There are many forms of Star Trek now. How did this become a massive business?

Star Trek really took off on the merchandising side, during The Next Generation. For years before that they had pocket books that related to Star Trek, the original series, but you were dealing with something that was fifteen years old at that point, and the films only came out every two or three years, so it wasn�t a continuous thing.

It wasn�t a mass merchandise product until Star Trek: The Next Generation came along. When The Next Generation was on, week to week, you had a product that you could plug year round, year in and year out. All of a sudden, Star Trek was everywhere. Toys all over the shelves. Anything you could slap a Star Trek label onto was done.

The fan base of Star Trek began to change at that point. Suddenly you had a family audience for Star Trek whereas, before you had more of a niche audience or a science fiction audience. Star Trek went mainstream and I think that�s when Paramount really started to realise they had something that they could truly market here. It was something that could be long term and it was actually a franchise.