Paramount Pictures/History with Star Trek/Creating an overall Star Trek franchise/Emergence

Paramount's first food products tie-in promotion	Paramount's first food products tie-in promotion	on the cover ofLicense! Global magazine.
Coca-Cola beverage containers 	Still from a McDonald's commercial 	
Yet, for all the troubles The Motion Picture represented for the studio as far as the production itself was concerned, it also represented the birth of the modern moneymaking property the studio was to eventually refer to as "The Franchise". Responsible for this was Vice-President of Marketing and Licensing, Dawn Steel, who was charged with coming up with an additional revenue stream after the February 1979 visual effects crisis, which had left the Motion Picture production in a critical situation, as there was no more money left to complete the movie. She did so by organizing a vigorous merchandising and licensing fund drive, which climaxed in a highly imaginative presentation, held in the largest theater on the Paramount lot. A resounding success, Arguably, Steel not only saved the Motion Picture, but the entire studio as well with her fund drive. Not only were US$35 million payable as damages to distributors avoided, but also the loss of the approximately same amount, already sunk in the production by then. That money had not been Paramount's own, but had been a loan from the obscure investment company . When Charles Bluhdorn bought Paramount Pictures in 1966, the studio was in dire straits, rapidly descending towards bankruptcy. It took nearly seven years to painfully restructure the company and reverse its fortunes, and it was only by the mid-1970s that the studio became profitable again, albeit still somewhat tentatively. It was therefore that the studio still did not yet possess a war chest large enough, to fully fund their own productions on their own, when The Motion Picture came along. It would not have been the first time that a studio was killed off by an overly ambitious movie project, nor would it be the last time; previously, in 1957, was terminated as an independent movie production company by its owners (some of its remnants absorbed by Paramount and Desilu, as the former RKO property was adjacent to those of both) due to the fact that John Wayne's 1956 epic, The Conquerers, failed to earn back its production budget. And only one year later, the 1980 western, Heaven's Gate, the US$44 million budget box-office disaster, ended (having only six years earlier declined to become part in the most successful media franchise of all times, Star Wars, even though they had a two-movie deal with creator , ) its remnants absorbed by MGM, though keeping the name as a subsidiary division. the presentation was met with rambunctious enthusiasm by the attending prospective licensee companies. "It was the most unbelievable party Paramount ever had", attending studio producer, Brian Grazer, remembered, to which then novice studio producer Jerry Bruckheimer has admiringly added, "She went to conventions and got every toy-maker, anyone who made T-shirts and key chains and raised every nickel she could. She shook the trees. There hasn't been that energy vortex in merchandise since she left.". Numerous companies signed up, including for the times unusual ones, such as food industry corporations like Coca-Cola and McDonald's. The presentation marked the first time for Paramount that licensing revenues were generated before a production had premiered. The successful fund drive made Steel's name in the motion picture industry, and a thoroughly impressed Paramount CEO Michael Eisner, who was (in)famous for not being easily impressed, promoted her the next day to vice-president of productions in features, getting her off to a stellar industry career. She had been working in the licensing department for less than six months. (New York Magazine, 29 May 1989, p. 45; 6 September 1993, p. 40; Star Trek: The Complete Unauthorized History, pp. 108-109)
Hollywood studios had, and to this day, have obviously been exceptionally loath to divulge particulars surrounding their revenue streams stemming from licensing and merchandising efforts, Star Trek not excepted. However, Steel, due to the unexpected and exceptional success of her 1979 fund drive, had understandably been somewhat more loose-lipped, unable to resist some bragging at the time. Revealing in January 1980 that General Mills featured Star Trek artwork on 37 million of their cereal boxes, McDonald's had spent US$20 million dollar on TV adds to promote fifty million Star Trek themed Happy Meals, and Bally had by that time already totaled up a sale of US$19.5 million of US$1.795 apiece Star Trek themed pinball machines, alone, she divulged that by that time she expected that at the most conservative estimations, licensed Star Trek related merchandise would at least amount to US$250 million, with the possibility of reaching double that. "Licensed children's merchandise is the last category to suffer in a recession: Dad will give up his suits, but his kids will still get toys and clothes", she clarified, adding, "Our fee ranges from one to eleven percent, depending on the product." This statement indicated that the studio was to receive at the very least US$2.5 million, or at the very most US$55 million in licensing and merchandising revenues, though it was unlikely that the upper estimate was ever met due to the mixed reception of the movie and the somewhat disappointing sales of related merchandise. (Playboy magazine, January 1980, p. 310)