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Profitability of Star Trek Movies

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As Dennis points out, STID made way more money overseas than any other Trek film has ever done before. That, more than anything else, is key to the franchise's health and future.

Star Trek is more popular now, in more places, than ever before. No amount of ill-informed fiddling with budget numbers can change that.

Sadly American $ are worth more to the studio's bottom line, than international ones, that's just a fact of life, sure you can open up in more markets like China but still if your US gross is declining like it did with Into Darkness you need to make a lot more $ elsewhere
 
There is no harm in a little fun trying to work it out though, Harry Potter thing is interesting, it's more likely it was an accounting fudge to get out back end payments as was suggested in my earlier link, using the formula it predicted that it should have made $108M profit, a 72.16% return, I certainly think it gives an indication as to if a film can be judged a success or not, and I find it intriguing as to where it places Into Darkness

You should definitely go to Hollywood and take your formula with you. The studios will gladly offer you up as a sacrificial lamb to the IRS.

There is simply no way a film that made nearly a half-billion dollars (before home video/streaming are factored in) lost money. Studios could never stay in business if that was the case.

If movies actually worked this way then the industry would have died decades ago. If a film can make nearly a billion dollars in the box office and still lose money for the studio you are either looking at a tremendously flawed system or crooked accounting.
 
...sure you can open up in more markets like China but still if your US gross is declining like it did with Into Darkness you need to make a lot more $ elsewhere

Which does explain Paramount's decision to offer Justin Lin the director's chair on Star Trek 3. Fast & Furious is the model the studio wants to follow in terms of distribution and box office. The domestic market alone can no longer support the cost of these tent-pole blockbuster films; international is the future (okay, it's actually the present).

Someone brought up the ramifications of this, in terms of content, in a piece about the fooferall over The Interview - simply put, given the need to penetrate markets like China means that big movies with villains that no one can object to on political, national or ethnic grounds are ideal. Giant evil robots, evil wizards, evil aliens, evil Asgardians offend no one. Brits seem to be the last acceptable, identifiable group other than American for human bad guys, which makes the rebranding of Khan as Khanberbatch almost too convenient for happenstance. ;)
 
lol, no need to be so defensive, the article that I referenced, in my article was the one that suggested the 55%,15% figures, if you can find more articles suggesting a different figures or even better those historical VHS,DVD,Bluray and marketing stats and how much the studio earn back on those would be good then we can add some more complexity to the equation, but I'd rather have the stats for all the movies than just a few so we can do like for like comparison.
Using these rough approximations though seems to be quite a good indicator to me at least, most films I thought loss money fall into the loss column, Into Darkness is the only one that has surprised me so far, I'm not saying it hasn't amused me, because it has.
 
...sure you can open up in more markets like China but still if your US gross is declining like it did with Into Darkness you need to make a lot more $ elsewhere

Which does explain Paramount's decision to offer Justin Lin the director's chair on Star Trek 3. Fast & Furious is the model the studio wants to follow in terms of distribution and box office. The domestic market alone can no longer support the cost of these tent-pole blockbuster films; international is the future.

Yeah, I agree that does seem to be the strategy that they are pursuing, Trek has always been pretty big in the UK and Germany speaking personally
 
I'm not a fan of the new approach, I find a lot of fans that agree that the movies aren't great, arguing that it is a sacrifice that must be made so that the franchise has a future, my point is that we seem to be on very shaky ground looking at these figures, sure last 2 TNG movies weren't bringing in the cash but there were other changes that could have been made to return to profitability IMO that didn't need Trek's soul ripping out.
A loud minority of die-hard Trekkies hate the movies, but polls here and elsewhere, as well as casual moviegoer reviews show the films received a very warm critical reception.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_trek_11/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_trek_into_darkness/
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=209857
I just hope Lin is as passionate about Star Trek as Whedon is with Avengers, Gunn is with Guardians, Singer is with X Men, JJ is with Star Wars... I don't think Trek will survive another Baird/JJ.
Lin will do a great job, I'm sure.
 
I just hope Lin is as passionate about Star Trek as Whedon is with Avengers, Gunn is with Guardians, Singer is with X Men, JJ is with Star Wars... I don't think Trek will survive another Baird/JJ.
Lin will do a great job, I'm sure.

Thing is, Orci was passionate about Star Trek. Just not passionate about it in a way that a loud, vocal minority wanted.

I know they are dancing in the streets over Orci's ouster but will be just as sad when the Lin Trek movie hits theaters.
 
I do like Lin's Fast movies, they do flow well, and most importantly make sense, actions have consequences and aren't over reliant on coincidence/good luck which for me is the worse sin of the new Trek movies
 
Yeah, I like the F&F movies myself - but the first time Kirk jumps from one shuttlecraft to another across a fifty-foot gorge to catch Carol Marcus in mid-air there'll be Trekkie Hell to pay. :lol:
 
Personally I like action and comedy, I'm not one of these people that want an entire movie investigating a curiously never before seen gravitational anomaly but it has to make sense, and can't played solely for laughs/that would be cool, like the dune buggy chase on the prewarp planet in Nemesis(that was dumb) or beaming Scotty into a pipe(Why was there a massive water pipe in Engineering anyway) in Star Trek XI... pretty much all the transporter usage in XI and XII has been horrific... and I absolutely hate it when the entire plot of a film revolves around a character being in the right place at the right time for no other reason than good luck, at least in Star Wars you can blame it on the "Will of the force"
 
As a general rule, you're allowed one big coincidence early in a story before you're taking advantage of the audience's patience. ;)
 
Yeah, I like the F&F movies myself - but the first time Kirk jumps from one shuttlecraft to another across a fifty-foot gorge to catch Carol Marcus in mid-air there'll be Trekkie Hell to pay. :lol:

Don't think it can't happen--Pine/Kirk has already done a HALO jump and a ship-to-ship human torpedo launch. :lol:

I think at this point "true fans" have done more to hurt Trek than they've ever done to help it. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth has influenced at least one person's decision to skip STID in theater (although I did buy the DVD).

If "true fans" really do want more new Trek movies, maybe they should STFU and appreciate the fact that they are getting new Trek movies now.

IMHO, YMMV, LSMFT.
 
If "true fans" really do want more new Trek movies, maybe they should STFU and appreciate the fact that they are getting new Trek movies now.

IMHO, YMMV, LSMFT.

That's a bit like saying, people should appreciate getting punched in the gut as it's better than getting stabbed.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, like these people:
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/aug/14/star-trek-into-darkness-voted-worst

The truth is the JJverse can't keep losing money like Into Darkness before the studio go a different direction, personally I'd hope it would be more my sort of direction, ideally we'd return to the prime universe
 
STID didn't lose money.

Say's you based on nothing but hope, I reckon based on these figures it lost $28M before you even take into account lost Interest that they'd of accrued on the $190M budget if they'd just left it in the bank
 
If they happen to make a really bad movie that makes bank and secures sequels, that's nice but to me it will still just be a bad movie. I've got no stake in how many sequels they make. Luckily we haven't come to that point yet and Into Darkness is my favorite after First Contact.
 
If "true fans" really do want more new Trek movies, maybe they should STFU and appreciate the fact that they are getting new Trek movies now.

IMHO, YMMV, LSMFT.

That's a bit like saying, people should appreciate getting punched in the gut as it's better than getting stabbed.
It is better, but no.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, like these people:
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/aug/14/star-trek-into-darkness-voted-worst
My point exactly.

The truth is the JJverse can't keep losing money like Into Darkness before the studio go a different direction, personally I'd hope it would be more my sort of direction, ideally we'd return to the prime universe
The only numbers I've ever seen that even remotely suggest that STID lost money are right here in this thread.

It doesn't matter, though. Paramount is going forward with this timeline. If it was a big loser at the box office, they'd have shut it down so fast your head would spin.
 
STID didn't lose money.

Correct.

The argument that STID was a money losing film, or was less profitable, or other arguments based on Internet rumors, back of the envelope accounting, and whatever facts fit the preconceived notions of the person advocating the argument would already be sketchy, but when the person advancing the argument ignores information that counters their argument, repeatedly mentions that they dislike nuTrek and want to return to a played out Prime universe all credibility if loss.

Simple facts: nuTrek III is being made. The last Prime Universe product was cancelled. As of right now, it is clear what TPTB think is the best investment. :)
 
STID didn't lose money.

Absolutely right. :cool:

STID didn't lose money.

Say's you based on nothing but hope, I reckon based on these figures it lost $28M before you even take into account lost Interest that they'd of accrued on the $190M budget if they'd just left it in the bank

You're working from faulty assumptions and incomplete data. The only metric is this: are they making another movie with (roughly) the same budget?

Since we already know the answer to that question is yes, then it's pretty safe to assume that STID made money.

Do us all a favour and stop preaching these mickey-mouse calculations as some sort of iron-clad fact.
 
STID didn't lose money.

Say's you based on nothing but hope.

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I reckon based on these figures...

...and you're already in slippery territory. So...

We're having a fairly interesting conversation here to the extent that you let go of the fixed idea that you've discovered something new and definitive in the upteenth attempt by a fan working with spotty publicly available figures and estimates and an old seat-of-the-pants formula to figure out which projects turn profits for the studios and which don't. To the extent that you insist on it, at this point it just looks unnecessarily or deliberately provocative.
 
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