Star Trek Director Robert Wise - Episode 92

70s Trek: Star Trek in the 1970s

He’s the person who brought Star Trek to the big screen.

Director Robert Wise had a long and notable career before coming to Star Trek. When producers were looking for a director, his name jumped off the page!

The hiring of Wise was a sign that the project was legitimate and the power of Paramount was behind it. It's also a sign that Gene Roddenberry and the studio execs knew they needed an experienced filmmaker to get this movie going and get it finished by its premiere date.

Robert Wise was a guy who could do that. At this point in 1978, he had worked in the business for 44 years and as a director for 36. That’s a lot of experience.

Hiring Robert Wise

In August 1977, Paramount CEO Michael Eisner decided to cancel Star Trek Phase II and create a big budget film for Star Trek. As we talked about back in Episode 89 of 70s Trek, director Robert Collins had been hired to direct the Phase II TV pilot, In Thy Image in the fall of 1977.

But Paramount felt that the big budget film project needed a credible film director. Gene Roddenberry suggested Robert Wise.

The two had met years earlier at a science fiction seminar at the University of Arizona. They found they had a lot in common and talked about possibly working together someday. The new Star Trek film gave them that opportunity.

Eisner called Bob Wise and pitched the idea of him directing the movie. Wise told him he wasn’t a Trekkie, but he was willing to come down and talk about it.

At the meeting, Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenburg told him about the project and set him up in a screening room where he could watch episodes of Star Trek to get a feel for the show.

Wise told William Shatner for his book Movie Memories, “I liked them, thought they were all pretty good, and a couple of them were really exceptional. So I went back and talked with Michael and Jeffrey one more time, and at that point things really started falling into place. I’d made the Andromeda Strain, I’d made The Day the Earth Stood Still, what better way was there to continue forward than with the crew of the Enterprise?”

Wise was hired in early March 1978. When he signed his contract, he insisted that he be given the authority of not just the film’s director, but also the executive producer. That gave him the authority to make decisions that got things done. If there was a logjam or difference of opinion about something, he could come in and tell others how to move forward.

The Search for Spock

But of course, it was the role that his wife Millicent and her father played that really helped the project move in the right direction. They convinced Wise that Leonard Nimoy as Spock was essential to any Star Trek project. The film would never work without him.

So when Wise told Eisner and Katzenburg that he wanted to do the film, he also told them that the project can’t move forward without Nimoy. They agreed, and Eisner sent Katzenburg to New York to convince Nimoy to join the project.

Wise was able to convince Eisner that giving in to Nimoy’s demands about royalties and residual payments for using his likeness, was a better alternative than trying to do Star Trek without him. Paramount gave in to Nimoy's demands and within days he was attached to the project.

Spock was back.