5 Movie Trailers That Led To Lawsuits

5. Fan Made Star Trek Film Is Stopped In Its Tracks By Paramount After Trailer - Star Trek: Axanar

YouTube has become the home of many a creative and innovative fan-made spin-off over the years, with everything from Star Wars to The Lord of the Rings getting the D.I.Y. treatment as time has gone by. But in Star Trek: Axanar, Alec Peters and Axanar Productions seemed to have had their sights set on completely breaking the fan-made mould.

On the back of an eye-catching prelude in 2014, aptly named Prelude to Axanar, dropping online and garnering a whopping 1.7 million views, Peters was able to bring in an eye-watering $1 million on Kickstarter and Indiegogo to finance a full blown Star Trek spin-off feature. However, as soon as Paramount and CBS caught wind of what was going down, the two filed a lawsuit seeking damages for Peters and his production team infringing their rights by using the Klingon language in the modestly-budgeted fan-film and "innumerable copyrighted elements of Star Trek, including its settings, characters, species, and themes".

The suit was ultimately settled in the end as Peters and his team announced they would be making "substantial changes" to their prequel in 2017. The terms found in this new agreement between the two parties stated that Peters would be allowed to make two separate 15-minute shorts, instead of the 90-minute feature expected, and commercials would not be allowed to be present during the flick.

Though, Axanar is still yet to boldly go as of writing...