Star Trek Enterprise movies were planned reveals Scott Bakula

Star Trek: Enterprise actor Scott Bakula has revealed movie versions of the prequel were planned as the next stage in the film arm of the franchise.

Enterprise, later renamed to Star Trek: Enterprise, launched in 2001 by which time the television franchise had produced The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager – all sequels to the original series. Enterprise however, was a prequel to the original series but a sequel of sorts to the Trek movie First Contact. In the series Bakula played Captain Archer and has revealed that the film franchise was due to produce Enterprise films.

“We were going to be the next movie franchise. Going in that’s what we were told.” – Scott Bakula at a convention in Germany

The film franchise started with the original series cast and handed over to The Next Generation cast with the 1990s film Generations. The Star Trek films then remained focused on TNG cast through until Nemesis even though by that time Deep Space Nine and Voyager had taken TNG’s place on television. As we already know one last TNG movie was planned following Nemesis but was scrapped because of the films commercial failure at the box office.

So why didn’t any Enterprise films happen? Well Enterprise was something of a ratings flop and was nearly cancelled at the end of its third series. The failure of Nemesis at the box office also, coupled with the shows low ratings, sealed its fate as far as movies of Enterprise were concerned. By the point of Enterprises‘ cancellation it was widely accepted “franchise fatigue” had turned viewers off Trek and it needed to be “rested” for several years.

We were always rather disappointed that there wasn’t a Deep Space Nine or Voyager movie….