STID "tracking" for $85-90 million opening [U.S. box office]

It's sad how IM3 effortlessly got to 1 billion, when we'll be happy if STID limps to 500 mil. Or even 400. I would have thought the last movie would have destroyed the Trek stigma.

 

IM3 only reached 1 billion because it is the first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie following the Avengers.

The first two IM movies only did around a decent 600M each.

 

You're going to see significant BO takings for mediocre shit because they're attached to the Avengers. Thor and CA will probably out gross ST!

 

I'm still of the opinion that 500m is a shitload of money, and is to be applauded when attached to a Trek movie.

 

It is a good number, but it is seeming more likely what we can hope for a best case scenario now. I think it'll get enough for a sequel assuming the foreign BO takings improve dramatically which they appear they will do this time round.

 

Just from the numbers alone I'd say we'll get another movie. Even several hundred million dollars on a $150m investment is pretty good. That doesn't count the inevitable DVD/Blu-ray/Digital sales. So it is VERY likely we'll get another movie, and if it rakes in enough cash, we'll get it sooner than 4 more years.

 

Paramount is definitely hoping for around 500M or more. Any less than that and sequels become much less likely.

 

It cost 190m and they marketed it pretty heavily for what could be a marginal gain or even slightly less than. We'll have to wait and see about overseas too, if it doesn't improve significantly overseas then it'll be a stretch to say we'll get a sequel. If it gets to 2009's gross and the overseas reaches 250m then it'll get a sequel.

What it does have going for it is that it might get something being released a year after Star Wars, the 50th Anniversary, and the blu ray sales are always very strong for Trek. Not to mention, once again, it's scored well with audiences and critics alike so Paramount could decide to look at their marketing again.

 

Good Friday number news posted by RTH!

 

Oh thank the Prophets.

 

The BTC numbers seem to be lining up (they got IM3 and TGG spot on supposedly) so it'll fall short of 100m if they turn out to be true. Hoping for a bigger Saturday number though if what RTH says is true about it tracking higher during the morning. It's possible that it will have opened at 40-45m first day if they hadn't fudged the release date which is very good.

Sounds good but I'm being pessimistic and saying the BTC numbers are solid but not great if they stick - though I've found taking the Garak approach to matters has found me enjoying things that do turn out well far more (STID!)

 

While I admit to enjoying Iron Man (haven't seen #3 yet), I recently saw the Avengers and I couldn't believe that movie actually became one of the biggest ever. It was thoroughly plain in every way. I can't understand how it made such huge numbers, I really can't.

However, Star Trek still has a stigma attached to it. No matter how you dress it up and make it slick and fast and shiny and cool, the masses will just think it's Star Trek. It's a shame, but you can't do anything about it. I guess "superheroes" in tights talking into invisible bluetooths fighting giant space centipedes is better than people on spaceships in tights fighting a terrorist who blows up London.

 

I don't understand it either, IM1 is about the only one I really liked. TA was just okay, the way people hyped it to me it was just.....ergh.

I do enjoy Nolan's Batman movies a lot however.

 

I don't understand the popularity of comic book superhero movies myself. At least, I don't get why grown adults like them.

People can take grown men flying around in spandex jumpsuits seriously, but not men on the bridge of a starship?

 

I'm with all of ya.

 

I have very broad taste in science fiction and fantasy. Space opera, hard SF, epic fantasy, superheroes, etc, all have great appeal to me.

The box office news and rumors are quite the rollercoaster for this one!

 

I have broad tastes too. I'm not trying to imply that Star Trek is better than the average comic book movie, or say it's about "ideas" like the Trek vs Wars fan-fights of yore.

I don't go to the theater to watch movies much anymore (I've only been twice in 4 years) so I didn't see The Avengers until a few weeks ago. My friend told me "You have to see it! It's one of the best movies ever. Seriously!" So I saw it and I was completely dumbfounded how something so thoroughly plain would inspire such devotion and earn so much money. And I say this as a Joss Whedon fan and a card-carrying geek of several franchises. I could only conclude that these days, people enjoy movies with heroes, big 'splosions, a witty/sardonic central character and lame fan jokes (well, the Shakespeare in the Park bit made me laugh).

Except....doesn't Star Trek also have heroes, big 'splosions, a witty and sardonic character and lame fan jokes? I know that's a simplification in an attempt to draw a parallel but nuTrek has been made highly accessible to the masses in my opinion, with a healthy dose of fast-paced action and wit, and the new movies are unquestionably big "event" pictures, yet Star Trek still has a stigma that makes masses of people who gobbled up stuff like the Avengers and Iron Man want to stay away?

I truly do not get it.

 

Star Trek spent fifteen years dicking around with "Inverted tachyon pulses" or "metaphasic radiation" or "quantum dimensional paradox events" as if these were real things that were either interesting or memorable. The latter years of the franchise were nothing if not pretentious, and that's a hard reputation to shake.

It's important to keep in mind that Star Trek's pretense of being scientifically grounded was little more than fanservice for what Paramount assumed to be Star Trek's target audience: to wit, bored science nerds who liked to imagine that they were smarter than they really were. The studio both under-estimated the intelligence of that target audience and over-estimated its size; fans were smart enough to realize they were being patronized and eventually stopped watching and new productions appealed to very few new fans.

The Abrams experiment wasn't a rebellion against the "smart" side of Star Trek, more of a recognition that Star Trek was never all that smart to begin with and that "smart" was never its main selling point. It's one thing to have a totally contrived plot device that only exists in the first place so the protagonist will have something to do, but in this case it's literally a difference between "Complicated science thing that requires complicated science solution" and "Complicated situation that requires stupefyingly dangerous stunt." Voyager in particular would have enjoyed much better critical acclaim with more spacewalks/skydives/cliffhangrs and a little less [tech].

And yet, in the ways that really matter, STID still manages to be pretty smart on top of it.

 

Well said, you just have to look at the ratings of the television show to see its not just the general public turned off by it but Trek fans too, there is only so much you can do in a certain format before you run out of ideas.

I feel like the franchise has constantly been mishandled over the years and with Bad Robot, I think it's in the hands of people who can actually do something with it.

 

One last update, very disappointing.