I’m not in the know but I assume Star Trek as a film series will return to a mid-budget niche franchise and the high budget tentpole is dead.

They are willing to give Tom Cruise that kind of money because he is Tom Cruise. But 200 million for a Star Trek film is a non-starter. Ironic how the franchise died the moment JJ Abrams left for Star Wars.

it’s the reality that Hollywood is failing as a whole, films don’t bring in half of what they used to. Look at MCU for instance, a string of BOX Office flops, that is for Disney they had a bad year. It’s going to be Lilo and Stitch and Avatar that saved their bacon. Unless the unlikely happened and Avatar severely underperformed or flopped I wouldn’t predict that.

MCU needs to be saved by the Russos again. All bets are off if Avengers Doomsday flops.

As for JJ Abrams I heard he had a film he was producing Flowervale Street and directing GhostWriter. But other than a cartoon Batman show he hasn’t done much at WB. They cancelled two of his shows Justice League Dark. And Demimonde. Before they even got off the ground. His version of Green Lantern also never happened. His Val Zod Superman never took flight.

Ellison hasn’t said what the future of JJ is with the studio. With Paramount. Skydance buying Warner Bros, perhaps JJ has a future with Skydance who knows. I have no idea if Skydance Paramount buys WB.

I know Tom Cruise has cozied up to Ellison to get more films made. Days of Thunder II and Top Gun 3. The movie business is far too political for my liking, I’d prefer not to get into that. Just the number of Star Trek film scripts, and changes in who was running the studio in the last 9 years is amazing, and regime changes like musical chairs on the deck of the Titanic, is headache inducing. It almost makes Disney Lucasfilm look competent by comparison, even though they have a fake Rey Skywalker movie they announced.