Bakula: Enterprise Film Is Dead

Scott Bakula, star of UPN's canceled Star Trek: Enterprise, told SCI FI Wire that plans for a movie based on the show were put on hold when the regime changed at Paramount and the network pulled the plug on the show earlier this year. Bakula said he's willing to reprise the character of Capt. Jonathan Archer in an Enterprise film. "It's something I would be interested in doing," Bakula said in an interview at the show's wrap party in Hollywood last week. "They haven't [asked], but the reality is that Paramount has been under such internal upheaval in the last year that right now there's really nobody that's there that is a fan of Star Trek."

Bakula said that recent turnover of several key Paramount executives has dampened enthusiasm for future Trek projects. "It's all turned over, so I don't know what's going to happen with Star Trek as a franchise," Bakula said. "Obviously it's been very important to that studio for a great number of years and brought a lot of revenue for them. But I'm not sure how they will re-address or kind of re-approach it as the dust settles. But we'll see."

The nearly 40-year-old Trek franchise will find itself next year without an original TV series or future movie on the calendar for the first time since 1987, owing in part to the disappointing box-office performance of the last film, Star Trek Insurrection, and the poor ratings of Enterprise, which winds up its four-year run in May.

But Bakula said that he thinks Enterprise could make a successful jump to the big screen. "I don't think there's any question about that," he said. "It's just, again, you've got to have interest from the studio, and that doesn't exist right now to my knowledge. It did before. You see, when we started, there was always the idea that we would be the next movie cast and movie ship. But all the people who were interested in that are gone." Enterprise airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Sci Fi Wire -- The News Service of the Sci Fi Channel: "Bakula: Enterprise Film Is Dead"