I seriously know of only one person excited for Wolverine...
I am going to organize a midnight screening party for Trek in my area!!
Article on Trek vs Wolverine Box Office
- Thread starter Flake
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I seriously know of only one person excited for Wolverine...
I am going to organize a midnight screening party for Trek in my area!!
I'm not going to underestimate Wolverine. The advertising for that movie seems to have kicked into high gear during the last two days here in the US. Wolverine commercials on all over.
I was also watching Entertainment Tonight (a mainstream Entertainment reporting show here in the US), and they reported on Wolverine tonight. Hugh Jackman was on and he is a very personable guy. ET also plans to do coverage of the Wolverine Premiere. I hope they do something similar for Star Trek.
Another mainstream show the ST cast needs to get on in my opinion is, "The View". That show is very popular and will reach a lot of daytime viewers (especially women). With Whoopi Goldberg as a ST:TNG alum, it would end up being a neat appearance.
I was also watching Entertainment Tonight (a mainstream Entertainment reporting show here in the US), and they reported on Wolverine tonight. Hugh Jackman was on and he is a very personable guy. ET also plans to do coverage of the Wolverine Premiere. I hope they do something similar for Star Trek.
Another mainstream show the ST cast needs to get on in my opinion is, "The View". That show is very popular and will reach a lot of daytime viewers (especially women). With Whoopi Goldberg as a ST:TNG alum, it would end up being a neat appearance.
I think they need to start advertising more on the prime time big network slots. Was watching CBS's Comedy Block tonight. I saw an ad for Wolverine and one for Angels and Demons, none for Star Trek (I didn't see the whole block admittedly so perhaps someone can comment on this.) The cable networks they are advertising on probably garner less than, if not equal to, ratings than when the Primetime Line-Ups are their peaks.
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2008-12...ns-have-to-stop-worrying-about-the-box-office
You should all read this article, titled Why Star Trek Fans Have to Stop Worrying About the Box Office. It puts the entire debate into perspective. And according to this source, there's no cause for concern, even if Trek comes in behind Wolverine.
Highlights:
You should all read this article, titled Why Star Trek Fans Have to Stop Worrying About the Box Office. It puts the entire debate into perspective. And according to this source, there's no cause for concern, even if Trek comes in behind Wolverine.
Highlights:
If this film makes $150 in the U.S. and shows some life overseas Paramount will be thrilled with those results.
If the film is as good as most people say it is it will have some legs that others may not. "Wolverine" for example has been getting very poor reviews since being leaked to the net. It is possible/likely that it has a blow out weekend and then declines 60% in it's next frame. That has been the history of the X-Men franchise in the past, plus you also have to consider this is the 4th film in the franchise that is missing most of it's key players and the series may be getting a little long in the tooth.
There is little doubt "Wolverine" will open bigger. It is the "hotter" franchise at the moment coming off three blockbuster sequels over the last several years. The younger audience is more familiar with these characters than Kirk and Spock who have not been seen together in nearly a generation. That said the $50 million dollar opening estimate is not a given. These tracking numbers are far from an exact science. It is possible Star Trek opens at around $70 million. Nobody really knows until the opening night.
My take is that "Star Trek" is the start of a long term plan designed by Paramount to make the series into a summer "tent pole" series much like "Batman Begins" and "Casino Royale" were to their respective franchises. It's easy to forget that Batman Begins "only" made $205 million in the United States, but in the bigger picture it rejuvenated the series and lead the way for "The Dark Knight" to make over $500 million in the U.S. and more than $1 billion overseas last year. Also, remember that the first X-Men film only made $157 million in the U.S. (granted that number would be higher with inflation added in) but it's sequels made well over $200 million in the U.S. alone.
The people at Paramount have a long term plan in mind with this once powerful franchise. Remember that the Shatner era films were blockbusters of their era roughly equivalent to the X-Men franchise in the United States when inflation is taken into account. As a matter of fact TMP was the #2 film of 1979 and when adjusted for inflation made $261,000,000 (bigger than any X-Men film as well as "Batman Begins and "Casino Royale") in the U.S. alone and the TVH home made about $211,000,000 adjusted for inflation and was in the top five films the year it came out.
Don't believe all the hype that the original S.T. films weren't blockbusters in their own right... "Star TreK" was/is a cultural icon that years of copies of copies of series and characters that few outside the hardcore fanbase even knew exisited never mind cared about nearly destroyed. That is why Paramount has gone back to it's most iconic characters (Kirk and Spock) to revive this once strong series. They are finally giving the general public what it considers to be "Star Trek" in a film that is designed to recapture and expand upon the once large fanbase the franchise enjoyed.
If the film is as good as most people say it is it will have some legs that others may not. "Wolverine" for example has been getting very poor reviews since being leaked to the net. It is possible/likely that it has a blow out weekend and then declines 60% in it's next frame. That has been the history of the X-Men franchise in the past, plus you also have to consider this is the 4th film in the franchise that is missing most of it's key players and the series may be getting a little long in the tooth.
There is little doubt "Wolverine" will open bigger. It is the "hotter" franchise at the moment coming off three blockbuster sequels over the last several years. The younger audience is more familiar with these characters than Kirk and Spock who have not been seen together in nearly a generation. That said the $50 million dollar opening estimate is not a given. These tracking numbers are far from an exact science. It is possible Star Trek opens at around $70 million. Nobody really knows until the opening night.
My take is that "Star Trek" is the start of a long term plan designed by Paramount to make the series into a summer "tent pole" series much like "Batman Begins" and "Casino Royale" were to their respective franchises. It's easy to forget that Batman Begins "only" made $205 million in the United States, but in the bigger picture it rejuvenated the series and lead the way for "The Dark Knight" to make over $500 million in the U.S. and more than $1 billion overseas last year. Also, remember that the first X-Men film only made $157 million in the U.S. (granted that number would be higher with inflation added in) but it's sequels made well over $200 million in the U.S. alone.
The people at Paramount have a long term plan in mind with this once powerful franchise. Remember that the Shatner era films were blockbusters of their era roughly equivalent to the X-Men franchise in the United States when inflation is taken into account. As a matter of fact TMP was the #2 film of 1979 and when adjusted for inflation made $261,000,000 (bigger than any X-Men film as well as "Batman Begins and "Casino Royale") in the U.S. alone and the TVH home made about $211,000,000 adjusted for inflation and was in the top five films the year it came out.
Don't believe all the hype that the original S.T. films weren't blockbusters in their own right... "Star TreK" was/is a cultural icon that years of copies of copies of series and characters that few outside the hardcore fanbase even knew exisited never mind cared about nearly destroyed. That is why Paramount has gone back to it's most iconic characters (Kirk and Spock) to revive this once strong series. They are finally giving the general public what it considers to be "Star Trek" in a film that is designed to recapture and expand upon the once large fanbase the franchise enjoyed.
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Thanks, VOODOOXI for this well-researched post. It's true that Star Trek's bad reputation has come from a dilution of the franchise starting as early as 1987. Not trying to badmouth TNG or anything, but I have always been of the mind that to the general audience. having a Trek TV series for free made them less inclined to pay to see a Trek film in a theater. The numbers for all ST films starting with TFF support this. They never again reached the heights of the first four.
When this trend continued and the TNG films didn't even bother telling the kind of stories that the casual Trek fan liked and expected of the series - and that also with a (in their perception, and mine too, actually) second-rate cast of characters, the franchise stumbled. Not helped of course by reports of ratings failures on TV at the same time. Add to that the perception that Trek had become this mega-text with 40 years of continuity that a newcomer couldn't hope to catch up on... and people stayed away. All these factors have been eliminated this time around. And i believe there is still a general good will concerning Star Trek in general. People just need to find a "way in", as JJ Abrams put it so well. This might do it.
When this trend continued and the TNG films didn't even bother telling the kind of stories that the casual Trek fan liked and expected of the series - and that also with a (in their perception, and mine too, actually) second-rate cast of characters, the franchise stumbled. Not helped of course by reports of ratings failures on TV at the same time. Add to that the perception that Trek had become this mega-text with 40 years of continuity that a newcomer couldn't hope to catch up on... and people stayed away. All these factors have been eliminated this time around. And i believe there is still a general good will concerning Star Trek in general. People just need to find a "way in", as JJ Abrams put it so well. This might do it.
Here is a reassuring analysis of the box office situation vis-a-vis Wolverine from someone who's worked on these campaigns:
I liked this:
Two Star Trek films qualified as something like "blockbusters" in their day - ST:TMP and ST:TVH. Other than that, the studio and producers were always a bit frustrated that Trek couldn't "break through" in the movies - Harve Bennett complained after ST:TSFS earned somewhat less than TWOK (while costing quite a bit more) that "the audience doesn't grow."
The cost of making Trek movies continued to increase - a great part of that was due to the rising salaries and participation of a couple of the actors - while the box office did not increase at the same rate. After the unusually good performance of TVH, the fifth movie stumbled at the box office. The studio was anxious to move TNG, which by 1991 was by far the most popular version of Trek (based on viewership, merchandising at the time etc) onto the big screen at least partly because they knew it was time to give up on TOS-based movies.
Bennett is a very saavy, very commercially-minded creative guy. He didn't come up with the idea of recasting the characters and doing an "origins" movie for the sixth film on a lark or out of the blue; he did it because the writing was on the wall where the original cast was concerned: if Kirk, Spock and the others were to continue in the movies then Shatner, Nimoy et al had to go. The fact that Paramount had what they saw as a less risky alternative - close down the TOS-based movies and go forward with TNG-based flicks - was in large part why they opted not to do the "Academy" story.
I liked this:
Two Star Trek films qualified as something like "blockbusters" in their day - ST:TMP and ST:TVH. Other than that, the studio and producers were always a bit frustrated that Trek couldn't "break through" in the movies - Harve Bennett complained after ST:TSFS earned somewhat less than TWOK (while costing quite a bit more) that "the audience doesn't grow."
The cost of making Trek movies continued to increase - a great part of that was due to the rising salaries and participation of a couple of the actors - while the box office did not increase at the same rate. After the unusually good performance of TVH, the fifth movie stumbled at the box office. The studio was anxious to move TNG, which by 1991 was by far the most popular version of Trek (based on viewership, merchandising at the time etc) onto the big screen at least partly because they knew it was time to give up on TOS-based movies.
Bennett is a very saavy, very commercially-minded creative guy. He didn't come up with the idea of recasting the characters and doing an "origins" movie for the sixth film on a lark or out of the blue; he did it because the writing was on the wall where the original cast was concerned: if Kirk, Spock and the others were to continue in the movies then Shatner, Nimoy et al had to go. The fact that Paramount had what they saw as a less risky alternative - close down the TOS-based movies and go forward with TNG-based flicks - was in large part why they opted not to do the "Academy" story.
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I think you're vastly overestimating the number of moviegoers who even know that such a leak exists, let alone would be able to figure out how to find it. Most people just do not follow this stuff that closely.
Exactly so.
i think your wrong. i read somewhere that wolverine was downloaded by over 1 million people in the first week it was on the net alone.by now i think substantially more have seen it.
That leak will prove to be largely insignificant in the long run. Although I don't think "Wolverine" will equal the two previous X-Men installments at the box office for various reasons.
As a side note: I mentioned earlier that Entertainment Tonight featured Wolverine recently. I just saw that ET will be featuring Star Trek tomorrow night (Friday). 
That is the kind of mainstream attention they need to continue getting.
That is the kind of mainstream attention they need to continue getting.
Let's not worry about Wolverine. It will stand or fall on its own merits. Hugh Jackman is a damn fine actor and that part helped break him out.
Trek, for its own part, will probably do between 50-75 million opening weekend. that's what I suspect. If they do that, Paramount execs will spray bukkake all over their secretaries faces. It will do TONS of repeat business. The toy spinnoffs will work. This films BLEEDS Word of Mouth.
I was in the car with my daughter. She wants to see the film. Never was a Trek person. The kids want to see this film.
Over the next two weeks, Paramount will blitz the MTV and VH1 people with this movie. JJ and the cast are back in the country just in time to do the final in-country blitz. You'll see the cast on Leno, Letterman, Late Night, Today, MTV, VH1 and the Nickelodeon and Anime and SciFi channels. I don't know if Disney would let Paramount advertise its product on its channel, I suspect not.
This will be a balls to the wall promotional blitz. If it is actually possible for Zoe Saldana to lose weight, she will lose weight.
Trek, for its own part, will probably do between 50-75 million opening weekend. that's what I suspect. If they do that, Paramount execs will spray bukkake all over their secretaries faces. It will do TONS of repeat business. The toy spinnoffs will work. This films BLEEDS Word of Mouth.
I was in the car with my daughter. She wants to see the film. Never was a Trek person. The kids want to see this film.
Over the next two weeks, Paramount will blitz the MTV and VH1 people with this movie. JJ and the cast are back in the country just in time to do the final in-country blitz. You'll see the cast on Leno, Letterman, Late Night, Today, MTV, VH1 and the Nickelodeon and Anime and SciFi channels. I don't know if Disney would let Paramount advertise its product on its channel, I suspect not.
This will be a balls to the wall promotional blitz. If it is actually possible for Zoe Saldana to lose weight, she will lose weight.
Captain X
Rear Admiral
All the Star Trek movies have gotten spots on ET - I still remember the last 4 having spots on ET.As a side note: I mentioned earlier that Entertainment Tonight featured Wolverine recently. I just saw that ET will be featuring Star Trek tomorrow night (Friday).
hope not a bad omen.