Was Beyond considered a financial success?

[Gojira]

With a production budget at $185 million and Domestic Gross at $158,693,695 million added to a foreign box office totaling $179,401,212 million and a world wide total of $338,094,907 million, is Star Trek Beyond considered to be financially successful by the studio or not?

 

[donners22]

We will never know for certain, but the odds are certainly strongly against it given the usual factors of assessing box office performance. It's clearly the least-successful of the Kelvin films.

It may become at least a limited financial success depending on how it does in post-cinema distribution, but its performance is unquestionably disappointing.

 

[photon70]

I'd say it needs DVD/Blue Ray sales plus first run income on TV before it actually breaks even.

 

[Visitor1982]

No.

Not a bomb, but not far from it.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Apparently not, although most articles I've read suggest it'll make a profit once digital downloads, home media and television rights are taken into account.

That said, Hollywood accounting is a strange and mysterious thing, with many big money movies being officially deemed financial failures (Return of the Jedi, being the biggest example)

Will that be enough to get us a fourth movie? Beyond was still Paramount's biggest movie this summer. But Paramount is in the midst of chaos, potentially being merged back into CBS after attempts to sell a minority share in the company failed. The people in charge in 2019 most likely won't he the same people who greenlit the first three Kelvin movies. They may have very different ideas for where to take Trek.

As a fan with zero connections and only knowledge gleaned from the Internet, I give Star Trek 4 a 50/50 chance of happening.

 

[Khan 2.0]

Apparently not, although most articles I've read suggest it'll make a profit once digital downloads, home media and television rights are taken into account.

That said, Hollywood accounting is a strange and mysterious thing, with many big money movies being officially deemed financial failures (Return of the Jedi, being the biggest example)

Will that be enough to get us a fourth movie? Beyond was still Paramount's biggest movie this summer. But Paramount is in the midst of chaos, potentially being merged back into CBS after attempts to sell a minority share in the company failed. The people in charge in 2019 most likely won't he the same people who greenlit the first three Kelvin movies. They may have very different ideas for where to take Trek.

As a fan with zero connections and only knowledge gleaned from the Internet, I give Star Trek 4 a 50/50 chance of happening.

maybe ST4 will end up in a similar situation to Alien 5. JJA saying its going to happen for certain with Hemsworth (like Blomkamp, Weaver, Biehn saying A5 going to happen), but then it being uncertain due to STBs box office and maybe the new series (like A5 being on hold due to the Prometheus sequels)

 

[KGator]

Was Beyond considered a financial success?

It will probably go in the black in the next few years. Something important to watch (as noted in a previous post on here) is the home video (DVD/Blue Ray) sales. The higher those are, the better (the sooner it starts turning a profit).

Now being close to the break even point is not the same thing as a "success" but it means it wasn't a failure. A failure in the sense of investors losing money, not in regards to their being another sequel. The return on investment might not be high but it should make some money, especially if home video for ST movies holds to form. Then you have merchandising (which may not be huge but most movies have none) sales, people buying other Star Trek movies, etc.

I think someone put the overall cost of the movie as $300 million ($180 Production + $120 Marketing). Some of the production includes costs of previous ideas but the marketing wasn't exorbitant if true.

If success is financing a movie and making money (or at least covering all your expenses) then it was a financial success. If you definition of success is making a movie and returning a solid percentage of profit as if it were a standard investment . . . it would be more of a disappointment. The movie underperformed its expectations.

 

[fireproof78]

Lower than expected but likely no one is going to get fired by Paramount and it will probably get a sequel.

We don't know all the factors to make any other determination.

 

[Smellmet]

It's kind of in a grey, no-man's land, it's definitely not a success, which would have been 400million+, nor is it a flat out bomb like Nemesis. I would say King Daniel is correct, the future of the franchise is in the balance 50/50, I wouldn't be surprised either way if ST4 happens or not.

 

[Cyke101]

Lower than expected but likely no one is going to get fired by Paramount and it will probably get a sequel.

That's my assessment, too. Its performance was probably more because of industry-wide franchise fatigue (not just Trek, but almost all other franchises this year); it seemed like almost everyone did everything just right and it still happened. Maybe Paramount could've done a better job marketing the film, but that's more on them than the cast and crew of the movie -- Paramount hasn't exactly done a bang-up job of promoting Trek's 50th birthday or linking the movie to such an achievement.

 

[Galileo7]

If there is a Star Trek 4 {14}, then it was successful enough.

 

[Shalashaska]

No. Between marketing costs and theater cuts (especially higher in China, where a decent amount of Beyond's money came from), I'd say it hasn't even broke even, let alone made a profit.

We'll see how it goes with home media sales.

 

[F. King Daniel]

If there is a Star Trek 4 {14}, then it was successful enough.

That's the only bar that matters.

 

[BillJ]

...is Star Trek Beyond considered to be financially successful by the studio or not?

Only Paramount knows. Anyone else is guessing.

 

[Tenacity]

If there is a Star Trek 4 {14}, then it was successful enough

Successful enough to retain the same writing team for the follow on movie? Or enough to do another movie, but with a new writing team?

 

[BillJ]

Successful enough to retain the same writing team for the follow on movie? Or enough to do another movie, but with a new writing team?

Moore and Braga wrote the most successful TNG movie and were promptly replaced. Orci and Kurtzman wrote the highest grossing Star Trek movie to date. So I'm not sure what kind of barometer replacing the writing team is?

 

[Shalashaska]

Moore and Braga wrote the most successful TNG movie and were promptly replaced. Orci and Kurtzman wrote the highest grossing Star Trek movie to date. So I'm not sure what kind of barometer replacing the writing team is?

In both those cases, it was just those writers moving on. Moore and Braga were asked to do Insurrection but specifically wanted to leave on the high of First Contact, Kurtzman left to work on other projects and Orci took off his writing cap for his director's cap (and was subsequently let go for unknown reasons).

But yes, I'm not fully sure if I understand @Tenacity's point.

 

[gerbil]

In both those cases, it was just those writers moving on. Moore and Braga were asked to do Insurrection but specifically wanted to leave on the high of First Contact, Kurtzman left to work on other projects and Orci took off his writing cap for his director's cap (and was subsequently let go for unknown reasons).

But yes, I'm not fully sure if I understand @Tenacity's point.

It sounds like he was let go because he wanted to take ST3 in a weird direction.

Beyond was dropped with little fanfare into the middle of a summer full of franchise blockbusters with wider appeal.

Beyond SHOULD have had a more robust and dedicated marketing effort.

 

[Jeyl]

Do the box office numbers factor in the percentage of what the theater takes in? I know it's around the 15-20% range, but if the numbers we're given are the grand based solely on the whole price alone, than the overall world wide take is about 50 million lower than what we have.

 

[Timby]

Orci took off his writing cap for his director's cap (and was subsequently let go for unknown reasons).

All indications were that Paramount never wanted to give him the director's chair in the first place but only did so because of Abrams' endorsement (primarily because Paramount desperately wants to maintain its positive relationship with Abrams / Bad Robot), and after the Orci / Payne / McKay script was rejected, Orci was subsequently sacked entirely.