Paramount Pictures, CBS Studios and Axanar Productions have announced that they have finally come to a settlement on the controversial lawsuit against the crowd-funded Star Trek fan film Axanar, which will see producer Alex Peters agreeing to make “substantial changes” to his project in order to ensure that it and any future Star Trek productions comply with Paramount and CBS’ ‘Guidelines for Fan Films’ introduced last year.
“Paramount and CBS continue to be big believers in fan fiction and fan creativity,” reads the statement from Paramount and CBS (via The Wrap). “They encourage amateur filmmakers to showcase their passion for Star Trek. Paramount and CBS will not object to, or take legal action against, Star Trek fan productions that are non-professional, amateur, and otherwise meet the Guidelines, which can be found at http://www.startrek.com/fan-films. Paramount and CBS would like Star Trek fans, with their boundless creativity and passion, to ‘Live Long and Prosper.’”
“Axanar Productions was created by lifelong Star Trek fans to celebrate their love for Star Trek,” states Axanar Productions’ own statement. “Alec Peters and the Axanar team look forward to continuing to share the Axanar story and are happy to work within the Guidelines for Fan Films for future projects. Throughout this process, we will continue communicating with our fans and backers to ensure they are informed and involved until we reach completion of the production.”
Under the terms of the settlement, Axanar Productions can continue to show the prequel film Prelude to Axanar ad-free on YouTube, while the main Axanar feature will now consist of two 15 minute parts which will again be distributed on YouTube free of advertising.
Originally published January 21, 2017. Updated November 13, 2019.
