Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is a 1984 motion picture released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the third feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise. After the death of Spock (Leonard Nimoy) during the events of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the crew of the USS Enterprise returns to Earth. When James T. Kirk (William Shatner) learns that Spock's spirit, or katra, is held in the mind of Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Kirk and company steal the Enterprise to return Spock's body to his home planet. The crew must also contend with hostile Klingons, led by Kruge (Christopher Lloyd), bent on stealing the secrets of a powerful terraforming device. Nimoy directed, the first Star Trek cast member to do so. Producer Harve Bennett wrote the script starting from the end and working back, and intended the destruction of the Enterprise to be a shocking development. Aside from a single day of location shooting, all of the film's scenes were shot on Paramount and ILM soundstages. Composer James Horner returned to expand his themes from the previous film. The Search for Spock opened June 1, 1984. In its first week of release, the film broke Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom's gross records, making $16 million from almost 2,000 theaters across the United States. Critical reaction to The Search for Spock was mixed. Reviewers generally praised the cast and characters, while criticism tended to focus on the plot; the special effects were conflictingly received. Roger Ebert called the film a compromise between the tones of the first and second Star Trek films.