Variety is reporting that Paramount has pushed the release of the new Star Trek movie to May 8, 2009. Apparently the reason is to go for bigger box office during the summer season. Variety quotes a studio insider saying “Star Trek has the potential to gross more in May than in December.” The move is part of a larger reshuffling of schedules coming in the wake of the end of the writer’s strike.

Summer a better move?
Although winter release films can make a lot of money (like the recent Lord of the Rings films and last years Bond film), the biggest film’s tend to come out in the Summer. Due to the writer’s strike, the summer of 2009 will be a bit lighter than 2007 and 2008. Right now there are no movies slated for the 8th of May 2009, although the week before is X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the week after is Angels and Demons (ironically this sequel to The Da Vinci Code was originally slated to come out the weekend before Star Trek in December 2008). As for Christmas this year, Star Trek was one of three films being released that day (although the other two were likely more aimed at different markets).

The move could be to help fill Paramount Dreamworks 2009 line-up after 2008 which already has a number of strong entries (Spiderwick, Iron Man, Indy 4, Madagascar 2, The Love Guru, Benjamin Button, etc.). The only other big films currently slated for Summer 2009 are Transformers 2 on June 29th and G.I. Joe in August.