Ultimate blockbusters? Well, yeah I'd agree ST has never been that.
My only criteria was listing the Trek films that made it in the top 10 domestic for their year of release. I did overlook a couple though because I only looked up the three or four I knew had made the most money -- ST09, FC, TVH, and TMP.
Here is the domestic ranking per Box Office Mojo for each ST film:
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979): #4
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982): #8
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984): #8
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986): #7 for 1986, #25 for 1987
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989): #21
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991): #21 for 1991, #58 for 1992
- Star Trek: Generations (1994): #17 for 1994, #159 for 1995
- Star Trek: First Contact (1996): #14 for 1996, #157 for 1997
- Star Trek: Insurrection (1998): #40 for 1998, #109 for 1999
- Star Trek: Nemesis (2002): #74 for 2002, #157 for 2003
- Star Trek (2009): #7
- Star Trek Into Darkness (2013): #10
- Star Trek Beyond (2016): #16
Certainly
Star Trek has never been on the level of
Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Back to the Future, etc., though not for lack of trying with ST09. But by the same token, making it to the top 10 -- and for TMP, the top 5! -- ain't nothin' to sneeze at. So I was using a more liberal definition of blockbuster than you were and I agree there's an important quantitative difference between ST's performance and those "ultimate blockbusters." But I do think "blockbuster" is a legitimate description for the ten highest-grossing movies in a year.
If we restrict it to only the top five, though, then clearly only TMP has reached "blockbuster" status.
Anyway, it's interesting how the first four films were all in the top ten for their years... and then TFF fell off a cliff that none of the following films could recover from until ST09. Even FC, celebrated as it was, couldn't crack the top 15. Then they drop again with INS, and then they drop
again with NEM. Not only ST09 do they get back in the top ten. There's only a small drop from ST09 to ID, then then BEY has a steep fall again into Trek's 1990s territory.
Just looking at what was released in some of those years, and the film's relative take to those near it in the rankings, and Beyond, to me, shouldn't be looked at as a poor performance. Of the films above it, the only one I hadn't heard of was "Sing", it was up against 3 Marvel films, 2 Star Wars, 2 DC, a HP so it was never cracking top 10 anyway.
It also beat out X-Men (admittedly a poorly rec'd X-Men but still), Ghostbusters reboot, Independence Day 2 and some other really big hitters.
Into Darkness was essentially the best of the rest in 2013 too (and only $10m off FF6 up in 8th place) - you look at the list of films and again, it isn't beating any of those no matter what you do (Iron Man 3, Hunger Games, Man of Steel, Hobbit etc are all going to out do Trek any day and it smashed films like The Great Gatsby, Wolverine, Hangover 3 and so on which you'd expect big takes for).
Trek 09 - again it is a best of the rest, beaten out by Transformers 2 (probably peak of the series), Avatar, Harry Potter 6, Twilight and smashed some huge films like Fast & Furious, GI Joe, X Men Origins, Ice Age and so on.
Trek can compete at the highest levels, just that within the rough genre that people see Trek (falls into the Marvel zone but as the uncool stepchild of it in terms of wider audience and Execs) it will never be top of the mountain and the amounts those other films will take makes it look shit no matter what.
Nemesis was a shit show to be fair (combine 2002 and 2003 US of $42m which on my listing puts it in mid 50s) but Insurrection did a combined 1998 and 1999 of $70ish which would put it around 25th and on par with Lost in Space and Blade which isn't bad.
FC returns to best of the rest status, taking $89m with the next above it at $100m so a clear gap. It beat out Space Jam though, and 1996 was another year of huge films (like 2013 and 2016) with the likes of Independence Day, Twister, MI, Nutty Professor, 101 Dalmations, and Hunchback of Notre Dame all above FC.
It actually beat out Toy Story by $50m, with them released the same date!
As has been said before - Trek is the middle of the road solid banker. It'll do enough to keep things turning over but you aren't going to see a smash hit sadly.
