That's not how contracts work.
if they had pay-or-play contracts, which are rare, they would be paid whether or not they performed. Waiting would not make a difference.
Does anyone know how Beyond is tracking for its opening weekend?
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That's not how contracts work.
if they had pay-or-play contracts, which are rare, they would be paid whether or not they performed. Waiting would not make a difference.
Most of the those TNG films were successful financially, and will probably end with a higher ROI and longer run than these current big budget movies. So we can't conclude that higher budget is the way to go, or lower budget it the way to go.
Just because you cut the budget doesn't mean the movie is going to look like it's made for TV.
Science Fiction movies like Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Gravity, The Martian all did very well on 100M budgets, and I I don't think they look cheap, and I wouldn't exactly say they were huge events either.
A while back, after STiD was released, I was listening to an Orci interview about writing the script for the movie. He specifically mentioned that Paramount told him Science Fiction movies featuring earth do better than science fiction movies with out it.
With the under performance of STB, we'll probably never see another Paramount Star Trek movie that doesn't feature earth.
I think both of these almost nail the major issue looming without quite realizing it. The reason the movies keep getting made Is because the franchise as a whole makes a tremendous amount of money. Once put on film the property traditionally keeps earning, for years. The movies are in some ways short term loss leaders to keep the franchise alive and in the public eye. To refresh it. They make money, but even if they just do ok at the box office, even if they just break even, they will still bring in a tremendous amount of money because the shelf life for the property is so long. Note that all versions of Star Trek will routinely top the "most popular" or "most watched" lists of any of the streaming services on which they are offered. Add to this that Star Trek has a deeply embedded fan base that will buy the home media versions. Often multiple times. Wear them out then buy them again. What this means is pretty much every ST offering will make good money over the long haul. Just so long as nobody pulls a franchise killing move (such as hiring Paul Feig or Josh Trank.) Star Trek is at the level of matured in IP that opening weekend or second week box office, while real nice to have, is not actually the principal revenue stream. This is a rarity. Few other properties have this luxury. At the peak end you have the Star Wars movies. And more in line with ST's model you have the Transformers movies. Yeah, this is why Michael Bay gets to keep on making Transformers movies. They make enough to keep the pump primed and feed the ecosystem. To keep the money printing machine that is the overall franchise going.
But that's where things may soon start to fall apart. In the Star Trek world the franchise is a co-dependent hybrid. The movies and tv properties feed and re-in force each other. It doesn't matter if it is Prime or nuTrek. They all mutually spin the wheels. But by separating the TV from the movies along corporate lines, they severe this interconectivity and synergy. Suddenly the movies have to live or die on their box office. And without the big screen spectacles suddenly nobody is caring about new subscription streaming services, etc. by splitting the IP the way that they have they break the synergy. Each side is left with half of a wheel. And you need both halves for it to keep spinning round.
I'm going to drop the elephant into the room. Star Trek is stigmatised by some people. It's classed as geeky but not necessarily cool-geeky. Its cool to like films based on comics, its cool to like Star Wars. You cannot go to a supermarket without seeing Marvel or Star Wars themed items for sale everywhere. I recently went into a massive shop in the UK that specialised in sci-fi and comic memorabilia. I was hard pushed to see any Star Trek related items for sale. Its the 50th anniversary; I was gobsmacked. Its like it's almost a non-event. Lets face it, Trek is a niche product. I enjoyed Star Trek Beyond. I'll be going to my third showing. I don't blame the film. I just blame the fact there are lots of people that aren't interested in Star Trek. LLAP.
I saw the movie twice, once last week and then today. Both times the theater looked about 3 quarters empty. It was a little sad because I thought good word of mouth would have gotten people to see it.
Also, I'm starting to notice something. Someone who worked on said film would begin the movie by thanking people for coming to the theater. Is this a new trend? It also happened during X-Men Apocalypse.
Also, I'm starting to notice something. Someone who worked on said film would begin the movie by thanking people for coming to the theater. Is this a new trend? It also happened during X-Men Apocalypse.
There were 3 sole TNG cast movies. The box office for Insurrection didn't cover the production costs and the 3rd did so poorly they put the franchise on hiatus. What are you basing these ROI claims on? First Contact is one of my favorite films but all in all those TNG films ran the series into the ground.
Whether the downfall of TNG movies was due budget or to a number of factors . . . . I don't know. I can tell you that the $100 million budget you cited for films made in the past few years would have still been about 15% higher than the amount they allocated to make Nemesis in 2002.
Plus those movies don't have the type of special effects required for a futuristic sci fi universe like Star Trek requires without resorting to television level CGI.
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I think the biggest thing was that you had TV people in control of a major motion picture franchise.
One of the things I love about Nemesis, is that it feels like something done by someone use to working with a wider frame. It felt like a movie.
And yet long term Nemesis and Insurrection still eventually made back their money for Paramount. And some profit. They sold well in the home market and continue to do so. The specific ROI for them was not great, compared to other offerings, which is why they retreated to tv for a large number of years. But the franchise still churned on. Has there been a dat since ~ 1970 where one piece of the franchise or another has not been earning money for CBS/Paramount? Be it Syndication, Streaming Licensing, Theatrical Release, Home Media Sales, Other Merchandising, etc. Each piece added reinforces and adds value to the whole. Even the ones that individually are not always the best performers.
It's not something unique to Star Trek. It's something that can happen when an IP hits a certain critical mass and has a very broad range of offerings in its library. Other perfect examples of this are Scooby Doo and TMNT's. The IP Franchise itself largely transcends the performance of any individual offering. The weird synergy's come into play, so long as the property is refreshed and kept relevant and in the public eye every so often. So long as the property isn't mismanaged and they don't grossly overspend on the refreshers, it just churns along.
Here's an example from this month of a property that is trying to hit that critical mass, but may have fallen short. Ghostbusters. Yes yes we all know the controversies surrounding the new movie. But funny thing about that new movie. While Sony is losing a boatload on it due to mismanagement, poor downright criminally destructive marketing, and the sad fact that the new movie is both atrocious and they spent way too much making it, the news to Sony is not all bad. I saw somewhere that Sony actually had better sales on their new 30th Anniversary BluRay sets than they did the new movie opening weekend. While people largely ignored the new movie itself, it did encourage them to go out and buy the new printing of the two old movies that they liked. The old movies that met their production costs 30 years ago. The old movies that are pure profit margin at this point. Star Trek is kind of like that.
I'm not saying they didn't run the franchise into the ground. They did. I hated all of them (TNG is my favorite series, BTW). I am saying that all things get run into the ground eventually, and a 4 movie run isn't bad, and overall the run was a financial success.
I consider GEN is a TNG film, but regardless, it's still a Trek film, and it did fine on a medium sized budget just like most Trek films. I'm not sure what you're talking about with Insurrection. It pulled in 112M on a 58M budget. It was a profitable movie that's why they decided to make another one. I say the ROI is probably better on the TNG era films because the overall production budgets relative to box office totals ratio will probably end up being about the same as the new films. The difference being that it didn't cost as much to market films back then (even when adjusted for inflation or relative to the films production budget), and because they weren't as dependent on overseas totals which are lower margin. Plus I think there was more money to be made selling physical copies of the movies and renting them back then.
I think the reason why the new ST films cost so much isn't because they're big and look great, I think it's mostly because of all mega action set pieces. This article basically explains how I feel: http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottme...chise-can-live-longer-and-be-more-prosperous/
I find it highly unlikely that Nemesis ever made it in the black even after its full 3 year revenue cycle (box office, DVD rental, DVD purchase, television rights, merchandizing, etc). Even if we assume a P&A cost as low as $40 million (quite low for this type of film) that's a total budget of $100 million minimum. Box office revenue would be about $32 million (the studios take of $22m domestically and $10m foreign). I'm sorry but there's no way that Nemesis made $68 million dollars on secondary and ancillary revenue. It wasn't even in the top 30 that year in DVD sales. The only places I've seen say that Nemesis made a profit are people who quote the movie made $67 million worldwide on a $60 million budget somehow believing that all box office grosses go right to the Studios and that theaters and their employees somehow work for free.
And when you are calculating ROI a film needs to make at least 10-15% to be considered a good investment. The financing for movies is almost like the derivative financing of the housing market back before the crash. It is more about overall Studio profit than individual movie success. If you are waiting for you third year of revenue to finally turn a profit then that's actually lowering your ROI because of the time it takes for investors to get their return (compared to other investments).
Star Trek insurrection is walking a tightrope financially when you do the numbers but it is close enough to believe it eventually made it in the black.
Television and movie libraries are great but they are minimal revenue streams compared to actual revenue of current and recent releases. And keep in mind that CBS and Paramount are separate entities with one having rights to the TV series and the other having the rights to the theatrical releases. They don't share syndication fees or television rights fees.
Exactly. I cringe when people say "it's cool to be a nerd in 2016!". No it's not, unless owning a Marvel snapback and spending one Friday night out of all the Fridays of the year watching the new Star Wars movie means you're a "SUPER AWESOME GEEK NERD!!!".
I'm walking on eggshells typing this out as I know how many passionate Kelvin era fans there are on here, but IMO, it's why turning Star Trek into large-budget big screen blockbuster extravaganzas that clash with a large part of your core audience is ultimately not going to produce the results you want them to. Star Trek is just not that kind of franchise. I liked Beyond, was fairly happy with '09, but they're not the shows, they're not the TOS films (no matter how schlocky and bad some of those got, I love them all).
If you stopped 100 strangers walking on the street and mentioned Star Trek to them, most people's gut instinct would be "ewwww". Star Wars appeals to everyone, Star Trek doesn't. It's a niche product ran by people who don't want to target their product towards a niche audience. We're never going to get another Star Trek: The Motion Picture produced by today's Paramount in today's Hollywood, it's now all about big money, big action and big returns, yet Star Trek just doesn't really fit that image.
We'll see how everyone feels when Discovery premieres. Either we're all just afraid of change, or maybe Paramount is doing something wrong.
Yep. Similarly, CBS Home Video expected sales of TOS boxed sets to sell well after the general public was exposed to the 2009 film. What did surprise them, though, was that all Star Trek boxed sets (TNG, DS9, VGR, ENT, the movies) saw big spikes in sales and extra stock had to be raced into production to satisfy demand.
I saw you mention it so here is my rough calculation on the numbers for Insurrection.
Costs
Production Budget = $58m
P&A = $60m (Print cost, foreign and domestic marketing)
Total = roughly $120 million
Revenue
Domestic = $38m (50-55% of US Box Office)
Foreign = $17m (40% of overseas Box Office)
Total Box Office = $55m (almost covers the Production budget)
My guess at overall revenue based on this type of film and Star Treks higher than normal merchandizing and DVD sales advantage would be around $135+million. Worst case it barely breaks even. Best case it turns a 15-20% profit.
Do you have any proof that these movies clash with a large part of the core audience? Seriously? I would tend to think anyone here is part of the core audience and there are many types of folks and opinions seem to run from "it sucks" to "it's awesome". All three films seem to rate very well with fans overall. I would think I'm part of the core audience, and I've enjoyed all three of the films far more than most of the stuff produced from 1987-2005.
Paramount turned Star Trek into a big budget blockbuster in 1979 with Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
There has always been room in Star Trek for many different versions. There is always a loud minority that hates anything new, that thinks they speak for the "core" audience, and that simply isn't the case. Wait until Discovery premieres.
Where are you getting these numbers from? All the outlets I find are reporting that Insurrection brought in 112M at the box office, which is pretty good on a 58M budget. Also, I think you estimate for marketing cost is too high.
Saturday night update. Looks like Jason Bourne is going to end up right around where Star Trek Beyond did last week - around $60m. The difference being that even if it has the same harsh drop in its second weekend that it was made on 2/3rds the budget of STB.
That and it seems to be doing better overseas. *ughh*
On the bright side I think we still have a decent shot at holding off PETS for 3rd place!
That and it seems to be doing better overseas. *ughh*
On the bright side I think we still have a decent shot at holding off PETS for 3rd place!
Numbers for what? Insurrection made $70 million domestic and about $42m overseas. Studio shares of box office is different from country to country. A good rule of thumb is 50-55% of domestic box office goes to the studio and 30-40% of foreign box office.
Revenue also varies from place to place. The domestic market is much better than overseas for secondary revenue. For example, DVD and Blue Ray can still pull in some significant revenue in the US while in Europe that market is pretty much gone (in the UK it's dropped from second to third largest source of revenue) so television becomes the second biggest revenue stream for most films. In China there are no marketing costs but the Studios only get a 25% return and there is no secondary market revenue streams at all.
So to do guesses you do have to take a look at how much a movie made and from what part of the world it came from.
As for marketting, today a tentpole production can easily have $100-250 million just in marketing. Ghostbusters marketing was around $150m for example even with all that free marketing from Progressive and Papa John's Pizza tie-ins.
Marketing back in the late 90s and early 2000s wasn't as expensive so I used a lower number. But also remember all film distribution back then was physical prints (it is usually digital now) and each screen needed its own print so that's at least $10-15m of my low P&A estimate. And since it is common knowledge that Nemesis was done so "on the cheap" I gave them a "cheap" marketing figure too (likely lower than actual but who knows).
I wasn't sure which numbers you wanted explained so I tried to cover them all.
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