Look, as much as we'd all prefer otherwise, Star Trek just isn't that popular in the grand scheme of things. It is definitely not on the same level as Star Wars or Marvel. According to that very link, the entire Star Trek franchise has made less money than Space Invaders. I think if one video game makes more money than your entire franchise, it's certainly not a huge, massive thing.
Paramount loses more than a quarter of its value, analyst believes they should "just quit streaming"
- Thread starter Citiprime
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Yep. In fact, looking at that Wiki article, it encompasses five tiers of grosses -- $2-4 billion, $5-9 billion, $10-19 billion, $20-50 billion, and $50 billion+. Star Trek is right there in the middle at $10.7 billion lifetime gross across almost sixty years. Star Trek, even in that Wiki article, is literally mid-tier.
Yes, and it's mid-tier in terms of audience base, because lifetime grosses from all products is an entirely separate thing from current audience size.
I was thinking recently about why Star Trek has much less mainstream appeal than Star Wars. I don’t really get it myself; Star Wars has been a bit rubbish outside of the original trilogy whereas Star Trek has, in my view, sustained a greater evenness of quality over its lifespan. I wonder how much comes down to PR. It’s just never been “cool” to like Trek in the way it is to like Star Wars. The character Noel Shemsky in “Frasier” seemed to exemplify this; this is the stereotype many people have of Star Trek fans. It’s pretty sad; I don’t know how you counter a stereotype like that. The Abrams movies, at least the first couple, managed to circumvent it and reach a broad audience, but it doesn’t appear this was sustained in the long term.
I don't want to sound all "holier-than-thou", but Star Trek has always been more intellectual than Star Wars. You can go watch a Wars film and not have to think too hard, but the best of Trek stimulates your mind and gets you thinking about things. Most people just don't want to be challenged in that way when watching TV or a film. There's this perception among my friends that Star Trek is "boring".
And even then, Disney+ basically is the Star Wars and Marvel streaming service. Yes, I know, Disney+ has plenty of other shows which have nothing to do with either franchise, but 90% (if not more) of their most popular and talked about shows belong to those two franchises and at any given point in the year there's a good chance there's a show belonging to one of them running new episodes. Star Wars and Marvel basically are what's keeping Disney+ going.
Fans, sadly, don't make it easier. When i was younger Star Trek was regarded as boring but also Fans had an elitist type attitude if you said you liked Trek. It came with questions like, "who's better? Kirk or Picard? Data or Spock?" It became a trivia grilling session and if you didn't know it felt exclusionary.
Star Wars had that, but you could just say "Iike Han, or Luke." That was it. It felt way more fun, and a bit more accepting. Star Trek felt more exclusionary. It's naturally going to have smaller draw.
That's my view.
It's more than ironic that a franchise where one of THE most central themes is infinite diversity in infinite combination and living together despite differing views has a fair sized segment of fans that essentially have the polar opposite mentality.
The horseshoe theory in action...
Does that revenue include merchandising. Because Star Wars waaaaay eclipses Trek in that, but also i guess also money not riskedby Trek??
Disney as compared to Paramount, is much more of a merchandising-driven company. Their media seem to be a way to sell merchandise. With Paramount, you still see it, but to a much lesser extent, and that may by why we see less merch in general.
The silly part is that Reference Books, StarShip Models, Action Figures, Cosplay gear, all the Away-Team replica props can be easily monitized by selling "Non-Exclusive" licenses to 3rd party vendors to make proper toys to sell and push.
I'm surprised it isn't pushed to a harder extent for Star Trek given it's a cornucopia of stuff to sell.
I'm surprised it isn't pushed to a harder extent for Star Trek given it's a cornucopia of stuff to sell.
Percentages wise it seems to not have the draw. So Paramount doesn't risk as much so it doesn't license so it makes less and so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Yup. But for all that, Spirk and the campy nature of the old series still draws a tremendous amount of chatter. Multiple times a week, I drop into the Star Trek tag to see some joyful young newcomer gleefully exclaiming, "Why didn't anyone ever tell me how gay this show was?!" wrt to TOS.
What's mad to me is that is has had that draw before. AMT model kits selling out or the TNG technical manual entering best-sellers lists on publication.
Paramount just doesn't seem to be able to strategise when it comes to merchandise.
They don't want to do any of that. They wanna play Roblox and Garten of Ban Ban. Or watch YouTubers play Roblox or even Minecraft. Kids don't want to play with any toys anymore.
SNW and PIC have both placed in the Top 10 of Streaming Shows while airing new episodes. They might cut back, but they won't pull the plug.
I think it's a multitude of factors in those case. One, toy sales in general edge towards the much younger side, and the emphasis for olders who might be doing models are focused on Roblox, Minecraft and other such games. And I think there is an appeal to that same aspect of the brain, but it invites a different style of creativity.
But, they are seeing diminishing returns and so interpret that as a lack of interest rather than adjusting for the market. And it's not just Paramount, as Hasbro is famously poor currently at handling the output for Star Wars in terms of fan interest and play value.
