Empire's Star Trek Box Office Prediction

[Trajet]

Just caught a glimpse of UK magazine Empire's box office predictions for Star Trek. They're guessing the movie will take in $115 million in the US and $250 million worldwide.

Anyone think this sounds a little bit low for a movie that's already being vigorously promoted more than 11 months before its due to be released? Not to mention the fact that its being directed by JJ Abrams, who definitely seems to be flavour of the month in Hollywood.

I can't help but think a US box office gross of $115 million is a little bit on the pessimistic side - it's not really that much more than the $92 million First Contact managed to rake in at the US box office back in 1996/97, and it's worth remembering that First Contact had nothing like the media interest or marketing buzz that Star Trek seems to be generating.

While I accept that Star Trek is highly unlikely to generate domestic figures in the $250 million+ range like Transformers or I Am Legend, I think a a more realistic forecast for it's box office takings are $140-150 million domestic and around $300 million worldwide.

I'd be interested to hear what other people's opinions on this are!

 

[Lumen]

$250 million worldwide sounds fair to me, if not slightly optimistic. What surprises me about this prediction is that it's predicting a large proportion of the film's take coming from overseas. I agree with the $250 million total, but I don't expect quite so much of it to be from overseas sales -- I figure $125-$135 million domestically is probably more likely, maybe even a larger proportion. Star Trek films have always received notably less than 50% of their take from overseas sales.

 

[The Doctor]

Lumen said:
$250 million worldwide sounds fair to me, if not slightly optimistic. What surprises me about this prediction is that it's predicting a large proportion of the film's take coming from overseas. I agree with the $250 million total, but I don't expect quite so much of it to be from overseas sales -- I figure $125-$135 million domestically is probably more likely, maybe even a larger proportion. Star Trek films have always received notably less than 50% of their take from overseas sales.

I agree. Whatever the combination, a $250 million take would be amazing.

 

[Trajet]

The ratio of income coming from overseas ticket sales surprised me too, but I think it might be accurate. This Star Trek movie will probably be marketed quite vigorously outside Trek's three core markets - the US, Canada and the UK. The fact that the official site has versions of the teaser in Italian, French, Russian and Spanish would tend to support this assumption.

 

[Michael]

Trajet said:
The ratio of income coming from overseas ticket sales surprised me too, but I think it might be accurate. This Star Trek movie will probably be marketed quite vigorously outside Trek's three core markets - the US, Canada and the UK. The fact that the official site has versions of the teaser in Italian, French, Russian and Spanish would tend to support this assumption.

I still wonder where the German version is. Germany has a huge fanbase.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

Belar said:

Trajet said:
The ratio of income coming from overseas ticket sales surprised me too, but I think it might be accurate. This Star Trek movie will probably be marketed quite vigorously outside Trek's three core markets - the US, Canada and the UK. The fact that the official site has versions of the teaser in Italian, French, Russian and Spanish would tend to support this assumption.

I still wonder where the German version is. Germany has a huge fanbase.

So true. There's the two of us, for one...

 

[Lumen]

Yeah. There isn't much hype or buzz in the public at 11 months away, so these predictions don't amount to much more than crystal-ball gazing.

Nevertheless, $250 million worldwide would be a complete turnaround of the film franchise after Nemesis as far as I can see -- but I can't even begin to guess where the studio stands on this.

 

[Trajet]

Let's just hope it performs better at the US box office than Nemesis did!

 

[ST-One]

Belar said:

Trajet said:
The ratio of income coming from overseas ticket sales surprised me too, but I think it might be accurate. This Star Trek movie will probably be marketed quite vigorously outside Trek's three core markets - the US, Canada and the UK. The fact that the official site has versions of the teaser in Italian, French, Russian and Spanish would tend to support this assumption.

I still wonder where the German version is. Germany has a huge fanbase.

Cloverfield comes out this coming Thursday... maybe they will release the German version together with that film...

 

[Michael]

ST-One said:

Belar said:

Trajet said:
The ratio of income coming from overseas ticket sales surprised me too, but I think it might be accurate. This Star Trek movie will probably be marketed quite vigorously outside Trek's three core markets - the US, Canada and the UK. The fact that the official site has versions of the teaser in Italian, French, Russian and Spanish would tend to support this assumption.

I still wonder where the German version is. Germany has a huge fanbase.

Cloverfield comes out this coming Thursday... maybe they will release the German version together with that film...

I hope so. I wonder if it is possible that there won't be a german version. Wouldn't it be possible that they just show the english version? Who doesn't know Neil Armstrong's "One small step ..." or Kennedy's "For the eyes of the world ..."? Though I wonder if they would translate Spock's phrase at the end ... We'll see ...

 

[ViveLaFrance]

Cloverfield comes out this coming Thursday... maybe they will release the German version together with that film...

The Star Trek teaser won't be shown before Cloverfield in Germany.

http://www.treknews.de/treknews/newspro-treknews/static/120095653749504.php

So I think you'll have to wait for the German teaser.

 

[Trajet]

Will it be shown before Cloverfield in the UK? If not, there's no point in me wasting a perfectly good Friday evening's drinking time in the cinema!

 

[Michael Chris]

I don't think it will even come close to making taht much.

 

[Trajet]

Well if it doesn't come close to making that much, then Star Trek as an ongoing cinematic and TV franchise is more or less finished. Paramount are taking something of a gamble by loosening the purse strings so much on a franchise that's been underperforming for at least the last 10 years - if it fails this time round, it probably won't ever get another chance.

 

[Urgent Sky]

Has Empire ever made box office predictions for other movies? How accurate have they been?

 

[Michael Chris]

Trajet said:
Well if it doesn't come close to making that much, then Star Trek as an ongoing cinematic and TV franchise is more or less finished. Paramount are taking something of a gamble by loosening the purse strings so much on a franchise that's been underperforming for at least the last 10 years - if it fails this time round, it probably won't ever get another chance.

Yep.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

I'm going to go see Cloverfield anyway, just in case.

Well, as for the original post: I think that it's a bit early for box office predictions, but I sure hope the film makes at least this much money. Hopefully more. But I have a good feeling about this.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The overseas take will probably depend a lot on whether Trek XI is an effective kick-ass action flick (which in addition to other things, I certainly hope it will be). Other strongly American franchises like Batman have done well overseas, even if the furriners don't know everything about Batman's history and cultural significance, etc., they can appreciate a good explosion/car chase/space battle. This is another one of those "don't overthink it" things.

For example, from boxofficemojo:

Spider-Man
Domestic - $336,530,303 - 37.8%
Foreign - $554,341,323 - 62.2%

Spidey has always struck me as a very American kind of character, even moreso than other popular comic book characters (even uber-American Superman). If he does well overseas, why shouldn't Kirk and Spock do well, too?

However the estimate of $115 million in the US and $250 million worldwide puts the worldwide percentage at over 68% - that's higher than I'd expect. More in the 50%-60% range, I'd say.

 

[moonman]

this movie is going to be huge and will be in the same class w/any individual star wars movie, sans 20 plus years of residuals from star wars dvd box sets and years of hbo showings. this will outpace transformers for sure and crush any other film in '08 to '09.

just a thought.

 

[Frontier]

Trek films have rarely exceded $100 million. It's a specialized franchise. Abrams can not make it appeal to the masses. No one can. Yet the studio tries and tries to make it a Star Wars clone for the money such brings in.

Attack of the Clones indeed...