I wanted to make some use of this as I never got around to sending it in to BoxOfficeProphets.com....it is unedited, but I just wanted to add it here.....
THE TREK MOVIE FRANCHISE PAST AND PRESENT
There are not many franchises that have had as much success as Star Trek. Five separate television series and ten movies have provided a lot of enjoyment for fans of Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the futureStar Trek
The Motion Picture expanded the universe that was created by the Television show from the 1960s and it was a big success for Paramount Pictures. In 1979 it was produced on a 35 million dollar budget and it brought in 82 million dollars at the domestic box office. It was released in early December and was the #1 film at the box office for weeks going into Christmas. When films make a profit sequels usually happen.
In 1982 Star Trek returned to the big screen in a huge way. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn was released at the height of the summer movie season in early June and it did extremely well. Shot on an 11 million dollar budget the movie earned that back and then some. In its opening weekend it came in #1 at the box office and earned over 14 million dollars. Not only would the film be a success at the box office but it faced a summer season that would be extremely competitive. Two weeks prior to The Wrath of Kahn opening Rocky III had done really well, and the following week one of the highest grossing films of all time would open, ET. Science fiction fans would have their choice of films during the summer of ’82 as Firefox, Bladerunner, and Tron were also available as choices as the summer progressed. The film would hold on to be the 6th highest grossing film of 1982 and it made a very profitable 78,000,000 for Paramount.
The success of The Wrath of Kahn brought on The Search for Spock in 1984. Paramount again went with a June release for the franchise and watched the film open to over 16 million dollars. Paramount had to be happy with this total as one of its other major franchises, Indiana Jones, had opened to an even higher number just a couple of weeks before. The Search for Spock would not be able to hold the #1 spot for long, as the mammoth Ghostbusters would take number one throughout most of the summer. Still, the Search for Spock would do impressively in its own right, and its 76 million dollars would rank 9th for the films of 1984.
In 1986 Paramount decided to move the release of the movies to the holiday season, and at least for the 4th movie film it paid off handsomely. Star Trek IV The Voyage home did extremely well at the box office raking in 109 million dollars through the holiday season of 1986 and the first part of 1987. The film was well received by audiences. It opened to nearly the same amount as did Star Trek III, but the legs for The Voyage home were to the tune of more than 30 million dollars more than any other trek film. Audiances enjoyed the film so much they embraced it to the point of pushing it to the 5th highest grossing film of 1986. Paramount had made three trek films in five years and the investment had made them a considerable amount of money.
After a three year break Paramount provided audiences with a fifth movie and the result for Star Trek V The Final Frontier was not the type of response Paramount or audiences were looking for. They moved the film back to the competitive summer season, increasing its chances for success, but also exposing it to a lot of competition. While some people enjoyed the movie, most viewers thought the film was average in story. It failed to bring in more than just Star Trek fans, and was up against very stiff competition at the box office. The 3rd Indiana Jones film (197 million) and Dead Poet’s Society (95 million) had opened in late May and were still solid. Star Trek V opened on June 9th 1989, and ended up competing against Ghostbusters II (112 million total), Honey I Shrunk The Kids (130 million total) Batman (251 million) and Lethal Weapon II (147 million total) over the next 4 weekends. With a mediocre film and a lot of quality options to see Star Trek V The Final Frontier only reached 52 million dollars domestically and was a disappointing 25th on the year’s top earners list.
With the original cast aging and with the Next Generation on television and starting to attract good ratings, Paramount decided to launch one more film based only on the original series characters. In 1991, just two years after Star Trek V didn’t meet expectations the studio pushed the Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country to a late year, holiday season release date. On the weekend of December 6th, 1991 it opened to a decent 18 million dollars. The film drew in some non trek fans and was liked by the die hards.
Competition was again stiff for the franchise as such films as Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (145 million), and The Adams Family (113 million) opened in the week’s prior and Hook (119 million) Father of the Bride (89 million) and Prince of Tides (74 million) opened in the weeks after. Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country did well, earned 74 million at the box office and was the 15th highest grossing film for 1991.
A three year gap was given to the franchise and going into 1994 Paramount spent 35 million dollars to group the Next Generation cast together with some members of the original series for Star Trek Generations. The Franchise was doing well on TV. TNG had just ended its run, the 3rd television series, Deep Space Nine was moving along, and the 4th Trek series, Star Trek Voyager was in development. Star Trek Generations opened on November 18th 1994 and earned most of its production budget back in its first weekend with 23 million. The options at the box office were strong yet again as The Santa Claus (144 million) and Interview with the Vampire (105 million) opened the week before. Generations went up against Disclosure (83 million) and Dumb and Dumber (127 million) in the weekends leading up to Christmas but settled in for a nice total of 75 million dollars domestically and 15th place on the years highest grossing films.
Another three year wait and the fans of Star Trek eagerly awaited the next installment. This would be the first film to not feature any of the original cast members and it was an opportunity for the Next Generation Cast to shine. Star Trek First Contact did exceptionally well, earning 30 million dollars in its first weekend on its way to 92 million domestically and 17th on the movie money making list for 1996. The fight for viewers on the big screen was again intense as the holiday season delivered such money makers as Micheal (95 million), Scream (103 million), 101 Dalmations (136 million) and Jerry Maguire (153 million). Paramount was happy enough with the effort, it made money and it still had two Trek television series running at the same time.
While there was plenty of Trek to watch the money being made from the franchise started to become less impressive as the 1990s was coming to an end. Ratings for the television shows (DS9 and Voyager) were strong enough to deliver runs of seven season’s each but declined. The 1998 film effort was Star Trek Insurrection, which was released on December 11th of that year. It earned 22 million dollars in its first weekend but wasn’t a hug profit for Paramount. It earned 70 million in the US theaters, but compared to the 58 million dollar price tag to produce the film the profits were not huge. It was only 28th for the year’s highest grossing films and cracks were showing in the armor.
In 2002 Star Trek Nemesis was released and continued the downward earnings for Trek. The newest TV show, Enterprise was not doing very well in the ratings. Against a 60 million dollar production budget Star Trek Nemesis failed to expand beyond committed Trek fans and was a major disappointment at the box office. It took in 18 million dollars in its first weekend but barley doubled its total after that and only brought in 43 million domestically. With worldwide totals added in the film was a small profit, but declining revenue forced Paramount into the position of taking a breath and halting any plans on future trek films. Star Trek Enterprise was cancelled after four seasons. No new Star Trek was being produced for the first time in a decade and a half.
All of this brings us to May of 2009. Paramount has J.J. Abrahms at the helm of the Trek Franchise now and has pushed the film’s original release date of Christmas 2008 to summer of 2009. The studio is expressing confidence they have a quality product on their hands. Placing it at the start of the summer movie season is a sign Paramount expects the film to produce nicely. Whether it can actually do so depends on movie goers and as discussed several times before….the competition.
The films scheduled for late April will still be in theaters, but will have been in release for a few weeks already. The weekend of April 17th has Crank: High Voltage and the star studded thriller State of Play with Ben Affleck and Russell Crowe. Both films should do well against the fantasy comedy 17 Again. The weekend of April 24th doesn’t appear likely to produce any massive rivals as Fighting should pull in its own audience and may have legs, but Trek will still be two weekends away. Obsessed won’t play to the same fans and the music drama, The Soloist, while appealing isn’t considered sci-fi action.
Which brings us to the now official start of the summer movie season, that first weekend of May. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past will be counter programming and will likely do well, but the monster of the week will be Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. Last year Paramount was able to open the early summer comic book movie Iron Man to an amazing 98 million dollars. Wolverine may not do that well, but it will be very strong. Based on Iron Man’s success in its second weekend (it was #1 again with another 51 million dollars) is it likely that Wolverine will play like Iron Man? Each film plays differently, but this begs the question…..what kind of position does this leave Star Trek?
Star Trek will open on May 8th, and will be going up against the only other new release Wild Child. Trek should be able to beat Wild Child as far as the new releases for the weekend, but the real big question will be how will it perform against Wolverine? While the movies and the weekends are different what can be learned from last year? The new releases for the second week of May, 2008 where What Happens in Vegas which turned into a mini-hit, and one of the biggest bombs of recent box office memory, Speed Racer.
It wasn’t until Prince Caspian came along during the May 16th-18th weekend with 55 million that Iron Man was dethroned but it still took in another amazing 31 million dollars.
Much of the short term success of Trek may also depend on what comes after, and the competition looks pretty big. Unless Trek can perform like no other Trek film ever has in the last twenty-five years, it will not win its second weekend. It will be going up against one of the biggest actors in Box Office history as Tom Hanks has his sequel to the da Vinci Code. If Trek can out perform Wolverine on the Weekend of May 8th-10th and do business respectable business against Tom Hanks in its 2nd weekend, then it should be well on its way to becoming a profitable movie for Paramount.
THE TREK MOVIE FRANCHISE PAST AND PRESENT
There are not many franchises that have had as much success as Star Trek. Five separate television series and ten movies have provided a lot of enjoyment for fans of Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the futureStar Trek
The Motion Picture expanded the universe that was created by the Television show from the 1960s and it was a big success for Paramount Pictures. In 1979 it was produced on a 35 million dollar budget and it brought in 82 million dollars at the domestic box office. It was released in early December and was the #1 film at the box office for weeks going into Christmas. When films make a profit sequels usually happen.
In 1982 Star Trek returned to the big screen in a huge way. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn was released at the height of the summer movie season in early June and it did extremely well. Shot on an 11 million dollar budget the movie earned that back and then some. In its opening weekend it came in #1 at the box office and earned over 14 million dollars. Not only would the film be a success at the box office but it faced a summer season that would be extremely competitive. Two weeks prior to The Wrath of Kahn opening Rocky III had done really well, and the following week one of the highest grossing films of all time would open, ET. Science fiction fans would have their choice of films during the summer of ’82 as Firefox, Bladerunner, and Tron were also available as choices as the summer progressed. The film would hold on to be the 6th highest grossing film of 1982 and it made a very profitable 78,000,000 for Paramount.
The success of The Wrath of Kahn brought on The Search for Spock in 1984. Paramount again went with a June release for the franchise and watched the film open to over 16 million dollars. Paramount had to be happy with this total as one of its other major franchises, Indiana Jones, had opened to an even higher number just a couple of weeks before. The Search for Spock would not be able to hold the #1 spot for long, as the mammoth Ghostbusters would take number one throughout most of the summer. Still, the Search for Spock would do impressively in its own right, and its 76 million dollars would rank 9th for the films of 1984.
In 1986 Paramount decided to move the release of the movies to the holiday season, and at least for the 4th movie film it paid off handsomely. Star Trek IV The Voyage home did extremely well at the box office raking in 109 million dollars through the holiday season of 1986 and the first part of 1987. The film was well received by audiences. It opened to nearly the same amount as did Star Trek III, but the legs for The Voyage home were to the tune of more than 30 million dollars more than any other trek film. Audiances enjoyed the film so much they embraced it to the point of pushing it to the 5th highest grossing film of 1986. Paramount had made three trek films in five years and the investment had made them a considerable amount of money.
After a three year break Paramount provided audiences with a fifth movie and the result for Star Trek V The Final Frontier was not the type of response Paramount or audiences were looking for. They moved the film back to the competitive summer season, increasing its chances for success, but also exposing it to a lot of competition. While some people enjoyed the movie, most viewers thought the film was average in story. It failed to bring in more than just Star Trek fans, and was up against very stiff competition at the box office. The 3rd Indiana Jones film (197 million) and Dead Poet’s Society (95 million) had opened in late May and were still solid. Star Trek V opened on June 9th 1989, and ended up competing against Ghostbusters II (112 million total), Honey I Shrunk The Kids (130 million total) Batman (251 million) and Lethal Weapon II (147 million total) over the next 4 weekends. With a mediocre film and a lot of quality options to see Star Trek V The Final Frontier only reached 52 million dollars domestically and was a disappointing 25th on the year’s top earners list.
With the original cast aging and with the Next Generation on television and starting to attract good ratings, Paramount decided to launch one more film based only on the original series characters. In 1991, just two years after Star Trek V didn’t meet expectations the studio pushed the Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country to a late year, holiday season release date. On the weekend of December 6th, 1991 it opened to a decent 18 million dollars. The film drew in some non trek fans and was liked by the die hards.
Competition was again stiff for the franchise as such films as Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (145 million), and The Adams Family (113 million) opened in the week’s prior and Hook (119 million) Father of the Bride (89 million) and Prince of Tides (74 million) opened in the weeks after. Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country did well, earned 74 million at the box office and was the 15th highest grossing film for 1991.
A three year gap was given to the franchise and going into 1994 Paramount spent 35 million dollars to group the Next Generation cast together with some members of the original series for Star Trek Generations. The Franchise was doing well on TV. TNG had just ended its run, the 3rd television series, Deep Space Nine was moving along, and the 4th Trek series, Star Trek Voyager was in development. Star Trek Generations opened on November 18th 1994 and earned most of its production budget back in its first weekend with 23 million. The options at the box office were strong yet again as The Santa Claus (144 million) and Interview with the Vampire (105 million) opened the week before. Generations went up against Disclosure (83 million) and Dumb and Dumber (127 million) in the weekends leading up to Christmas but settled in for a nice total of 75 million dollars domestically and 15th place on the years highest grossing films.
Another three year wait and the fans of Star Trek eagerly awaited the next installment. This would be the first film to not feature any of the original cast members and it was an opportunity for the Next Generation Cast to shine. Star Trek First Contact did exceptionally well, earning 30 million dollars in its first weekend on its way to 92 million domestically and 17th on the movie money making list for 1996. The fight for viewers on the big screen was again intense as the holiday season delivered such money makers as Micheal (95 million), Scream (103 million), 101 Dalmations (136 million) and Jerry Maguire (153 million). Paramount was happy enough with the effort, it made money and it still had two Trek television series running at the same time.
While there was plenty of Trek to watch the money being made from the franchise started to become less impressive as the 1990s was coming to an end. Ratings for the television shows (DS9 and Voyager) were strong enough to deliver runs of seven season’s each but declined. The 1998 film effort was Star Trek Insurrection, which was released on December 11th of that year. It earned 22 million dollars in its first weekend but wasn’t a hug profit for Paramount. It earned 70 million in the US theaters, but compared to the 58 million dollar price tag to produce the film the profits were not huge. It was only 28th for the year’s highest grossing films and cracks were showing in the armor.
In 2002 Star Trek Nemesis was released and continued the downward earnings for Trek. The newest TV show, Enterprise was not doing very well in the ratings. Against a 60 million dollar production budget Star Trek Nemesis failed to expand beyond committed Trek fans and was a major disappointment at the box office. It took in 18 million dollars in its first weekend but barley doubled its total after that and only brought in 43 million domestically. With worldwide totals added in the film was a small profit, but declining revenue forced Paramount into the position of taking a breath and halting any plans on future trek films. Star Trek Enterprise was cancelled after four seasons. No new Star Trek was being produced for the first time in a decade and a half.
All of this brings us to May of 2009. Paramount has J.J. Abrahms at the helm of the Trek Franchise now and has pushed the film’s original release date of Christmas 2008 to summer of 2009. The studio is expressing confidence they have a quality product on their hands. Placing it at the start of the summer movie season is a sign Paramount expects the film to produce nicely. Whether it can actually do so depends on movie goers and as discussed several times before….the competition.
The films scheduled for late April will still be in theaters, but will have been in release for a few weeks already. The weekend of April 17th has Crank: High Voltage and the star studded thriller State of Play with Ben Affleck and Russell Crowe. Both films should do well against the fantasy comedy 17 Again. The weekend of April 24th doesn’t appear likely to produce any massive rivals as Fighting should pull in its own audience and may have legs, but Trek will still be two weekends away. Obsessed won’t play to the same fans and the music drama, The Soloist, while appealing isn’t considered sci-fi action.
Which brings us to the now official start of the summer movie season, that first weekend of May. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past will be counter programming and will likely do well, but the monster of the week will be Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. Last year Paramount was able to open the early summer comic book movie Iron Man to an amazing 98 million dollars. Wolverine may not do that well, but it will be very strong. Based on Iron Man’s success in its second weekend (it was #1 again with another 51 million dollars) is it likely that Wolverine will play like Iron Man? Each film plays differently, but this begs the question…..what kind of position does this leave Star Trek?
Star Trek will open on May 8th, and will be going up against the only other new release Wild Child. Trek should be able to beat Wild Child as far as the new releases for the weekend, but the real big question will be how will it perform against Wolverine? While the movies and the weekends are different what can be learned from last year? The new releases for the second week of May, 2008 where What Happens in Vegas which turned into a mini-hit, and one of the biggest bombs of recent box office memory, Speed Racer.
It wasn’t until Prince Caspian came along during the May 16th-18th weekend with 55 million that Iron Man was dethroned but it still took in another amazing 31 million dollars.
Much of the short term success of Trek may also depend on what comes after, and the competition looks pretty big. Unless Trek can perform like no other Trek film ever has in the last twenty-five years, it will not win its second weekend. It will be going up against one of the biggest actors in Box Office history as Tom Hanks has his sequel to the da Vinci Code. If Trek can out perform Wolverine on the Weekend of May 8th-10th and do business respectable business against Tom Hanks in its 2nd weekend, then it should be well on its way to becoming a profitable movie for Paramount.
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