Template:Realworld Star Trek: Planet of the Titans (alternatively called Star Trek: Planet of Titans) was to have been the first motion picture based on the Star Trek: The Original Series. It was one of the first attempts to bring Star Trek back after the series had been canceled, and eventually contributed to the creation of Star Trek: Phase II and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The film was in development from 1976 through 1977 before being abandoned.
Summary
Set after the five-year mission depicted in the series, the film involved Starfleet competing with the Klingons for claim to the supposed homeworld of the mythical Titans, a technologically-advanced race long thought extinct. As the planet is pulled into a black hole, the USS Enterprise must also face off against the Cygnans, the alien race responsible for the Titans' disappearance. Ultimately, Captain Kirk is forced to take the Enterprise into the black hole to defeat the Cygnans, a decision that sends the starship and its crew backwards in time thousands of years and into orbit around Earth. After introducing fire to the primitive Humans living at the time, Kirk and his crew are revealed to be the legendary Titans.
History
The film was to be produced in England, with Jerry Isenberg serving as executive producer. Hired to direct the film was Philip Kaufman, who later known for directing several popular science fiction films. Ken Adam was approached to be the film's production designer. Adam, in turn, assigned Ralph McQuarrie to redesign the Starship Enterprise for its move onto the big screen. Several of the models they created appeared in the "Starship Graveyard" scene at the Battle of Wolf 359, and are often mistaken for Enterprise designs for Star Trek: Phase II. The second issue of Starlog magazine featured designs for the film on their front cover.
British writers Chris Bryant and Allan Scott wrote the initial fifteen-to-twenty page treatment which, upon acceptance from Paramount Pictures, they turned into a screenplay, which was submitted on 1 March 1977. The following month, the script was rejected by Paramount. The script was then rewritten by Kaufman, but that script was shot down that May, and the project itself was scrapped. Initially budgeted at $7.5 million, the film had an estimated budget of $10 million at the time project was canceled.
The reasons for Paramount abandoning this project are unknown, although some believe that the studio thought moviegoers had had their fill of science fiction after Star Wars became a huge box office hit. However, the subsequent success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind altered their thinking and moved forward with plans for a Star Trek feature, which ultimately became Star Trek: The Motion Picture. (Star Trek Phase II: The Lost Series)
Template:UndevelopedSpinOffs