there really is no evidence that it's not,
The evidence is the countless series/sub-genres that had been blemished with mediocre or moderate success until that one break-out smash comes a long.
Hell,
The Fast and the Furious is a great example. Racing/car chase movies have were long thought to be a niche genre that catered to a very specific group of people. (Sound familiar?) While the first four films did better than any of the predecessors, they were still moderate takes.
Tokyo Drift basically bombed. The numbers, however, were all on par with the Trek franchise.
Fast Five comes along and blows the first four out of the water. Why? They tweaked the formula. They shifted the formula to more of a heist film--
Ocean's on wheels, if you will. This gave the franchise a mass appeal that it never had before.
People who'd never seen a FF film went to it. They didn't know any of the characters, story, or whatever. They didn't care, because F5 gave them a reason to go that none of the first four had.
Or you can just look at superhero films. They were essentially a proverbial box office desert. Despite being one of the most critically acclaimed movies of its era,
Superman was the one bright spot for a long time. And even its performance was fairly modest compared to most of the other blockbusters of the time.
Then
Batman comes a long and rakes in loads. But it had to bank on one of the greatest performances by one of the greatest actors of all-time. But it was an oasis, because the genre went strait back to the desert for another decade.
Then BOOM! Superhero movies are the thing.
Or if you want to be more specific: Marvel. The two a fore mentioned examples were both DC characters. For decades, Marvel was kind of the laughing stock of Hollywood with one piece of crap after another.
Who's laughing now?
Probably the more apt comparison would be Star Wars though. Ever since those movies came out, Star Trek has never been able to get out of its shadow. And these two new movies are so much like Star Wars that it makes you wonder why they still can't hold a candle to it.
This really isn't true at all and just makes you sound a little disgruntled.
For one thing, the first two
Star Wars movies are considered to be two of the greatest films ever made. No Trek movie can make that claim. Not even close.
Throw in the outstanding marketing and peripheral paraphernalia and the massive IP that carried the other four films. Never mind the two decades of pent-up anticipation that sustained TPM before word of moth got out.
Yes. Wars does track a lot younger. But the "kids" Trek should go after are, as I stated earlier, the high-school/college crowd--the ones going to superhero movies now.
It's often going to be difficult to rope people in for sequels no matter how much Khan or Borg or action you shovel into it.
That's not true at all. As a rule (there are exceptions of course), sequels always track better than their predecessors.
Think about it:
The Avengers, more or less a sequel.
Harry Potter DH2, sequel.
The Dark Knight/Rises, sequels.
The Phantom Menace, sequel.
The two
Pirates sequels.
Transformers DOTM, sequel.
*Skyfall/Thunderball/Goldfinger, sequels.
LotR:RoTK, sequel.
I could go on and on, but you get the point.
*Another good example. The adjusted takes for
Dr. No and
FRWL are very similar to
nuTrek.
Goldfinger comes along and crushes them.
It's not going to be radically greater than that, barring some fluke.
It doesn't have to be. If a third film can match ST09's domestic take, STiD's international take, and increase both by about 15%, then it's suddenly treading in mega-blockbuster territory. Anything above that makes the franchise the legitimate IP powerhouse it's always strived to be.
