Why didn't Beyond do better at the Box Office? It has done okay so far, but we have sci fi movies like Captain America Civil War and Star Wars: The Force Awakens have done way better. To be fair it did better then other Paramount films release this summer like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.
Why didn't Beyond do better at the Box Office?
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STID despite glowing reviews at launch has been an issue for trek fans since 2013 and hurt buzz for the movie that would follow it...Poor marketing IMO especially with the 1st trailer that did alot of damage...The July release date and a poor box office summer compared to 2015 didn't help either.
I think it's a combination of factors:
1) Particularly challenging summer for the film industry, and challenging box office trends in general
2) Too much time between Star Trek reboot movies. The 4-year gap between Star Trek (2009) and Into Darkness (2013) was inexcusable.
3) Marketing for Beyond did not mention the 50th anniversary or really tell anything about the film, other than showing action scenes. That's not enough nowadays. Marketing has to make the film seem unique--it has to feel like an event that people should want to experience. People need a reason for why they should care--otherwise they will ignore it. In the modern world, marketing films is about cleverly getting people's attention, not just telling people the film exists.
Also, it's ironic that in the very negative times we live in, marketing failed to promote the positive message of Star Trek, ie, it's raison d'etre.
Not sure you can psychoanalyze the fan reaction to Into Darkness and tie it to this. The fan reviews of Into Darkness on Rotten Tomatoes and Amazon are quite positive. For some useless anecdotal evidence, my friends who are not big Trekkies liked the previous films but aren't rushing out to this one. I just don't think it seems urgent to them.
If they do a Star Trek IV about Kirk and his dad, they should make it a plot-heavy time travel story. Trim the budget to $150 million, or less if possible. Time travel to 2017, to save even more money. Do not focus as much on the crew. Focus mainly on Kirk. Make it personal. Have him working closely with his father, going back in time. And finally, release it Father's Day weekend 2018. Now that's marketing.
1) Particularly challenging summer for the film industry, and challenging box office trends in general
2) Too much time between Star Trek reboot movies. The 4-year gap between Star Trek (2009) and Into Darkness (2013) was inexcusable.
3) Marketing for Beyond did not mention the 50th anniversary or really tell anything about the film, other than showing action scenes. That's not enough nowadays. Marketing has to make the film seem unique--it has to feel like an event that people should want to experience. People need a reason for why they should care--otherwise they will ignore it. In the modern world, marketing films is about cleverly getting people's attention, not just telling people the film exists.
Also, it's ironic that in the very negative times we live in, marketing failed to promote the positive message of Star Trek, ie, it's raison d'etre.
Not sure you can psychoanalyze the fan reaction to Into Darkness and tie it to this. The fan reviews of Into Darkness on Rotten Tomatoes and Amazon are quite positive. For some useless anecdotal evidence, my friends who are not big Trekkies liked the previous films but aren't rushing out to this one. I just don't think it seems urgent to them.
If they do a Star Trek IV about Kirk and his dad, they should make it a plot-heavy time travel story. Trim the budget to $150 million, or less if possible. Time travel to 2017, to save even more money. Do not focus as much on the crew. Focus mainly on Kirk. Make it personal. Have him working closely with his father, going back in time. And finally, release it Father's Day weekend 2018. Now that's marketing.
General lack of public enthusiasm for Star Trek outside of its fanbase, particularly in the US.
Lack of interest in the reboots amongst a not insignificany portion of the fanbase.
No TOS reboot TV show with the actors in the roles to generate interest in the movies.
Protest against CBS/Paramount effectively shutting down fan productions.
Gay Sulu. Don't discount right wing & christian countries across the world, especially America. You can't make a $185m movie, stick a big sign on it pre release that says "we're playing to the gay lobby", and then complain when the film tanks.
The awful first trailer.
Pegg opening his foul heterophobic pie hole in public and managing to demonise George Takei at the same time. Quite an achievement.
Total lack of marketing.
Lack of interest in the reboots amongst a not insignificany portion of the fanbase.
No TOS reboot TV show with the actors in the roles to generate interest in the movies.
Protest against CBS/Paramount effectively shutting down fan productions.
Gay Sulu. Don't discount right wing & christian countries across the world, especially America. You can't make a $185m movie, stick a big sign on it pre release that says "we're playing to the gay lobby", and then complain when the film tanks.
The awful first trailer.
Pegg opening his foul heterophobic pie hole in public and managing to demonise George Takei at the same time. Quite an achievement.
Total lack of marketing.
Everything not Captain America or Deadpool has underperformed this summer. 2016 is the most bloated year for blockbuster movies ever and it seems X-Men: Apocalypse and Star Trek Beyond are among the casualties.
Maybe the curiousity of the non-fanbase has worn off.
STB met its opening weekend expectations on the higher end, so at least it didn't disappoint that way. It just seems to be a down year for movies all around if Disney, Marvel, or DC isn't attached to it.
Further, "Star Trek" is more of a niche franchise than we fans may want to admit, at least compared to Marvel or DC. It's more like the James Bond franchise. It's never going to have that $100 million opening weekend in the US. It's just in the last movie that it's made inroads in foreign revenue, too. The foreign revenue taken in by STB will be why it makes any money. Of course, that's true for a number of movies these days.
It's too bad it couldn't have been two years between Trek movies. That may have helped both STID and STB. ST09 got things off on a great foundation, but things may have been allowed to cool off too much in between installments to keep greater general interest. Movie goers are fickle.
I'm not sure if it mattered whether or not anything more was done to link STB with the 50th anniversary of TOS. If anything, more of that, reminding people the franchise is fifty, may have taken the contemporary or "new feeling" edge off the film for movie-goers. Or it may have made them believe the movie would be nothing more than an homage to TOS, which it did come close to being in some ways.
Further, "Star Trek" is more of a niche franchise than we fans may want to admit, at least compared to Marvel or DC. It's more like the James Bond franchise. It's never going to have that $100 million opening weekend in the US. It's just in the last movie that it's made inroads in foreign revenue, too. The foreign revenue taken in by STB will be why it makes any money. Of course, that's true for a number of movies these days.
It's too bad it couldn't have been two years between Trek movies. That may have helped both STID and STB. ST09 got things off on a great foundation, but things may have been allowed to cool off too much in between installments to keep greater general interest. Movie goers are fickle.
I'm not sure if it mattered whether or not anything more was done to link STB with the 50th anniversary of TOS. If anything, more of that, reminding people the franchise is fifty, may have taken the contemporary or "new feeling" edge off the film for movie-goers. Or it may have made them believe the movie would be nothing more than an homage to TOS, which it did come close to being in some ways.
As I said on another thread, Pegg, Lin and Cho pissing off Takei got far more coverage in the UK press than the film itself. Gay Sulu and Pegg's associated bigotry is one of the many reasons I've declined to pay to see Beyond, not because of Sulu being made gay per se, but because of the utterly hamfisted, insulting, and agenda driven way Pegg and Lin went about doing it. I will not tolerate Pegg deliberately insulting Takei for the sake of his own marxist pink politics.
I'm afraid to ask but, what Marxist pink politics of Pegg's are you so upset about?
Two things that might have impacted it a little:
1). Nobody expected a good movie - Trekkies were literally surprised it was good.
This perhaps comes partly from the second:
2). The first trailer was utterly awful, and made the film look like some Nemesis-grade filler crap.
1). Nobody expected a good movie - Trekkies were literally surprised it was good.
This perhaps comes partly from the second:
2). The first trailer was utterly awful, and made the film look like some Nemesis-grade filler crap.
[No. Media removed. If you're going to get up on your hobbyhorse about this, go start a thread dedicated to it, and stop trying to sidetrack this one. - M']
The best stuff starts 2mins in. Make of it what you will, but having not seen it until a few days ago, I saw it as confirmation of what the gay Sulu episode told me about Pegg.
No, I think that if @Admiral Bear is going to hold forth on that subject, he'd do better to start a dedicated thread about it (in a venue appropriate to the topic, of course.) The last time he tried to inject it into a thread about something else, there were... consequences... of the sort I'd just as soon avoid here.
Understood. That's why I was afraid to ask. I suspected his comment had more to do w personal agenda than anything ST or Simon Pegg related. I won't respond to him anymore.
No matter how good it is, Star Trek Beyond is "just another Star Trek movie" at this point, but 2016 being a generally down movie year didn't help.
Still, it could have been a lot worse for Beyond--like Star Trek: Nemesis worse...
Still, it could have been a lot worse for Beyond--like Star Trek: Nemesis worse...
Star Trek Beyond is still Paramount's highest-grossing film for 2016 (thus far) and it hasn't even closed yet. See the chart:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/studio/chart/?view2=release&view=company&studio=paramount.htm
Looks like a bad year for Paramount. So I doubt they will totally give up on their highest-grossing property. That's not how business works. You get rid of the dud properties and hold onto the ones with potential. They may refine Trek and make some changes, but they'll hold onto it. Now more than ever.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/studio/chart/?view2=release&view=company&studio=paramount.htm
Looks like a bad year for Paramount. So I doubt they will totally give up on their highest-grossing property. That's not how business works. You get rid of the dud properties and hold onto the ones with potential. They may refine Trek and make some changes, but they'll hold onto it. Now more than ever.
1- 1st trailer was BAD.... just slapped together & put out there....
2 - Nothing for 6 MONTHS............
3 - No cinema con footage or PR
4 - Orchi's scripted sucked, fired, then 6 months to get script and start filming. I felt movie was VERY GOOD, but another draft or 2 on the script could've took the movie to greatness
5 - no 50th anniversary of ST tie in like others said to make it an "event"
I loved the movie, but I'm a ST ho LOL
2 - Nothing for 6 MONTHS............
3 - No cinema con footage or PR
4 - Orchi's scripted sucked, fired, then 6 months to get script and start filming. I felt movie was VERY GOOD, but another draft or 2 on the script could've took the movie to greatness
5 - no 50th anniversary of ST tie in like others said to make it an "event"
I loved the movie, but I'm a ST ho LOL
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