Could 'Enterprise' Go Direct To DVD?

Fans unhappy about the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise have a new tactic: instead of lobbying for a revival of the series, they are writing to Paramount's new DVD Premiere Group requesting a direct-to-DVD film.

Animation World Magazine reports that many companies are following the lead of Disney, whose direct-to-video The Return of Jafar, a sequel to its theatrical animated hit Aladdin, led to numerous releases created specifically for the home video and DVD market. "We've had incredible success over the past several years with original production," said Ellen Pittleman, a senior vice president of Paramount.

Paramount's new division plans to release six to eight original DVD productions in the next year, but Star Trek is not currently on the schedule. "The studio is currently contemplating a new feature," said Pittleman. Whether that feature might go directly to the home market, bypassing theatrical distribution where Star Trek Nemesis faltered, is not yet being discussed.

"We look for films that offer a unique, repeatable entertainment experience for a specific consumer whom we can target cost effectively," Pittleman explained. Costs were a factor in the decision to cancel Enterprise on UPN; it would presumably be expensive to create special effects commensurate with those the Star Trek audience has come to expect.

Meanwhile, Moviehole reports that there is "not a snow-ball's chance in hell" of Enterprise returning to broadcast, either on DVD or on television.

"Even if they could pull remnants of the cast together, the show wasn't successful enough to bear reviving - it was cancelled in the first place because the audience for it wasn't very large and it's critical reception, by and large, was not warm," said the unnamed source who spoke to Moviehole's Gossip Monkey columnist. "Paramount will revive 'Star Trek', the franchise, in a few years, with a brand new creative team at the helm, but will do so by making a movie that comes at things from a very different angle - darker, younger, sexier, etc etc etc."

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