Why is the new film doing so terribly outside the US..???

[VulcanJedi]

Though the film is doing great in the US, only 29.5 % of its entire box office gross comes from overseas... That's ridiculously low I think.... I know ST has a really, REALLY bad stigma to overcome, but the DVD sales are great overseas, so why is the film doing so badly. Someone once claimed that the international public tends to g for more intellectual films instead of the big hollywood action blockbusters, but that's not true. Wolverine has almost 48% overseas gross, and Fast & Furious even 54%!

I think it's a bad thing.... I know a sequel will come, but I guess Paramount will lose some faith in the franchise when it comes to international interest...

The world movie goer is disinterested in Trek for the same reasons we are: it's been smug and dull for the last 15 years. A key difference IMO, is the world hasn't seen the marketing blitz that we saw, and no, they don't have the core fan base the U.S. has to spread word of mouth. Who in Asia or Europe has heard of "Lost?" or J.J. Abrams?

Smart people like fun movies too and as stated, regardless of conventional wisdom of the "high-art minded" Europeans, action movies do well overseas. The "world" audience likes the same things we do; fast food--Gyros, Pizza, Tacos, Cheesburgers, egg noodles--and action/romance films. (Titanic)

I predict, and bet the NEXT Trek installment does better overseas.

 

[Michael]

Who in Asia or Europe has heard of "Lost?" or J.J. Abrams?

Can't speak for Asia, but I'd say you greatly underestimate the success of Lost in Europe.

 

[Jeri]

I'll just throw this into the mix, regarding Trek DVD sales. In Europe, when VOY:Endgame came out, the two-parter episode went to the top of their DVD sales charts, beating out the movie, "Shrek."

Personally, I'd like to see some info on the movie DVD release date. Is it really going to be Christmas, as some have postulated?

 

[Greg Cox]

This is a fascinating thread. I'm curious, though. If TREK is so unappreciated overseas, who is buying all the foreign translations of TREK novels? I mean, I've got a shelf of French, German, and Italian editions of my books--and even saw Italian translations on sale in Rome once.

 

[flemm]

This is a fascinating thread. I'm curious, though. If TREK is so unappreciated overseas, who is buying all the foreign translations of TREK novels? I mean, I've got a shelf of French, German, and Italian editions of my books--and even saw Italian translations on sale in Rome once.

Well, I'm not sure anyone would argue that Trek has had no success overseas. There are Star Trek conventions all over the world, and sci-fi fans everywhere certainly know of Trek and create a market for it.

I think it is more a question of scale, and a question of the franchise's appeal to the casual movie-goer abroad, as compared to the appeal of the average american blockbuster.

 

[Australis]

It's not doing badly in Australia.

 

[Eddie Roth]

As for Germany, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this film actually perform worse than freakin' Nemesis at the box office? I couldn't believe it when I heard this. I'm not sure, but I guess the reason for this is the lack of advertisement the movie got around here.

This was true of the opening weekend. I don't know how this has developed. Maybe this means that TNG is in fact more popular in Germany. Or it means people aren't willing to make the same mistake twice. "I went to see the last one and it was shit. No way am I going to see that new one." Or something like that... Even more astounding is that Angels and Demons sold more than 1.1 million tickets on its first weekend while ST only had 760.000 in two weeks! But again, I suppose this is because of advertising. ProSieben showed nothing but previews for A&D for weeks. And many theaters had heavily advertised pre-sales for it for nealy a month while there was no such thing for ST. I wonder why.

 

[Roald]

Who in Asia or Europe has heard of "Lost?" or J.J. Abrams?

I don't think you realise just how big 'Lost' is over here, and JJ is a very well known director here as well..!

As I've said before, Trek certainly HAS a fanbase here in Europe..! The DVD's sell very, very well..! I don't think Europeans are put off by the fact that Starfleet seems to made up of mostly Americans. I don't think anybody really cares about that, since most of the succesful television series over here are from the US anyway (excluding strictly national productions).

It makes me wonder more and more why Trek is doing so """terribly"""" (as in: not as good as Wolverine, which really, really bugs me..! )

 

[drmick]

Though the film is doing great in the US, only 29.5 % of its entire box office gross comes from overseas... That's ridiculously low I think.... I know ST has a really, REALLY bad stigma to overcome, but the DVD sales are great overseas, so why is the film doing so badly. Someone once claimed that the international public tends to g for more intellectual films instead of the big hollywood action blockbusters, but that's not true. Wolverine has almost 48% overseas gross, and Fast & Furious even 54%!

I think it's a bad thing.... I know a sequel will come, but I guess Paramount will lose some faith in the franchise when it comes to international interest...

The world movie goer is disinterested in Trek for the same reasons we are: it's been smug and dull for the last 15 years. A key difference IMO, is the world hasn't seen the marketing blitz that we saw, and no, they don't have the core fan base the U.S. has to spread word of mouth. Who in Asia or Europe has heard of "Lost?" or J.J. Abrams?

Smart people like fun movies too and as stated, regardless of conventional wisdom of the "high-art minded" Europeans, action movies do well overseas. The "world" audience likes the same things we do; fast food--Gyros, Pizza, Tacos, Cheesburgers, egg noodles--and action/romance films. (Titanic)

I predict, and bet the NEXT Trek installment does better overseas.

Lost is a success in all developed countries, including all of Europe and most of Asia (I know South Korea, UAE and Saudi Arabia for sure heavily promote it).

Back on topic, I'm going to say the lack of foreign success is a societal issue. Here in Belfast, the two big local cinemas have only put it into one screen each, with 3 showings daily. This is in comparison to the likes of Star Wars and Harry Potter getting at least two screens (and sometimes as many as five) for a couple of weeks at a time.

I'm going to say that only the USA (and Japan for their local stuff) have populations of nerd/geeks large enough to sustain a success for a science fiction film.

(Only Star Wars seems to buck the trend in the smaller international markets).

 

[Jeri]

Star Wars's story -- while including lots of cool science-fiction features -- is a fantasy, like LOTR or Harry. Nobody need get involved with the science.

 

[mikey33]

I don't think that Star Trek is doing too badly in the UK, the financial numbers are comparable to Wolverine and Angels & Demons (having checked on the BBC website!).

 

[Jeri]

A&D did worse than expected in the UK, I saw.

 

[Zeppster]

The movie is doing better than expected everywhere. 2 months ago the biggest Trek fans in the world thought if this movie made about 100-150 million world wide that's pretty successful. Those were the optimists. This thing should make over 300 million before going to DVD.

 

[Australis]

A big difference that will tell in the end, both in the US and ovrseas, is that Trek fans who like it will see it multiple times. Moviegoers wil not go to Wolverine or A&D multiple times.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

As for Germany, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this film actually perform worse than freakin' Nemesis at the box office? I couldn't believe it when I heard this. I'm not sure, but I guess the reason for this is the lack of advertisement the movie got around here.

Oh, and I think it has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Star Trek is American centric. Almost 100% of the movies in German theatres are from the US. So I think this argument is pretty moot.

Really? do you have actual numbers? I worked in a theater when Nemesis was released and it performed very poorly. My impression from the premiere was a different one. Also two weeks later on my second viewing of the not-dubbed version was quite crowded.
Anyway it seemed to perform better the Nemesis.

 

[Phily B]

I'm sure the bods at Paramount will look at getting more of an audience from Trek 2.

 

[indranee]

you mean Trek XII, right?

TWOK will always be Trek II!

 

[Michael]

Really? do you have actual numbers? I worked in a theater when Nemesis was released and it performed very poorly. My impression from the premiere was a different one. Also two weeks later on my second viewing of the not-dubbed version was quite crowded.
Anyway it seemed to perform better the Nemesis.

This goes into more detail regarding the numbers of Star Trek versus Nemesis. (It's in German, though.) Oh, and I absolutely agree: It feels like Star Trek is performing really well. But it seems like this feeling is not necessarily reinforced by reality.

 

[Admiral Bear]

I don't think the film is doing badly overseas, it's just that it's made so much more money in the US than previous Trek films, while the overseas gross is pretty much on par in real terms with what First Contact made. Before anyone goes blah at me, I've not done the inflation calculations.

Non US Trek grosses have historically stayed fairly stable aside from Nemesis.

Mathematically, it's no surprise that the non US gross percentage is very low when the film has massively over achieved in the US. I would say the film has done better than expected overseas.

 

[mswood]

People need to understand this very basic idea, Trek (with the exception of a few countries mainly english speaking ones) does incredibly poorly.

I mean look at France (Trek sucks in France) and this movie compared to other major films also does poorly. But it managed more in one day then Nemesis did for its full run. In almost every market it has played it is performing better then almost every single Trek release.

And thats counting dollars and tickets sold.

And here is the kicker Viacom doesn't expect much from this release overseas.

The only feature that did any real business overseas is the Motion Picture. And that wasn't because of it being Star Trek. Most of the non-english speaking part of the world that it was just a another scifi film (like Star Wars) and thats why that film succeeded as well as it did.

Once that happen to other TOS film every did any meaningful business overseas.

TNG films did better (then II-VI, even adjusted) because in the worlds eyes it wasn't such a campy niche film. But it was still at best in those cases just a marginal performer.

The studio knows all this, they no that in the worlds eye Star Trek is a joke. Yes there are fans world wide, but it is not nor has it ever been successful.

Now in english speaking parts of the world its different. Trek has been moderately successful there.

The point of this film was to get some f those who judge Trek has a joke to see it in a new light. But they knew this was a huge, huge uphill to climb.

The studio has said multiple times that they were shooting at a $100 million overseas gross. They should get that (possible a little more).

Just like they new that in the US, though Trek has been successful in film and tv, its never broke out (on film at least) . Their goal for this (and one they have been upfront about) is that they wanted this to do reach a level of Casino Royale, Superman Returns and Batman Begins and that if they could reach those two goals (the US one and the overseas one) to build upon that for the its next release.

If it couldn't get to both those goals (or far exceed one and miss the other) then Viacom would have said ok Trek isn't a viable big budget production.

As it is, the film will exceed its US goals (on about Friday or Saturday) and should also pass its Overseas goal in the next 10 to 15 days.