In concur. This doesn't feel like the 'special' year for Trek that it should be. That it has lasted 50 years and didn't disappear into dust after the 3 years is amazing. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't celebrated much better than this.
Why didn't Beyond do better at the Box Office?
- Thread starter The Overlord
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No. It's because if you wallow in the mire it just makes you look bad. Ask Orci.
Showbiz people should leave it to fans to fight their own civil wars and accept the axiom that you can't please everyone all the time.
And that goes for all of the various controversies of late, like the cast of Beyond sniping back and forth with George Takei, Ghostbusters vs. nerdrage, Suicide Squad vs. Rotten Tomatoes, and whether Zoe Saldana is too hot to play Nina Simone.
It seems like you can't have a movie without some associated controversy these days to the point where you wonder whether it's actually part of the marketing.
Screenrant on Beyond's box office: http://screenrant.com/star-trek-beyond-box-office-success-failure/
I read the article at Screenrant. The author does not speak of the decline in box office for this film overseas. I looked at the box office returns for this film at BoxOfficeMojo.
Let's look at one major market: the United Kingdom.
Star Trek (2009) -
$35,392,062
Star Trek: Into Darkness (2012) -
$39,356,029
Star Trek Beyond (2016) (opened 7/21) -
$16,920,490
This trend is seen in the other big markets (those where the film made more $10,000,000) - Australia, Germany. (South Korea and Japan have not seen the film yet.) Most of the returns for this film from overseas market are down across the board. For China to have weight, it has to do better than the $59 million plus from ST: ID. And, from what I have read, a sizable chunk of the money stays in China. I do not see how the film franchise will continue. The franchise is not sustainable as it can not compete in a market where tentpole films are expected to succeed on their first weekend, for by the next weekend, they are being "cannibalized".
By the way, Paul Feig stated in an interview for a sequel to be green lighted, his film Ghostbusters had to make $500 million at the box office. Well, that did not happen. So, now Sony through Ghost Corps is looking at making an animated Ghostbusters movie. It is not, as far as I know, a sequel to the live action film. What is the amount needed for a sequel to STB? It has to be greater than $380, more like over $400 easily.
I see the onus of keeping this franchise viable falling onto Star Trek: Discovery. God, let's pray it is good - like TNG good. (DS9, VOY, and ENT all struggled and TAS was a blip.)
There is another issue, one I saw tonight. The Star Trek films seem small. Looking at the trailer for Rogue One - I was struck by two somethings. The characters seem to exist in these large universes and there are iconic images. The image of a star destroyer over a settlement is astounding. It is something that could only exist before in graphic novels or in books. Now, it can be realized. Where are the iconic images from Star Trek Beyond? Where is the feeling that these characters exist in a larger universe?
Let's look at one major market: the United Kingdom.
Star Trek (2009) -
$35,392,062
Star Trek: Into Darkness (2012) -
$39,356,029
Star Trek Beyond (2016) (opened 7/21) -
$16,920,490
This trend is seen in the other big markets (those where the film made more $10,000,000) - Australia, Germany. (South Korea and Japan have not seen the film yet.) Most of the returns for this film from overseas market are down across the board. For China to have weight, it has to do better than the $59 million plus from ST: ID. And, from what I have read, a sizable chunk of the money stays in China. I do not see how the film franchise will continue. The franchise is not sustainable as it can not compete in a market where tentpole films are expected to succeed on their first weekend, for by the next weekend, they are being "cannibalized".
By the way, Paul Feig stated in an interview for a sequel to be green lighted, his film Ghostbusters had to make $500 million at the box office. Well, that did not happen. So, now Sony through Ghost Corps is looking at making an animated Ghostbusters movie. It is not, as far as I know, a sequel to the live action film. What is the amount needed for a sequel to STB? It has to be greater than $380, more like over $400 easily.
I see the onus of keeping this franchise viable falling onto Star Trek: Discovery. God, let's pray it is good - like TNG good. (DS9, VOY, and ENT all struggled and TAS was a blip.)
There is another issue, one I saw tonight. The Star Trek films seem small. Looking at the trailer for Rogue One - I was struck by two somethings. The characters seem to exist in these large universes and there are iconic images. The image of a star destroyer over a settlement is astounding. It is something that could only exist before in graphic novels or in books. Now, it can be realized. Where are the iconic images from Star Trek Beyond? Where is the feeling that these characters exist in a larger universe?
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That initial F&F/Beastie bike trailer caused it. It couldn't recover from that. Especially as it played for the most part before TFA. I read somewhere it just looked like Trek was trying too hard to be cool - like 'hey kidz plz like me! I'm cool too just like all the stuff you like!' (therefore turning off fans and kids)
Ironically the trailer makes alot of sense after you've seen the movie!
Ironically the trailer makes alot of sense after you've seen the movie!
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Good commercially or in terms of quality?
If the former, the distribution method alone will ensure it won't get near TNG. If the latter, it's pretty debatable that DS9 "struggled" more than TNG in that sense, and quality alone will not ensure its survival.
I didn't expect more after Nemesis bombed and Enterprise was cancelled. Instead I got three enjoyable films and at least a season of a new series. I can live with that.
Films can recover from bad trailers. I remember vaguely at least one film where this was the case. (Star Trek Beyond, at least, has one good thing going for it. It was not edited by the same team that did the trailers as what happened with Suicide Squad. Never ever allow the editors for a trailer edit your film should be a mantra in Hollywood. Ugh - Suicide Squad was multiple films struggling to exist in a single body. )
Marketing a movie is NOT bringing the biggest amount of asses in theater seats, despite what people claim. Marketing is about getting the right asses in the theater seats. There is a reason many trailers for their specific genre are eerily similar. And it is absolutely easy to cut a trailer in a way more people or other kinds of people will see it (you can see a ton of "re-cuts" on Youtube, where they make horror-movies look like dramas or comedies etc.).
The studio doesn't necessarily cares for critic scores. They care for word of mouth. People going into a movie that are negatively surprised by said movie is actually the worst thing a studio can imagine. And in this case the Suicide Squat marketing was a disaster. They had to severely alter to movie itself, so it represented the marketing strategy. Otherwise it would have done a severe damage to the DC-brand as a whole. People now complain the movie was incoherent (because it was completely re-edited, and core scenes reshot). But if they had released the original (much darker, less "fun", less pop-song-y) cut of the film, people would never ever trust a DC trailer again. That would have been much worse. Imagine people going "the trailer looks good, but so did the last few and the movie was completely different and sucked".
Yeah, objectively Suicide Squad turned out to be a success. But it needed to completely butcher the original artistic vision of the creative people behind, because otherwise it would have burned up all of WB's marketing credibility. They turned the creative people away in order not to turn the viewers away. Whatever is the final result, they destroyed a lot of good-will and credibility with this one, something that is basically the most precious good when you want to advertise a whole brand.
Of course the final result is not a "disaster". That was hyperbole. But they burned A LOT of money - basically cutting two versions of the movie at the same time, and needing excessive reshoots that balloned the budget - to salvage the movie to fit the marketing campaign and create a moderat success. I wouldn't exactly call that "smooth".
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You have a point about the "artistic vision" of a movie. What the director wanted to portray versus the trailer setup and even the final cut . . . but that's another discussion. I'll agree that Studios don't care about critical review IF a movie has good word of mouth but sometimes those two are linked. A well reviewed movie can bring in more initial viewers and spread the WOM faster.
Word of Mouth is nice but is growing less and less important every year. If you read some of my earlier posts, I explained that the Theatrical run of movies is growing shorter and shorter every year. For the vast majority of movies 85-95% of your final take will have occurred within the first 4 weeks of release. In fact, 80-90% will be made by the end of the 4 weekend. For larger blockbusters it is closer to 85-90% for 4th weekend and 90-95% for the fourth week. So having positive WOM is great but if you don't have a large group spreading that WOM it won't have a significant impact as you will be losing screens too quickly for any type of long term gain. Obviously there are outliers here (the huge successes) and animated films tend to behave a little differently but that's the current box office landscape.
A big opening weekend is much much more important than positive WOM. If STB had great WOM maybe it would have gotten to the $180-200m range on a $60m opening weekend. An $85 million OW with average to negative WOM will still likely make it to $210-215 million in its run. So do the math, it's obvious which has become more important.
I wouldn't call Suicide Squad or Beyond's trailers misleading at all. This is not a bait and switch like Goodnight Mommy where the trailer is presenting a different movie then you get. Beyond is a star trek movie where the crew is stranded on a planet, a motorcycle jump happens, and beastie boys happens. That's exactly what the movie is.
Good news from Germany. Beyond has legs there. 
Moviegoers:
Beyond
1. weekend: 303,391
overall after first week: 344,583
2. weekend: 222,248 (-27 %)
overall after second week: 717,469
3. weekend: 139,427 (-37 %)
overall after third week: 978,615
STID
1. weekend: 446,915
overall after first week: 526,828
2. weekend: 246,776 (-45 %)
overall after second week: 905,758
3. weekend: 131,582 (-47 %)
overall after third week: 1,176,491
at the end of the year: 1,516,939
ST09
1. weekend: 421,593 (I think previews counted here, too)
2. weekend: ~ 189,000 (-55 %)
overall after second week: 760,136
3. weekend: ~ 122, 850 (-35 %)
at the end of the year: 1,272,813
Moviegoers:
Beyond
1. weekend: 303,391
overall after first week: 344,583
2. weekend: 222,248 (-27 %)
overall after second week: 717,469
3. weekend: 139,427 (-37 %)
overall after third week: 978,615
STID
1. weekend: 446,915
overall after first week: 526,828
2. weekend: 246,776 (-45 %)
overall after second week: 905,758
3. weekend: 131,582 (-47 %)
overall after third week: 1,176,491
at the end of the year: 1,516,939
ST09
1. weekend: 421,593 (I think previews counted here, too)
2. weekend: ~ 189,000 (-55 %)
overall after second week: 760,136
3. weekend: ~ 122, 850 (-35 %)
at the end of the year: 1,272,813
Forbes has an article up just today "Why ST Beyond hasn't hit warp speed at the box office "
Gets wordy but about 2/3 way down blames the marketing for movie. Can google it can't create a link lol
Gets wordy but about 2/3 way down blames the marketing for movie. Can google it can't create a link lol
It's true, it would take about $100 million in China to equal what Paramount would make with a $20-21 million UK Box office. However, there are also Marketing costs that have to be accounted for in the UK that are not part of China so it balances it out somewhat (closes the gap). A UK Box office of $20m equates to revenue of about $26 million minus $5-15 million in marketing (depending on how hard Paramount hit the market) versus a Chinese take of $60 million equating to about $16.2 in revenue with no real marketing costs (there is no Hollywood marketing allowed in China and anything done by local partners/distributors is not done by paramount).
And the best you can hope for in the UK is probably $40-50m for a Star Trek film. A Trek film breaking out in China could make upwards of $180 million or more. I'm not saying it will do anything close to that but films have been released in China and just exploded unexpectedly. I think STB will make somewhere in the $90-120m range based on the performance of similar films.
I do like your comment about the "overall larger universe". I agree . . . there doesn't seem to be the same sense of being part of a larger universe like you have in the Star Wars series.
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Good news from Germany. Beyond has legs there.
Moviegoers:
Beyond
1. weekend: 303,391
overall after first week: 344,583
2. weekend: 222,248 (-27 %)
overall after second week: 717,469
3. weekend: 139,427 (-37 %)
overall after third week: 978,615
STID
1. weekend: 446,915
overall after first week: 526,828
2. weekend: 246,776 (-45 %)
overall after second week: 905,758
3. weekend: 131,582 (-47 %)
overall after third week: 1,176,491
at the end of the year: 1,516,939
ST09
1. weekend: 421,593 (I think previews counted here, too)
2. weekend: ~ 189,000 (-55 %)
overall after second week: 760,136
3. weekend: ~ 122, 850 (-35 %)
at the end of the year: 1,272,813
Yeah, I saw that. I'm waiting to see how this weekend goes but the drops have not been as bad there as in other countries even though the opening weekend was down. Then again, it has been a slow year in Germany. I think the overall box office is down there.
I wish I could figure out why. I doubt it's because a small segment of the viewing public got their knickers in a twist about a perfectly fine trailer. I suspect they needed to do more marketing, but maybe they were worried about just the kind of crybaby gatekeeping they got about what publicity they did do.
Whatever the reason, it's a shame. This was the best one they've had in a while.
Whatever the reason, it's a shame. This was the best one they've had in a while.
Just paste the text of the article title in:
Why 'Star Trek Beyond' Hasn't Hit Warp Speed At The Box Office
Then highlight that text, click the link button in the menu above, paste the article URL into the box, and click the Insert button.
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