Apr 24, 2016
Note: On Saturday, 4/23/16, this week's episode was made available at 11:00AM EDT. Shortly after the release, we pulled the episode due to additional information we received that not ALL fan film productions had received calls from CBS. We felt that as a result of this information we did not want the post to be misleading, and so a rewrite of the podcast post information was needed. There is no change to the actual interview with Tommy Kraft. The problem isn't with what Tommy said, it's in what we wrote and we didn't consider possible negative effects. We sincerely apologize to all of the other productions.
To reiterate: As of now, all of the other fan film productions have NOT received calls from CBS strongly suggesting they shut down and we didn't want to cause a problem for any production out there with what we said.
Last week we setup an interview with today’s guest to discuss what would have been the launch of the crowdfunding campaign for the sequel to the immensely popular online film, "Star Trek - Horizon". At just shy of 1 million views since late February, Horizon took the world by storm and as a result got the creative juices flowing for a sequel. Federation Rising was going to be the title for the project and Tommy Kraft was going to once again take Star Trek Fan Productions to a new level with an amazing story and amazing guest stars, while respecting the rules of the beloved franchise.
We say that all in the past tense because Tommy received a call from CBS, strongly advising him to halt those plans. Bill Burke, Senior Vice President of Marketing at CBS Consumer Products even went so far as to specifically state that this "request" was a direct result of the legal issues going on with Axanar – that once "professional film production" that now is curiously being touted only as a "fan film" once the heat was turned up.
Even with the whirlwind of disappointing events, Tommy was gracious enough to join us and discuss what happened and what this could possibly mean for fan made Star Trek productions.
But even with all the bad news, Tommy is already moving forward with an ambitious new project that he is very excited to discuss. And we think you will love it! Additionally, we cannot thank Tommy enough for his professionalism and his demeanor while dealing with a situation such as this. He is a true class act and other productions could learn alot from how to handle situations like this!
After the conversation with Tommy, Dan and Bill will discuss the fallout and their reactions – and its safe to say that Dan is mad as hell and he isn’t going to take it anymore!
#ThanksAxanar