Star Trek V's canon status

[sonak]

JarodRussell wrote:

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Paramount shot itself in the foot with TFF. Shatner wanted Connery. But Connery couldn't do it because he was involved in The Last Crusade. Which happened to be a Paramount Picture. And because Connery wasn't cast, they argued there was less box office draw, so they cut the budget. And then they released TFF against pretty hyped films. Such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

I think Paramount actually wanted TFF to bomb. They did it again with Nemesis. Almost every failure of both films can be attributed to Paramount fucking things up.

I think TFF had a bigger budget than any of the previous movies. Budget wasn't one of TFF's issues. I don't think the effects helped it much, but it wasn't why it's regarded as weak.

[Christopher]

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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Probably closer to the truth is that they figured that an Indy film (ha ha) was a better return on their investment. (Full disclosure, though: I don't know the details of how much Paramount invested in each film. However, the return was certainly many times better on Last Crusade than on TFF, with respect to overall investment.) Moreover, while TFF was a box office disappointment, it was hardly a box office failure.

Good point. It wasn't about wanting a movie to fail, it was about prioritizing which of the multiple movies they had in production had the best chances and deserved the most support.

[Photoman15]

Given the choice, I'd still rather re-watch TFF than Nemesis.

[Captaindemotion]

JarodRussell wrote:

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I think Paramount actually wanted TFF to bomb.

This makes no sense. Studios make movies in order to turn a profit and make money. If their movies fail, they don't make money.

Up until TFF, the Trek movies had been profitable money-earners, with TVH proving to be the most successful in the series. TNG was in its 3rd year, also making money for Paramount. Why on earth would they want that to stop? Even if they didn't want to make any more Trek movies, the easy thing was just to stop making them, not to invest money in a dud.

TFF wasn't the only movie in a previously-profitable series to fail at the box-office that summer. Licence to Kill, Timothy Dalton's second and final 007 movie also underperformed at the box-office, as did Ghostbusters II. Indiana Jones was about the only sequel that was able to hold its own against the box-office juggernaut that was Tim Burton's Batman.

[sonak]

Captaindemotion wrote:

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This makes no sense. Studios make movies in order to turn a profit and make money. If their movies fail, they don't make money.

Up until TFF, the Trek movies had been profitable money-earners, with TVH proving to be the most successful in the series. TNG was in its 3rd year, also making money for Paramount. Why on earth would they want that to stop? Even if they didn't want to make any more Trek movies, the easy thing was just to stop making them, not to invest money in a dud.

TFF wasn't the only movie in a previously-profitable series to fail at the box-office that summer. Licence to Kill, Timothy Dalton's second and final 007 movie also underperformed at the box-office, as did Ghostbusters II. Indiana Jones was about the only sequel that was able to hold its own against the box-office juggernaut that was Tim Burton's Batman.

What about Back to the Future II? That was a sequel in '89 that did well. Was it a summer release?

[mb22]

Back to the Future II was a Winter/Xmas release.

I don't think TFF had a bigger budget than TMP. And the SFX are certainly worse than those of TVH.

[Christopher]

mb22 wrote:

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I don't think TFF had a bigger budget than TMP.

The reported figure for TMP was $46 million, though that includes the development costs for the prior, aborted movie and TV projects. IMDb and other sites give an estimated $35 million budget for the film proper. The Final Frontier had a budget of $27.8 million according to IMDb. Corrected for inflation, in today's dollars that would be about $100 million for TMP and $50 million for TFF.

[sonak]

Christopher wrote:

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The reported figure for TMP was $46 million, though that includes the development costs for the prior, aborted movie and TV projects. IMDb and other sites give an estimated $35 million budget for the film proper. The Final Frontier had a budget of $27.8 million according to IMDb. Corrected for inflation, in today's dollars that would be about $100 million for TMP and $50 million for TFF.

OK, so lower than TMP, but still higher than TWOK, TSFS, and TVH. In fact, much higher than TWOK. A pretty good budget for its day.

[JarodRussell]

sonak wrote:

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OK, so lower than TMP, but still higher than TWOK, TSFS, and TVH. In fact, much higher than TWOK. A pretty good budget for its day.

Just like the TNG films, budget got less and less because the salaries rose. Taking away salaries, TFF had a much lower effective budget than TWOK.