The director says a video game could have benefitted a movie it's based on but the latest 'Star Trek' gameplay caused a damaging impact on 'Star Trek Into Darkness' instead.
- Sep 14, 2013
AceShowbiz - J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek Into Darkness", the second installment of a planned trilogy, opened to $70.6 million during its opening weekend last summer and has raked in a massive $460 million worldwide so far, but the director believed the movie could have performed better. The glitch, he said, was the crappy tie-in video game.
"The last game, which was obviously a big disappointment to me, was something that we were actually involved in from the very beginning," he told GamerHub TV at a DVD launch event in Los Angeles, "and then we sort of realized it was not going in a place where we were going to get what we wanted, so we dropped out and they continued to do it despite... y'know."
"To me the video game could have been something that actually really benefited the series and was an exciting, fun game with great gameplay and instead it was not and was something that I think, for me emotionally it hurt, 'cause we were working our asses off making the movie and then this game came out and it got, this isn't even my opinion, it got universally panned and I think that it was something without question that didn't help the movie and arguably hurt it."
"I think the thing that we all know, anyone who loves video games and loves movies... very, very rarely does a movie based on a game, or a game based on a movie, really work," he added. "It usually ends up being something that everyone who goes to see or goes to play feels like this was a marketing decision made by a room full of people who wanted to capitalize on a title. That's no way to make a game and no way to make a movie."
"... To me, whether it's a video game or a book or a movie or a song. Anything that is based on something else, it needs to exist on its own terms," the director went on. "And a lot of times these seem to exist as an ancillary product, in which case it will suck."
Abrams is currently working on a new "Star Wars" trilogy starting with "Star Wars Episode 7" due in summer 2015. "Star Wars Episode 8" will follow in 2017 and "Star Wars Episode 9" is out next in 2019. Spin-off movies that focus on the "origin stories" are set to be released between the entries.
Due to his commitment to the "Star Wars" project, Abrams is unlikely to return as a director for the next "Star Trek" film. He recently endorsed "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" director Rupert Wyatt to take over the helming duty in "Star Trek 3".
