17 Years Ago, Star Trek Made A Ballsy Choice That Paid Off In A Big Way

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For a stretch in the mid-2000s, the "Star Trek" franchise was effectively dead. A "Trek" film had not seen the inside of a theater since 2002's "Star Trek: Nemesis," one of the worst "Star Trek" movies ever, and UPN had canceled the most recent TV series, "Enterprise," in 2005. But in the summer of 2009, the franchise exploded back into the pop cultural consciousness thanks to J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek," a blockbuster cinematic event that made $385 million worldwide.

Though the film still has a good reputation 17 years later, it was not a guaranteed success at the time. In the /Film archives, you'll find reports about the budget increasing and the movie missing its initial release date – not always a terrible omen, but add those concerns to a crucial decision from Paramount, and it's easy to see why geek blogs and industry commentators may have been a bit wary. The decision the studio made was risky: 2009's "Star Trek" would not tell a space-faring adventure story with a brand new cast of characters, but instead recast familiar characters like Kirk, Spock, and Uhura from "The Original Series" with young, up-and-coming actors.

Similar to EON's choice to cast Daniel Craig as James Bond in "Casino Royale" or Warner Bros.' decision to cast Heath Ledger as The Joker in "The Dark Knight," the announcement of Chris Pine as Captain Kirk feels smart in hindsight, but it didn't go over smoothly at the time. In an apprehensive 2007 /Film post commenting on Pine's casting, Peter Sciretta wrote:

"Am I the only one that is disappointed that the guy who potentially could be playing Captain f'n Kirk's biggest role to date was in a crappy Lindsay Lohan movie? How did we go from Matt Damon to the guy from 'Just My Luck?'"

Star Trek (2009) made Trek accessible to a whole new demographic

Thankfully, like "Casino Royale" and "The Dark Knight" before it, J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" proved that any worries about its castings were ultimately not warranted. The studio's ballsy move to recast the franchise's most iconic characters paid off in a big way. Every member of that core ensemble — Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldaña, John Cho, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, and the late Anton Yelchin — made those roles their own, and with Abrams' whiz-bang pacing, sleek aesthetics, and impressive set pieces, "Star Trek" suddenly became mainstream after having spent decades as something of a niche property. 

A case could be made that if this film had not worked, we would never have gotten the modern era of "Star Trek" on television — or, at the least, if we still did, it may have looked very different. But the film did work and led to two sequels: "Star Trek Into Darkness," which made $467 million globally, and "Star Trek Beyond," which topped out at $343 million and unfortunately killed the so-called "Kelvin timeline" (movies involving the Abrams-era cast). Despite dozens of rumors and development updates over the years, Paramount has not been able to successfully shepherd another "Star Trek" movie to the big screen in the decade since that film's release.

Trekkies will surely continue to argue about whether or not Abrams' action-forward influence was the correct direction for a franchise that had previously been known as more cerebral, but 2009's "Star Trek" unquestionably attracted the attention of a whole new demographic. Where the movies and TV shows (boldly) go from here is anyone's guess, but nearly 20 years later, Abrams deserves credit for resurrecting a dead franchise in poppy, entertaining fashion.