Why wasn't TWOK more commercially successful?

[Maurice]

^^^That doesn't quite follow. First Contact did well, but the next film they made was Insurrection, which didn't fare so well. I think they went bigger budget with Nemesis because they had a director and screenwriter with enough clout to make it seem like a good idea.

 

[JarodRussell]

^^^That doesn't quite follow. First Contact did well, but the next film they made was Insurrection, which didn't fare so well. I think they went bigger budget with Nemesis because they had a director and screenwriter with enough clout to make it seem like a good idea.

Or Insurrection did fare well.

 

[Freman]

Wasn't WOK in the Top Ten or something that year? What more do you want?

 

[TOS-Fan]

Wasn't WOK in the Top Ten or something that year? What more do you want?

# 6 for the year behind E.T, Tootsie, An Officer and A Gentleman, Rocky III and Porky's

http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1982&p=.htm

 

[JarodRussell]

Wasn't WOK in the Top Ten or something that year? What more do you want?

# 6 for the year behind E.T, Tootsie, An Officer and A Gentleman, Rocky III and Porky's

http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1982&p=.htm

Better than Star Trek 2009 then (at #7).

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Some have said that if TWOK had been considered a failure back in 1982 we wouldn't have gotten TNG.

It was the blockbuster business of ST IV that caused Paramount to seek a new weekly ST series.

Ian, I hate to correct you like this, but that's demonstrably incorrect. Paramount did not go from nothing on January 1, 1987 to full-fledged series in September.

Work began on TNG in early 1986. (And even earlier if you count Paramount's offers to Bennett and Nimoy, and the series that Greg Strangis wrote a bible for that was ultimately scrapped.) The Voyage Home came out in late 1986. The success of one did not influence the other.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, it's all more complicated still than that. Certainly the studio was anxious to announce the Trek series in the midst of the publicity run-up for ST IV (mid-October 1986) because they were very optimistic about the film and wanted to leverage what they saw as rising public interest in Star Trek.

While the studio had made several stabs at putting together a sequel series, it wasn't going anywhere fast for a number of reasons. One was finding a venue - they talked to FOX and couldn't come to terms on business issues. This was all very much about accounting - they had an idea of what kind of money they'd have to spend on the show and what kind of financial commitments they'd need to guarantee that they wouldn't lose money on it. Mel Harris, then President of Paramount Television, put together deals including sales in overseas markets that finally made the show look doable as long at they produced at least one full season of episodes.

If the show had been cancelled after a single season, BTW, the plan was to fold it into the TOS syndication package as a fourth season and try to raise the price on that.

 

[TOS-Fan]

Wasn't WOK in the Top Ten or something that year? What more do you want?

# 6 for the year behind E.T, Tootsie, An Officer and A Gentleman, Rocky III and Porky's

http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1982&p=.htm

Better than Star Trek 2009 then (at #7).

It's an interesting comparison.
TWOK made back about 7 times it's budget - 78M on 11M budget.
ST (09) made back 2.5 times it's budget - 385M on 150M budget

Of course, ST (09) made many more dollars but I don't think you could call TWOK a failure in any way, shape or form.

 

[Dream]

TWOK made back about 7 times it's budget - 78M on 11M budget.
ST (09) made back 2.5 times it's budget - 385M on 150M budget

Of course, ST (09) made many more dollars but I don't think you could call TWOK a failure in any way, shape or form.

You can't compare. Movies were made for much less back then. It is impossible to make a blockbuster with just 11 million these days.

 

[TOS-Fan]

I'm not saying that you can, just that TWOK was a very successful movie for the studios. For an 11 million $ investment they made 78 million and that's not counting merchandising, rentals, etc.

 

[Shon T'Hara]

You can't compare. Movies were made for much less back then. It is impossible to make a blockbuster with just 11 million these days.

Paranormal Activity was made for only $15,000 and topped $100 million in the US alone.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

I suspect that's true of the Blair Witch Project as well.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Novelty can overcome a lot of limitations - sometimes.

 

[Distorted Humor]

^^^That doesn't quite follow. First Contact did well, but the next film they made was Insurrection, which didn't fare so well. I think they went bigger budget with Nemesis because they had a director and screenwriter with enough clout to make it seem like a good idea.

First Contact was made for 46 million, a (comparatively) low budget film that made tons of money. a lot higher then a lot of the other films.

So they doubled the budget and had a bad movie, and Nemesis may have lost money dependent on the accounting (depends on DVD sales and so on.

In millions
Movie -- US Gross -- International Gross -- Cost

ST1 -- 82.2 -- 135 --35
ST2 -- 79.9 -- 96 -- 12
ST3 -- 76.5 -- 87 -- 18
ST4 -- 109.7 -- 133 -- 24
ST5 -- 52.2 -- 70.2 -- 30
ST6 -- 74.9 -- 96.9 -- 27
ST7 -- 75.7 -- 120 -- 38
ST8 -- 92 -- 150 -- 46
st9 -- 70.2 -- 117.8 -- 70
ST10 -- 43.3 -- 67.3 - 60
ST11 -- 257.7 -- 385.7 -- 140

Prior to DVD sales, A movie needs to DOUBLE its production cost to break even , and what studio seek is to break even after US domestic, so all overseas money (which sometimes does not break down 50-50) and DVD sales are profit. Star Trek, with the exception of ST9 (which most likely broke even or produced a small profit) and ST nemesis (which most likely is still in the hole in a major way) has been highly profitable. Even STV which was the biggest failure of the first six films did alright, just not the cash cow they where hoping for.

For a number of years due to strong DVD sales, a movie would only have to earn about half it costs in the US market. However DVD sales have been falling, which means you need to do better or cut costs.

 

[sonak]

^^^That doesn't quite follow. First Contact did well, but the next film they made was Insurrection, which didn't fare so well. I think they went bigger budget with Nemesis because they had a director and screenwriter with enough clout to make it seem like a good idea.

Or Insurrection did fare well.

negative. Insurrection made a whopping twenty million less than FC, which had only come out two years earlier. It had the third-worst domestic box office total for a Trek film, ahead of only TFF and NEM. It did not fare well by any reasonable standard. I think that's why there was a four-year gap between INS and NEM.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I read recently that the current break-even formula is about 180 percent of production costs - and since I read it somewhere, probably on the Internet, it must be true.

 

[sonak]

I read recently that the current break-even formula is about 180 percent of production costs - and since I read it somewhere, probably on the Internet, it must be true.

I'd heard that making twice the production costs was breaking even.



And I heard we only use ten percent of our brains.

 

[Cyke101]

The answer is pretty simple. You guys see what movies came out in 1982? Look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_in_film

TWOK did very well, in a year with an insane number of excellent hits.

The 1980s fucking rocked!

Indeed. I'm kinda confused how a #7 film could be considered, well... less than successful

Heck, I'm (pleasantly) surprised that TWOK beat 48 Hours and Poltergeist.

 

[Maurice]

I read recently that the current break-even formula is about 180 percent of production costs - and since I read it somewhere, probably on the Internet, it must be true.

It varies depending on a. the film, b. how it was financed, and c. what the advertising budget was. The listed "budget" is usually the negative cost, as they say, not the full investment in the film.

 

[lurok]

So in answer to OP and from excellent responses, seems TWOK could hardly have been more commercially successful given its budget and competition. The only thing that might possibly have limited its box office, as someone else has already said, are casual viewers who saw TMP and decided on basis of that to give the 'sequel/stylistic reboot' a wide berth. Which was their loss...