Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far (2 Viewers)

[Chuck Anstey]

I'm curious what segment of the demographics isn't watching this movie in typical big opening weekend numbers. The theaters seemed rather full from reports here. My daughter was telling me that everyone she knew at the high school was going and even my dad went to the theater and he normally does not go to movies. It seems like it should have made more, at least at the level of Iron Man 3 or better.

 

[FoxyMulder]

It's the worldwide gross that is the problem, they wanted that to be higher, it doesn't seem to be making the money overseas and they never allow a film to stay open long enough to reach an audience these days.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

It's the worldwide gross that is the problem, they wanted that to be higher, it doesn't seem to be making the money overseas and they never allow a film to stay open long enough to reach an audience these days.

I'm talking just about the US. It really did seem like it should have approached $150M domestically and it wasn't even close.

 

[Kevin EK]

The new movie has underperformed in a big way in the US, and it hasn't pulled in enough overseas to make up for the shortfall. Given that the numbers are under what the 2009 movie did, and given that they were counting on the 3D and IMAX screenings to give them a much BIGGER intake, they're looking at a situation where they may not break even until they hit home video sales. Keep in mind that the studio only gets half of the receipts, and that JJ Abrams and company are taking a chunk out of this. Also keep in mind they spent a LOT of money on all the promotion over the last 6 months. They're admitting to a budget of close to 200 million dollars, and I wouldn't be surprised if the real number is higher than 200. So they have a ways to go before they see daylight here.

If the movie doesn't break even with the theatrical release, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the studio to want to make another one at the same budget level. (They'll still break even and pull ahead with home video, but that's not the same thing as having a theatrical hit.) In this event, I could see them doing another movie, but under much more cautious budgetary conditions - say for half the budget or less than that. Of course, 100 million is still a heck of a lot of money to spend on a movie, and it's oodles more than the classic cast ever had. Even TMP didn't have that much to spend directly on the movie - a bunch of its budget (which I think comes out close to 100 million in today's dollars) actually went to cover the Phase II TV series as well as the post production rush to get the movies into the theaters by December 1979.

As for spending more money on Blu-rays, I just don't see Paramount wanting to do that unless in their opinion they could do something really special that wouldn't just appeal to the hardcore fans. Releasing the Robert Wise cut of TMP is the sort of thing that could justify it, but just doing new transfers of the other movies and adding a few more goodies isn't their style. It's more likely that they'll continue to sell the existing single movie Blu-rays and possibly repackage them in new configurations. It's interesting that the movie collections are being sold at a large discount now. This may be to essentially clear the shelves so they can sell all the movies individually for 10 bucks apiece. In the short run, the bigger sets are discounted for the remaining copies. In the long run, Paramount cleans up on single unit sales at a higher price than that discount.

At the same time, I now believe that CBS will likely continue with Blu-ray upgrades of the other Trek shows, since they have only 3 seasons of TNG and 3 seasons of Enterprise left in the queue. DS9 and Voyager will likely be done more cheaply, with not nearly so many new extras as we've seen at times, but they'll be available in HD, which will make the various shows more viable in syndication over the next 20 years.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Disney might want to ask themselves again if Abrams is the right guy to direct the next Star Wars film. I like this latest Star Trek film, but I'm not in love with it and there's little doubt that word of mouth didn't help it at the box office. There has been much criticism of the writing and he needs to get rid of his signature film technique as it gives me a headache.

 

[Tino]

The new film is on track to surpass the 2009 film worldwide total by probably $100 million. It's currently running the same domestically but has already nearly reached the international total of the 2009 film with major markets like Korea and China yet to open. From boxoffice guru:

Star Trek Into Darkness fell from its number one spot but held up well in its sophomore frame given the intense competition. The Friday-to-Sunday portion dropped 47% and the long four-day gross was $47.2M pushing the cume up to $156M. After opening below expectations, the Paramount release is benefiting from good word-of-mouth with a decline that was commendable for a sci-fi sequel. The domestic gross now has a chance of ending up in the vicinity of $225M (helped by 3D) which would be not far from the $257.7M of its predecessor. International rose to $102.1M and the worldwide take stands at $258M with major markets China and Korea to open next weekend. Those are the two highest-grossing overseas markets for another effects-heavy May actioner, Iron Man 3.

So no worries, there will definitely be more films.

 

[Tino]

Btw Nelson, paramount was hoping for a four day total in the area of $100 million. While it didn't reach that, it still will be a moneymaker and is far from the boxoffice disaster that is being reported on certain sites. Is it a disappointment financially? Probably a bit, but since it will eventually make more worldwide than the last one, I think paramount will be satisfied.

 

[TravisR]

Looking at Box Office Mojo, the new Trek movie is currently the 364th highest grossing movie ever made (not adjusting for inflation). If a studio made a movie that has earned more than a quarter of a billion dollars (and counting), has made more money than all but 363 other movies in history and they're not turning a profit, they should only blame themselves for being dumb enough to spend too much money on one movie.

 

[Nelson Au]

Tino, thanks. And I had meant to say 4 days verses the 3 day total I had posted above. I figured this movie is doing okay. Not a disaster.What makes me wonder how the studios do that math is by the Superman Returns example. Warner had a figure they expected that movie to earn, and it fell short by a small amount, maybe 5 million short? Maybe more? And they called it a flop. oh-oh, better reboot it then. It looks to me Into Darkness is doing alright. Of course it's not earning way way more then the 2009 film. Sorry for digressing the thread away from films on blu ray. In short, I want new releases on blu ray of the TOS films!

 

[MattBradley]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nelson Au It would be interesting if someone would finance the FX to do Star Trek 5 the way Shatner wanted. It's still possible, there's still time and I bet Shatner is willing to help! .
I agree. Many of the problems with Star Trek 5 seem to have been a direct result of the studio cutting the budget and Shatner having to compromise. It would be nice of them to let him go back and reconstruct as much of his original vision as possible.Doug

Doug, I got to ask him one question at a Trek convention and I asked him if Paramount gave him the money to finish it, would he? His short answer was hell no. Long answer was something I'll cherish forever!

 

[Kevin EK]

I think there may be one more movie, but with a greatly reduced budget. The 2009 movie had a budget of 150 million (that they admitted to) and brought in 385 million, which meant it grossed the most money in ticket sales as well as having the biggest opening weekend ever for a Star Trek movie. It may surprise people to hear that this still didn't bring the movie into profitability - that didn't happen until home video sales, where it easily crossed the line and then went into profit.

The reason for this is the rule of 3x when it comes to movie ticket sales. If a movie costs 100 bucks to produce, you need to sell 300 bucks worth of tickets before you're in profit. Because the studio only gets half the ticket money, and they have to share part of that with the various people who have a piece of the movie, and they have to pay the interest on whatever loans they've taken out to pay for the production, etc. The more inexpensive your budget, the easier it is to get into profit, provided you have elements that a lot of people want to see in your movie. The earlier Star Trek movies all did well by this math, except for Star Trek V, which had a great opening weekend and then plummeted. Even TMP did well on the biggest budget of all of them, but that was when it was the only Star Trek around and Trekkies went back over and over again, while other moviegoers came out of curiosity after the major ad campaign Paramount ran.

The latest movie cost at least 190 million and probably was over 200 million to produce, which included added costs for preparing and converting the movie into 3D. They were supposed to have a huge opening weekend and then keep going without dropping too much. This is along the lines of Fast Five, which had a budget of 125 million and wound up grossing around 625 million, much of it within the first four weeks of its release. Star Trek Into Darkness also had the added cache of being shown in more expensive 3D and IMAX screens, which add to the production cost as noted above but can also reap huge numbers, as they did for Avatar. But Star Trek Into Darkness didn't pull those numbers in. The numbers aren't terrible, but they aren't great either. In order to go into profit, they need to make somewhere close to 600 million dollars. Given where they are, at 250 million or so, I could certainly see them getting to the 485 million mark or somewhere short of it that Paramount is projecting. But they'll still need to make up over 100 million in video sales, and that's before they get into actually making some money. William Shatner had a great line about this in the materials on the Star Trek V DVD - that the studio is essentially playing Blackjack, and they expect to win big.

Now, none of this means that the movie is doing badly, or that it's a "bomb" or anything silly like that. It's just that they spent so much money on producing it that going into profit becomes a much more difficult proposition. Which is why I think the next one will likely be a smaller scale affair, maybe without 3D, and certainly with a much leaner budget. Putting it another way - if they had made this movie for only 100 million (and how can we even conceive of "only 100 million"???), Paramount would be over the moon at the numbers right now. Instead, they're putting a good face on it and hoping for the best. Again, this isn't a bad showing - it's just not the GREAT showing they needed to justify that budget. Hopefully, if they do a third movie, they'll spend less money on spectacle and more time on the fundamentals.

Speaking of Star Trek V, I'd be curious to hear what the long version of that story was. Looking over all the materials on the movie, William Shatner's original idea strikes me as bold but completely alien to Star Trek, pardon the term. His idea of proving the existence of the Devil and Hell, and thus by extension proving the existence of God, is a clever one, and one that would make for a very interesting movie in any genre. But Star Trek has never been a show that went with any notion of religion as a literal truth. (And that's not to debate such things - just to say that Star Trek really never did.) As Shatner admitted in his interview book, he wound up getting talked out of his main idea, and wound up with the usual Star Trek solution of not God or the Devil but instead an alien creature that has fooled people into thinking it is a deity. Which is an interesting idea, but nothing anywhere near as bold as the notion Shatner started with. Add to this that they made some foolish decisions while making Star Trek V that weren't so much due to budget cuts as they were due to the fact that they simply didn't have the funds to make the grand vision Shatner had for the movie. So they did get some great location shots in various places, and they did assemble a fairly good cast, but the basic script underneath wasn't very strong and the audience didn't react well to it. The lower-tier visual effects from Bran Ferren certainly didn't help the situation but they weren't the cause of the problems. If anything, the VFX issues were just another symptom. I can understand why Shatner would not want to try to finish it in its current condition. He'd likely have to completely reshoot the movie, with a stronger script and a better premise - probably not with a laughing Vulcan. Just adding nicer VFX would not fix the issues, sadly.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks for explanation of the budgetary situation. Your initial posts that the studio would cut the budget of the next film had a certain connotation as if it was like, you guys at Bad Robot blew it, so we will let you make another one, but with less money. It reads more like a case of Paramount felt good that JJ could build upon the first, so they wanted him to have more budget for more flashy bling in the next installment. ( of course he could have asked for it.) But perhaps they over reached. No one's fault, the studio just thought they might have a winner.If they go back to basics, that's where they could really succeed. As Nic Meyer said, art thrives when you have limits placed upon you. His Star Trek 2 suffers in my opinion in terms of some of the limited budget on the production design and renting those awful flashing light panel computer consoles for Regula and parts of the Enterprise. Ruining the beauty of the original motion picture sets. But it sure had a slam dunk story!

 

[Lockjaw]

It's absurd this movie is being talked about as some kind of flop. 12 days in--it is just slightly ahead of the 2009 release. It is way ahead of the previous one in the international box office and it still hasn't opened in several large markets including China, France, Korea and Italy. This movie will make almost as much money in North America as the first and far more overseas. There will be a sequel and it won't be a reduced budget sequel---even the hint that the third one would be 'scaled back' would absolutely kill it in the arena of public perception.
People would say, "Oh the last one didn't do so well so they're making a 'low-budget' third one!!"

Just a hint of that would kill the project.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I went to see Into Darkness on Sunday at an IMAX theater. The greeting at the door was a sign stating that all weekend showings of the film were sold out. We continued to hear that announcement ad nauseam as we made our way through the long line into the theater and during the process of seating the audience..."Please move all the way in and take up every seat! This show is sold out and we need every seat! Please move in if there are empty seats next to you! This show is sold out every seat must be taken!"

We even got to hear that the show was sold out three times during the "Welcome to IMAX" announcement which concluded with "...so enjoy the show and live long and prosper!"

So, I think the film seems like it still has legs and will continue to draw large audiences for a while. I also thought as big budget spectacles go it was a very good one and I also thought the film looked fantastic in 3D...probably my best experience with the process. We had a couple of people with us that had never watched anything Star Trek related and they left wanting to go and check out the other films and television shows.

 

[Kevin EK]

I'm sorry if I'm bursting anyone's bubble about the economics, but the hype and the reality are operating in two different universes, as it were.

Again, I don't think anyone is saying that Star Trek Into Darkness is a flop. It is doing decent business, although not gangbusters. Yes, it will sell out some showings, although I think it's fishy for the theater owner to be repeatedly shout that at the patrons who are already in the theater. (This is a theater owner trying to drum up business.) When I was younger and used to go to all the big blockbusters in summer, they didn't need to tell us that the movie was sold out. We knew that from the size of the line. We also knew that if we were in the back of a long line, we had to make a decision of whether to go in and sit in the crap seats at the front left and right or decide to wait for a different showtime on another day.

The issue for this movie is that it was supposed to bring in far higher numbers and not drop off as quickly - and a lot of this was supposed to come from the post-production 3D conversion that allowed them to place it in the expensive ticket 3D theaters. But the numbers haven't been there. Given that they pulled in about the same numbers in 2009 without the 3D, it's not unreasonable to say that they're actually selling less tickets now. It's pulling in some good numbers overseas, which will help it make a little more of its money back, but I don't know that it will even get to the scaled back projection of 485 million that Paramount made last week. If it's struggling to pull in more than 16 million at home this weekend and dropping by over half every weekend, it looks to me that it will probably settle between 400 and 430 when you combine the domestic and international box office. Which would put it somewhere close to 50 million ahead of the 2009 movie.

The problem for Paramount is that they need to get to 600 million to break even, as we discussed above. So the shortfall has to come from the home video sales. Last time they just had to make up 75 million. This time they'll have to more than double that. This is the problem of making a movie that costs 200 million dollars - you have to make MUCH more money in order just to break even. It's why I said they would have been in much better shape to have kept the costs down and make it for 100 million. That's still a heck of a lot of money, and more funds than any Star Trek movie ever had from TMP through Nemesis.

It won't kill a Star Trek movie for it to be made under a reduced budget. Certainly it didn't kill Wrath of Khan to have a budget that was half of the budget of the movie that preceded it. (I'm being fair to the actual production numbers - the full 45 million bucks number included a lot of stuff that had nothing to do with the actual production. If we want to just stay with the full number, then Wrath of Khan had one quarter of the budget of the movie before it.) And a 100 million dollar budget is by no means a low budget movie. Neither is a 50 million dollar or 75 million dollar budget. On the other hand, it may not be a bad idea for them to go back into developing a new television series and spend a few years working on that idea. I'd be fine with either thought, just so long as they take the time to write it carefully and really think about what story they're telling.

 

[Lockjaw]

Wow.

 

[FoxyMulder]

I think they over promoted Into Darkness and the trailers gave large chunks of the movie away, i also think the big "secret" worked against them, they should have revealed the character and used that to sell the film to audiences, when you consider the Fast Five films are now onto number six and they are really doing great business with a budget that is $30m dollars less then Into Darkness has to be considered disappointing as far as the box office goes.

I'm also a little disappointed after i discovered what the secret was, they have a new timeline and yet they are just recycling things, i think i'd have been hyped to have seen the original crew come up against the Borg, with such a large budget that could have been very action packed and maybe darker than what the next generation crew could get away with.

 

[Lockjaw]

Shatner asked Paramount if he could do a Directer's cut of Trek 5 in 2002 with a modest budget for new FX---they said no. He then asked for a TINY budget to simply recut the movie---they said no.
He was asked in the last 1 or 2 years if he would be interested in doing a Director's cut and he replied basically, "F--k no!"

It ain't happening.

 

[Kevin EK]

Thanks for the added info re Shatner and Trek 5. I remember hearing something about him trying to lobby for a new cut with CGI FX around ten years ago. I hadn't heard about them coming to him. But I don't know that a modest recut or new CGI would change the experience overmuch. The problem with the movie is more basic - the premise and scripting have serious flaws that would require a complete redo to fix. And that's no longer possible. As it is, we can appreciate the movie for what it is, and it's a teachable example about what can happen in making these movies.

 

[Tino]

Obviously STID is underperforming a bit. It is definitely selling less tickets than the 2009 film, but what is annoying are the statements implying that it is some kind of disaster and a box office flop, which is ridiculous. This film has generated a lot of hate on this and other forums, which is surprising considering it is very well received critically. In the end, i believe it will be more successful than the first worldwide, even with inflation and the next film will not have any kind of reduced budget.And for the record, every big budget film now has to triple it's production cost to "break even" , that has been the norm for many years now. STID in no different.