, every studio in town wanted a sci-fi space-set hit as well. "Star Trek" needed to go bigger to chase that success. That doesn't come cheap.

"The production was going ahead, the live-action was all shot, but none of the visual effects were working," visual effects legend Douglas Trumbull explained in a 2019 interview. "The company they hired to do the visual effects was basically failing. The studio was extremely upset about it because they were being threatened by a class-action lawsuit from the exhibitors if they didn't deliver the movie on schedule."

On top of that, the film's shooting schedule was increased from a 60-day shoot to around 100 days of production, which added another chunk to the film's cost.

Roddenberry wasn't getting along with Wise, and there were disagreements all throughout filming. During the post-production process, Paramount is even said to have sent Roddenberry on vacation just to help move things forward. Trumbull and his team were then brought in to save "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." The problem is that time was very much working against them. As Trumbull explained in 2019...

"[W]e had 7 months. It was a real crash program. We had to do all the visual effects work. There were as many shots in 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' as 'Star Wars' and 'Close Encounters' combined, and it was a big problem. It took a massive effort to try to pull it off. We had visual effects crews working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the entire period."

To say that they fully completed the film would be a bit of a stretch (more on that in a bit). But between Trumbull, Wise, and everyone else working on the post-production side of things, Paramount did, indeed, deliver a finished, presentable film on time at the very last second.

Paramount rushing to meet the December 7, 1979 release date didn't help the fate of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." Wise literally rushed to the premiere with a still-drying print of the film. It was that down-to-the-wire. As a result, no test screenings were held and the studio just had to hope that they delivered something worthy of becoming a hit. That's mostly because the original $15 million budget had ballooned to a reported $44 million. For context, that would be the equivalent of roughly a $190 million budget in today's dollars.

Against mixed reviews, at best, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" arrived in theaters on its planned date. The film was a success almost despite itself, at least out of the gate, bringing in $11.9 million on 857 screens. It topped the charts and set a record for an opening weekend at the time. Keep in mind, this was still decades before Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" would become the first $100 million opener. It was also at a time when films made their money over a longer span of time, rather than living or dying by opening weekend grosses.

In more good news for Paramount, the film held onto the top spot for several weekends at the domestic box office. All told, the first "Star Trek" adventure made for the big screen pulled in $82.2 million domestically, along with nearly $57 million overseas, bringing its grand total to $139 million worldwide.

"Star Trek: The Motion Picture" made more than three times its production budget, and it was nominated for three Academy Awards. Under just about any circumstance, this would be considered a success. To be clear, it was. It's just that it was a success that came with a great many caveats, and those caveats had a major impact on the future of the franchise.

"It was the one that got away," producer David C. Fein said reflecting on "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" speaking with A Frame in 2022. "It hurt." The filmmakers truly didn't get to finish the film as intended, as many of the visual effects shots weren't finished and had to be left on the cutting room floor. That, coupled with the infamous, overly long docking shot of the Enterprise, and other perceived story issues in the theatrical version of the film, tainted the pure level of financial success.

This is still widely regarded as one of the worst "Star Trek" films to date. At the very least, it was a disappointment relative to sky-high expectations. It also was one of the most expensive movies ever made at that point. Did it do better than break even? Yes. Was that what Paramount wanted from that level of investment? No, not really. Coupled with the negative reception from critics and fans, the studio knew things needed to change. If the franchise had a future on the big screen, it couldn't just be more expensive and more chaotic.

Paramount commissioned a sequel in the form of 1982's "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan." It was much, much cheaper, with a budget in the $12 million range, and had a radically different story and a new creative team in charge. Gene Roddenberry was all but excised from the creative process, save for a producer credit. Roddenberry even tried to sabotage "Wrath of Khan" out of spite, albeit to no avail.

"Wrath of Khan" became a huge hit and is still regarded as the best of the "Trek" movies by many. Its success allowed for the original cast to star in several more sequels before the torch was passed to the "Next Generation" cast in 1994's "Star Trek: Generations" (which was yet another mixed bag for the franchise).

For what it's worth, some fans have come around on "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in recent years. William Bibbiani, writing for /Film in 2023, argued that the film "isn't just good, actually, it's exciting and interesting cinema," suggesting that people aren't viewing it through the proper lens. Paramount even released a remastered director's edition of the film in 2022, which is widely regarded as superior in just about every way to the original.

With that in mind, there's something to be said for a film eventually finding its audience. There's also something to be said for not needlessly rushing a production. Had Wise been afforded adequate time rather than rushing to meet a release date, who knows? We might view this film in an entirely different light. That's not the timeline we're living in though.

Paramount learned a pretty quick lesson about not letting "Star Trek" get too expensive. They course corrected in a big way, which allowed the series to flourish for decades. Unfortunately, everything comes back around eventually. "Star Trek Beyond" suffered from being too expensive and its lackluster performance put the films on ice for eight years and counting. So it goes.

Really, the big lesson with "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" is about catering to the audience that wants the thing being offered. Trying to make "Star Trek" into "Star Wars" wouldn't work. Trying to make "Star Trek" movies as $200 million blockbusters in the modern era makes zero sense. The franchise undoubtedly has a future, as evidenced by the success of shows like "Strange New Worlds" on Paramount+. That future can — and probably should — also include movies. The studio just needs to go the "Wrath of Khan" route and not overdo it.