STID "tracking" for $85-90 million opening [U.S. box office]

I'm sorry, but was there anyone expressing doubt about that? [reads through the thread--oops]

I mean, isn't it just a tad early to be wringing hands and seeking smelling salts?

 

There will be a third film.

Anyone who calls STiD a "failure" needs to chug a bottle of Reality. See your doctor for details.

I'm with you. Quite frankly, I thought IM3 down-right sucked, and, dare I say it, thought it was even worse than IM2.

It was especially disappointing because Pearce and Kingsley are both in my top ten favorite actors and thought using both the way they did was a waste.

 

I've only seen the first Iron Man. That and Captain America are my favorite superhero movies out of the current wave.

 

I goggled Into Darkness Sunday night (been avoiding spoilers for a while now) and a lot of headlines I read suggested that Trek underperformed at the box office.

But who knows? Everyone has an axe to grind in hollywood. Glad to hear it's mostly positive.

 

Yeah, everyone (myself included) kinda ran around screaming "REPENT, FOR THE END IS NEAR!!" for a bit there. It's understandable though, people were just trying to figure out what went wrong.

The funny thing is that I'm pretty sure my initial prediction was $450m, which seems to be where the film is destined to end up. Yet despite that, I got caught up in the talk of "OMG IT COULD TOTALLY GROSS $750M WORLDWIDE."

Sometimes, you just want to believe.

Even found the post, for posterity: http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=7818547&postcount=3

 

I said $600 million worldwide. Shows what I know.

 

Not everyone, and not everyone thought anything had gone "wrong" whatsoever.

 

It opened below expectations and will likely end up with a domestic gross below that of Star Trek. Foreign numbers are posting good gains over Star Trek, though, so the worldwide gross will be lead to a sequel. It's still an open question to what extent the total gross will be really good or simply good enough.

 

Tides was awful, the sequel that no one wanted. It got terrible reviews. I don't think the movies should be compared at all.

 

It only "underperformed" in the sense that the last minute expectations Paramount threw out weren't based on anything at all. The movie made $84 million, domestically, over the weekend. That's fucking fantastic. For any movie.

It seems more like unrealistic expectations are at the root of the problem here, rather than a supposedly under-performing box office.

 

I didn't like it either. But legs don't always match critical reception. Tides sets the lower level of legs that STiD could do. I think it'll do better than that, but it's handy to have a number of films on the lower and upper ends to compare performance.

No, the expectations of an increase weren't unrealistic. Sequels to well-liked films, with the benefit of higher ticker prices, particularly 3D and IMAX prices, and a broadening of the audience for the first film through home entertainment, usually open bigger. And they need to in order to generate higher grosses since sequels usually have shorter legs.

 

Well, maybe not unrealistic. Mistaken and overreaching, yeah.

 

Yes.

So it's reasonable, then, to gnash teeth and wring hands when the movie is out for a couple of days and hasn't met your expectations, even though financially speaking it's still very good. That's your prerogative, I guess.

Point taken.

 

I am neither wringing my hands nor gnashing my teeth. I am entirely sanguine that there will be a sequel. One can acknowledge that an opening fell short of expectations - not just my expectations, but studio and industry expectations - and follow the unfolding box office as an intellectual exercise to see what kind of numbers the film is likely to end up with, and to what extent those numbers are a good return on its budget, without thinking the film is a failure (which I don't).

 

If the theories about marketing being poor and Gatsby cutting into the audience are true, then it should have decent enough legs.

I mean I'm reminded of my mum saying "Star Trek is out NEXT WEEK?!" a week before release because she had no idea, even though she'd seen posters because the STAR TREK part was smaller than INTO DARKNESS (which is a shit title).

 

I think a lot of this is being overstated right now. In fact Into Darknes is performing almost identically/slightly better than Trek 2009:

1. Trek 2009 performed better than Into Darkness on Friday, however Into Darkness officially opened Thursday so much of the intial demand for the film was met Thursday reducing its Friday take.

2. Since Friday Into Darknes has outperformed Trek 2009 every day. Saturday saw a 24% box office increase vs. 2009's 1% increase. Sunday that number dropped 19.9% vs. 2009's 22.7%. Additionally Into Darkness performed better on Monday as well.

Reports of the film's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Sure Paramount would have liked a bigger opening, but as I contended in another post, I think a $250-260 million gross is the max ANY Star Trek film could ever achieve. Sure it's a tentpole franchise, but it nowhere near as popular with mainstream audiences as the Marvel films, Star Wars, or Transformers.

Yancy

 

The confusing thing is that it's gross has gone up in every other country, if you took those increases and applied them to the domestic opening, then it should've hit 100m+. That's why its baffled pretty much everyone, it could end up grossing more overseas.

 

The Monday total for STID according to Box Office Mojo is $7.98 million and $91.68 million total to that point. According to the same source, ST09 made $7.5 million its first Monday for a total to that point of $86.71 million.

Reviews for "Hangover III" on Rotten Tomatoes are terrible so far (OK, there are only 9, but just 3 are good and one of those reads as if it should be rotten).

Things are probably going to be fine at the box office, but if it'll make folks feel better, I'll make myself go see STID a couple more times.

 

It's not really baffling, that's the thing. Now, if the movie had made $45 million, or $25 million over the weekend, yes, it would be baffling, but a couple of million off the bullseye? That's not baffling, that's normal. If it's that baffling to someone, then it's likely that said person just poorly worked out the numbers.

That is why it's better to wait a few days and get a better picture of what is going on.

 

If it can continue to match or come close to Star Trek's legs that'll be a great achievement. It's the prospect that its legs will start to weaken, as so many sequels do, that could lead to a gross tens of millions short of Star Trek domestically. That's why studios hope for an increase in the opening weekend for a sequel.

I agree and I haven't stated that it's met or will meet its demise.

The same number of tickets sold as Star Trek would lead to a higher gross than $260 million today. Trek isn't as popular as the biggest Marvel films, but it's bigger than others. Star Trek grossed more than Thor, Captain America, and X-Men: First Class, for example, in the domestic market.