How Much Does The Movie Have To Make To Be A Success?

[Dayton3]

It sounds to me like this Star Trek movie will have to exceed beyond the wildest imaginings of the previous movies in order to end up as a financial success.

Of course, one could argue that the earlier Trek movies were basically oversized television episodes translated to the big screen, so not as much was expected of them.

 

[datas_cat_spot]

Nope. The movie is finished.

Hahahaha 300 million... Even Transformers 2 won't come close to that hahahah!

Since the first Transformers made 708 million, I don't know why you're making this assumption.

Huh? I was making fun of the fake budget numbers.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

This movie has a lot more merchandising potential than your typical flick. TPTB are deliberately targeting a mainstream audience. Trek movies are guaranteed moneymakers on DVD. I suspect that's why they're comfortable with such a high budget--even if the domestic gross falls short, they have so many other ways to make money from it, it's not even funny.

I do know that Trek movies have traditionally done very poorly internationally, so I'll be curious to see how this one does on the global market. Most movies make about the same worldwide as their domestic gross. If this one hits $300M or so in the US, and breaks the poor global trend, it should be just fine.

 

[Vance]

Visuals were done months ago. Dubbing is usually the last process.

Usually, but the're apparently redoing some VFX shots as well. I imagine this is one of those films that's going to be tweaked in various ways until release day.

 

[SalvorHardin]

Visuals were done months ago. Dubbing is usually the last process.

Usually, but the're apparently redoing some VFX shots as well. I imagine this is one of those films that's going to be tweaked in various ways until release day.

Can you please provide some kind of link that talks about this VFX redoing ?

Because the last official word i know of says :

January 5th 2009

JJ Abrams’ Star Trek film is officially complete. According to sources, post production on the summer 2009 film was actually completed Christmas week, shortly after JJ Abrams posted his Holiday greeting on Facebook. The final step of the post production was sound editing, and to help out they brought in Academy Award winner Ben Burtt.

http://trekmovie.com/2009/01/05/sta...oscar-winner-ben-burtt-provided-sound-design/

and also

December 22nd 2008

We’re just making final tweaks to the movie — we should be totally locked next week. Then we’re going to flash-freeze it so it’s totally fresh for you in May.

JJ Abrams

http://trekmovie.com/2008/12/22/a-holiday-update-from-jj-abrams/

 

[Woulfe]

Can I have some of what Vance is smoking ?

- W -
* Wow, and I thought the $150 mill was to cover everything even AD cost *

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

What Vance is alleging is nonsense, based on nothing.

I asked the editor over at the source of Vance's supposed link, Trekmovie.com. They're reporting the budget of the film as between 135 and 150 million dollars - and it's finished.

 

[datas_cat_spot]

Maybe he's getting Trek mixed up with Cameron's Avatar film.

 

[mswood]

It sounds to me like this Star Trek movie will have to exceed beyond the wildest imaginings of the previous movies in order to end up as a financial success.

Of course, one could argue that the earlier Trek movies were basically oversized television episodes translated to the big screen, so not as much was expected of them.

Well not really.

It truly depends on how this sells overseas, and that is a huge, huge question. Original trek fared exceptionally poorly with the exception of the Motion PIcture.

If the same number of people watched overseas today that would be over $120 million in ticket sales.

In the US Motion Picture would have scored over 250 million in US ticket sales.

The number of people in the US who watched Voyage Home would equal a greater then 200 million in ticket sales for the US.

So basically this film has to marginally best the number of people World wide who went and saw the 1st Star Trek film.

So it is quite possible. But it doesn't mean it will happen.

 

[ancient]

I think this movie should make enough for a sequel fairly easily.

Assuming it's as good as Transformers.

 

[ChristopherPike]

As someone who was happy (more or less) with where Star Trek was before this, I genuinely lie awake at night worrying about this one thing...

Okay, maybe that and there'll only be the Abrams-universe from now on. No revisiting the actors/characters I grew up watching, who matter the most to me.

Star Trek has always been television for me, with occasional big screen outings (each of which did fantastic work on modest budgets). Somewhere since The Undiscovered Country, the movie series got out of hand, trying to measure up to FX bonazas of The Matrix, Terminator, Star Wars prequels and so on. They don't need to chock full of spectacle, just make the shots you have count and leave the actors to carry the rest.

I don't know anymore. I feels like Paramount have bet $$$$$$$$$$$, with the whole farm as security on this working and have no other back-up plan in reserve. I'd love this franchise just as much on a smaller scale, with Stargate style DVD movies or television mini-series.

All or nothing on Star Trek for the studio.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I don't know anymore. I feels like Paramount have bet $$$$$$$$$$$, with the whole farm as security on this working and have no other back-up plan in reserve. I'd love this franchise just as much on a smaller scale, with Stargate style DVD movies or television mini-series.

All or nothing on Star Trek for the studio.

Reasonable from their POV, because before - and without - this movie they have nothing any more where Trek is concerned.

 

[mswood]

As someone who was happy (more or less) with where Star Trek was before this, I genuinely lie awake at night worrying about this one thing...

Okay, maybe that and there'll only be the Abrams-universe from now on. No revisiting the actors/characters I grew up watching, who matter the most to me.

Star Trek has always been television for me, with occasional big screen outings (each of which did fantastic work on modest budgets). Somewhere since The Undiscovered Country, the movie series got out of hand, trying to measure up to FX bonazas of The Matrix, Terminator, Star Wars prequels and so on. They don't need to chock full of spectacle, just make the shots you have count and leave the actors to carry the rest.

I don't know anymore. I feels like Paramount have bet $$$$$$$$$$$, with the whole farm as security on this working and have no other back-up plan in reserve. I'd love this franchise just as much on a smaller scale, with Stargate style DVD movies or television mini-series.

All or nothing on Star Trek for the studio.

Actually teh only film that truly tried to match the best that was currently produced was the Motion Picture, a huge (at the time) big budget film). Interesting enough its budget when adjusted isn't that much less then the reported 135-150 million budget of this film.

I do absolutely agree about Trek being something that has always been more creatively successful on the small screen. Not a single film matches the best episodes of Trek. Hell I think even Voyager and Enterprise on rare occasion outshine the best feature films of Trek.

But Viacom/CBS didn't wish to continue producing a product which while still making a profit, was making a smaller and smaller profit.

And frankly each season since TNG 6th has declined steadily in viewers no matter what show, so it wasn't a mere question of quality, no matter what some fans feel.

I can certainly see the reasons for doing what they are doing.

TOS is Star Trek is the most ingrained of the Trek's. Its the only one that truly competed against the films of its days (films one through 4 ranked no worse then the 7th highest grossing films of their respective years, if they could manage that feat last year for example that would be a US gross of at worst $180 million).

And they also know that one of the biggest stumbling blocks to the later TOS films was the advanced age of the cast. It pushed believability way way out of the window.

They also have the first opportunity since Voyage Home to not be in direct competition to free on tv new episodes of Trek.

 

[2 of 10]

Unfortunately, because of the failures of Enterprise and Nemesis, STXI will have to make enough to bail out AIG and the Big 3 together. For it to be a success, it almost has to be the Dark Knight of 2009.

I watched Nemesis a couple of times recently on AMC. You know what? I really enjoyed it. Its "failure" came from marketing, and a bad taste left in fan's mouth from Insurrection. The only part I hated was ENT-E ramming Shinzons ship. Data's sacrifice wasn't as good as Spock's in WOK, but far better than Kirk's kick off (which was borderline cheesy).

Insurrection truly SUCKED a big disruptor. It destroyed the franchise. Anyone remember Data's emerging from underwater by android farts? What about Worf's zit? What a crappy piece of film making. It did to the TNG films what ST5 did for the TOS films.

I agree with your assament, however, I never got why Spoke even had to be killed off, here you have a 23th century Star Ship with NO radition protection suits. All of are current LA Class Nuc Sub have ample Rad Suits to protect any crew that has to venture into a radiation flooded area, I find it hard to believe that the Enterprise would have no equipment to deal with a radiation emergency...

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

With about 3 minutes until total destruction, would you bother finding a protection suit?

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Reasonable from their POV, because before - and without - this movie they have nothing any more where Trek is concerned.

I don't think this was the ONLY route they could've taken...they could have let Manny and the Reeves-Stevenses run with Enterprise at least one more season, the buzz was VERY good for S4.

If Enterprise was too damaged to continue, they could have given them first shot at a new project like a movie of the week or mini series. DTDVD was (and remains) an option.

I don't think that the contention that ONLY a big screen, huge budget, all or nothing reboot of the universe was the only possible solution holds up.

 

[M'Sharak]

Reasonable from their POV, because before - and without - this movie they have nothing any more where Trek is concerned.

I don't think this was the ONLY route they could've taken...they could have let Manny and the Reeves-Stevenses run with Enterprise at least one more season, the buzz was VERY good for S4.

If Enterprise was too damaged to continue, they could have given them first shot at a new project like a movie of the week or mini series. DTDVD was (and remains) an option.

I don't think that the contention that ONLY a big screen, huge budget, all or nothing reboot of the universe was the only possible solution holds up.

One problem with this is that Paramount (movies) and CBS-Viacom (TV shows) are pretty much separate entities now and that the TV end suffered a major turnover in studio/network personnel midway through Enterprise's run. Most of the people at UPN who supported Star Trek on television at the start of the series were gone by the beginning of Season 3 and that Season 4 was produced at all was a bit of charity on the part of the network. If you were around this board for the Trek United/Bring Back Enterprise business following the announcement of ENT's cancellation during Season 4, you have to be fully aware that there was no chance at all of there ever being a Season 5, not even direct-to-video. It just wasn't going to happen, not nohow.

After the dust of that had settled for a couple of years, Paramount (now in charge of the movies and movie-related properties only -- nothing to do with TV shows at all) decided that the team then working on Mission: Impossible III might be a good bet to revive the Star Trek movie franchise and offered it to them. Which brings us to where we are now.

If there's going to be more Trek on television, that's going to be an entirely different matter and involve some important studio and network people (remember that UPN no longer exists) changing their minds about whether such a thing is a viable proposition.

 

[Woulfe]

This whole franchise split is damn confusing at times, it was so much easier when we had ONLY paramount to deal with.

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong w/ CBS inc. ( Well other then Leslie Moonvess hating Sci-Fi & Trek in particular, but that can change over time. )

It was just easier when we could count on the gang at Paramount to think about doing another series if the next movie was a smash hit.

Having two separate sets of bean counters makes it that much harder to know how they feel about investing a ton of cash into another series.

CURRENTLY, CBS inc just wants to keep Trek reruns going & living off the cash made from selling the DVD's / Blue-rays / Syndication packages to whoever.

They may set aside some cash for refurbishing TNG, like they did for TOS, but you can bet that they won't be spending a ton on the FX redo, after all they're looking at the bottom line on how much they can make.

I think CBS didn't spend all that much to get TOS-R made, unless someone knows for a fact how much cash CBS tossed at it per episode. I'm willing to bet they spent about $100,000 or so per episode.

Namely they only spent how much was spent fer each episode back in the day when it was first made. If that's true, then what the FX folks pulled off is downright amazing for CGI at such a low price.

However, no one has told us yet just how much CBS inc payed for the work that was done. So I could be wrong in this matter, but seeing how Leslie Moonvess feels about Sci-Fi & Trek, it woun't surprise me at all if they only spent verry little per episode.

ANYWAYS....

Paramount is pretty much betting the farm on the new film, they're putting their money where their mouth is to show how they feel about Trek, I'm still amazed by the amount they're throwing at this entire endeavor that just shows how much trust they're putting into the franchise and into the fans and the general public.

- W -
* My $0.02 *

 

[Captain Robert April]

I'm beginning to suspect that the Soloman-esque split of the franchise is why we're getting a reboot of a movie in the first place. After all, it seems that in situations like these, when you scrape away the happy talk, it all boils down to money and lawyers.

TAS was set aside because if they'd overtly referenced it in TNG's early days, Paramount would've had to pay Lou Scheimer enough money that he could've easily revived Filmation.

T'Pau became T'Pol to avoid having to pay royalties to Ted Sturgeon's estate for every episode of Enterprise.

And instead of having to shuffle money over to the CBS side of the shop, and probably avoid paying royalties to Matt Jefferies' estate, we get a top-to-bottom reboot.

Have I mentioned that I hate lawyers and accountants?

As for the topic at hand, the old formula has always been that a movie has to bring in at least twice its production budget in order to turn a profit. Nowadays, it's probably closer to three times.

In short, this will have to be the most wildly successful sci-fi film to not be produced by either George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg, or James Cameron.

It's toast.

 

[M'Sharak]

...

They may set aside some cash for refurbishing TNG, like they did for TOS, but you can bet that they won't be spending a ton on the FX redo, after all they're looking at the bottom line on how much they can make.

I think CBS didn't spend all that much to get TOS-R made, unless someone knows for a fact how much cash CBS tossed at it per episode. I'm willing to bet they spent about $100,000 or so per episode.

...

I've heard that cost for TOS-R averaged around $200,000 per episode, but I don't have firm source for that, so take it for what it's worth. I don't think I'd hold my breath waiting for TNG-R, though; more than double the number of episodes ups the price tag significantly and perhaps more than CBS is willing to consider.

But this thread is really about the movie and its chances of doing well enough to get us more movies.