J. J. Abrams' Star Trek on track to set records

[Flake]

I just happened upon this article on canada.com.

It concerns the latest industry tracking for the opening weekend of Star Trek.

I will cut to the chase:

Initially expectations had Abrams' new Trek landing at $50 million for that important opening weekend. Now pundits have moved it into the $80 to $100 million neighbourhood based on the preview news, which is very nice place for $150-million picture to live. That should put the updated film on track to surpass the $300 million world-wide total. Abrams seemed pleased about that but was hesitant to embrace the good news fully just yet. "I don't want to be presumptuous," he told reporters in L.A. on Sunday.

Ladies and gentlemen, if this is indeed true and actually comes true on May 11th then Star Trek....

IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Flake]

In my excitement I failed to post the link!

http://www.canada.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Abram+Star+Trek+track+records/1536376/story.html

 

[Ssosmcin]

:-)

Real Star Trek never left.

 

[Messianni]

I'd love to believe it, but it seems too good to be true.

Ugh, us Trek fans are a self-hating bunch sometimes aren't we?

 

[Flake]

^Thats because we have endured so much crap over the past few years that this whole movie STILL feels too good to be true

 

[cubbie]

I hope this becomes a reality.

 

[Captain Fine]

I'll go with Abrams with this one. Don't want to jinx it!

 

[chrisspringob]

How are we defining "opening weekend"? Because the movie is now set to open on Thursday night at 7pm, right? So is Thursday night part of "opening weekend"? Because I imagine it's going to do a lot of business in those first few hours.

 

[Messianni]

How are we defining "opening weekend"? Because the movie is now set to open on Thursday night at 7pm, right? So is Thursday night part of "opening weekend"? Because I imagine it's going to do a lot of business in those first few hours.

Yep, it would be considered part of opening weekend. It makes for a boost in the numbers.

 

[Data Holmes]

I'd love to believe it, but it seems too good to be true.

Ugh, us Trek fans are a self-hating bunch sometimes aren't we?

go ask TGT his thoughts on Enterprise.


Seriously, it's the time of the geek/nerd/intellectual, run with it.

 

[Messianni]

I'd love to believe it, but it seems too good to be true.

Ugh, us Trek fans are a self-hating bunch sometimes aren't we?

go ask TGT his thoughts on Enterprise.

Or for any Trek that's not the first two seasons of TOS or The Motion Picture, right?

 

[Lumen]

I don't know if those Thursday shows count in the opening weekend total or not. I think they normally are.

$80-100 million would be very good for this film. I can't imagine Paramount expecting much more than $200 million domestic, so that would almost guarantee a sequel.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I don't know if those Thursday shows count in the opening weekend total or not. I think they normally are.

They are. One reason for pushing the opening forward (sometimes as early as Wednesday) is to pump up the opening totals.

 

[Devon]

I don't know if those Thursday shows count in the opening weekend total or not. I think they normally are.

They are. One reason for pushing the opening forward (sometimes as early as Wednesday) is to pump up the opening totals.

Yes. Transformers comes to the top of my head. The opening weekend was Wednesday to Sunday.

 

[chrisspringob]

I don't know if those Thursday shows count in the opening weekend total or not. I think they normally are.

They are. One reason for pushing the opening forward (sometimes as early as Wednesday) is to pump up the opening totals.

Yes. Transformers comes to the top of my head. The opening weekend was Wednesday to Sunday.

Actually, it was *Tuesday* to Sunday in that case (since July 4 was on a Wednesday). And I don't think it's actually correct that most news articles count Wednesday releases as having an "opening weekend" of Wednesday to Sunday. They tend to distinguish between the "five day total", and the "opening weekend", which is just Friday to Sunday. When people talk about the "opening weekend record", for example, they're invariably talking about the Friday to Sunday record.

But it gets more complicated when you have a situation like this, where the movie's "opening day" is still being counted by many as May 8th, but there are "sneak previews" on May 7th as early as 7pm. Then I think most news stories do actually count Thursday night as part of the Friday total. Not everybody does that though. I think the box office tracker website Box Office Mojo still counts it as a separate day. (Pretty sure that that's what they did for the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie.)

 

[Procutus]

I'll go with Abrams with this one. Don't want to jinx it!

Same here, but I must admit that I'm pretty optimistic. I can't recall the last time I read so many positive reviews, this far out from a movie's opening.

May 7 can't get here soon enough!

 

[Data Holmes]

I'll go with Abrams with this one. Don't want to jinx it!

Same here, but I must admit that I'm pretty optimistic. I can't recall the last time I read so many positive reviews, this far out from a movie's opening.

May 7 can't get here soon enough!

There hasn't been many films in general to get such positive praise from the major reviewers, has there?

 

[mswood]

For this movie the opening weekend will consist of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Thursday numbers do not technically count as part of it's opening weekend.

On certain holidays They do adjust that for eitehr 4 or 5 day weekends. But Transformers for example opened for two showings on Tuesday those numbers were not part of its official opening weekend.

Not that Viacom cares, they care about the total box office receipts when all is said and done. The Weekend numbers are mainly pissing rights.

 

[mswood]

I'll go with Abrams with this one. Don't want to jinx it!

Same here, but I must admit that I'm pretty optimistic. I can't recall the last time I read so many positive reviews, this far out from a movie's opening.

May 7 can't get here soon enough!

There hasn't been many films in general to get such positive praise from the major reviewers, has there?

Actually we still haven't heard from most of the major reviewers.

But so far, so good. But often times you see more positive reviews (percentage wise) earlier then you see after the film opens (again percentage wise).

 

[Lumen]

They are. One reason for pushing the opening forward (sometimes as early as Wednesday) is to pump up the opening totals.

Yes. Transformers comes to the top of my head. The opening weekend was Wednesday to Sunday.

Actually, it was *Tuesday* to Sunday in that case (since July 4 was on a Wednesday). And I don't think it's actually correct that most news articles count Wednesday releases as having an "opening weekend" of Wednesday to Sunday. They tend to distinguish between the "five day total", and the "opening weekend", which is just Friday to Sunday. When people talk about the "opening weekend record", for example, they're invariably talking about the Friday to Sunday record.

But it gets more complicated when you have a situation like this, where the movie's "opening day" is still being counted by many as May 8th, but there are "sneak previews" on May 7th as early as 7pm. Then I think most news stories do actually count Thursday night as part of the Friday total. Not everybody does that though. I think the box office tracker website Box Office Mojo still counts it as a separate day. (Pretty sure that that's what they did for the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie.)

Yeah, the Friday-Sunday total I often see referred to as FSS in industry magazines when discussing records, so I think that's the correct metric for "opening weekend".