What would you recommend for ST4 to top $500 million box office?

[RAMA]

An animated Kelvin universe TV show would sustain the brand between movies and also bring kids into it. Do something unusual in it. Make it like one of the Star Wars shows in style and detail. Either way it won't ever be Star Wars or Marvel but it can make money.


RAMA

The Star Trek stigma is only half true. Both 09 and ID did a really good job of reimaging the brand. But they came out so far apart (and again with BEY) that some of the old description (for lack of a better word) was able to creep back in. And neither CBS nor Paramount did much to sustain the image in the interim.

That, above all, needs to change. But, once again, BEY falls off screens, Disco gets delayed, and Star Trek goes back into its closet of a room to play with its Zork.

That sad thing is, with very little--yet continued and focused--effort, Star Trek could easily be made hip. And while it's never going to be on the same level as Marvel or Glow Sticks, with a little work it could easily be pushed into the Potter/Bond/FF/etc bracket.

Each of the three films has been seen as being a "tent pole." It's time to actually start putting up the damn tent.

 

[LizStargaryen]

Hi, this is my first post!

An animated Kelvin universe TV show would sustain the brand between movies and also bring kids into it. Do something unusual in it. Make it like one of the Star Wars shows in style and detail. Either way it won't ever be Star Wars or Marvel but it can make money.

RAMA

Whether Kelvinverse or not, this is what's missing from the franchise post-ENT. The part of nu!Trek that I've enjoyed the most over the past decade besides the movies are actually the comics. I have long wondered why they didn't greenlight another animated series. The Kelvinverse Starfleet Academy years would have made the most sense after the success of ST09. They had 3 seasons' worth of material following Kirk's years there, and with flashbacks and ensemble stories, they could have primed an eager audience. Preteens in 2009-2010 are now college undergrads. Teens are young adults looking for date movies, and so on. If there had been a cartoon between 2009 and 2016, the base would've grown, much as it did during the 1970s thanks to TOS in syndication... and TAS, which was the first Trek for many people I know who grew up during the 70s. Just a thought.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

I want a remake of TMP, but i want the journey through the cloud to be longer.

 

[Smellmet]

I want a remake of TMP, but i want the journey through the cloud to be longer.

Good luck waiting for that to come out.

 

[WB2]

I want a remake of TMP, but i want the journey through the cloud to be longer.

We should simply make a fan film, intercut the voyage through the monolith in 2001 into TMP. Grand success!

 

[psCargile]

I want a remake of TMP, but i want the journey through the cloud to be longer.

Lol. Yeah, long enough to hit the restroom, and grab another bag of popcorn and a drink, return to the movie and not miss anything.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Lol. Yeah, long enough to hit the restroom, and grab another bag of popcorn and a drink, return to the movie and not miss anything.

I know we joke, but films could use more "built in" bathroom breaks. When a summer blockbuster is pushing 3 hours, sometimes you just gotta go and you hope you don't miss stuff.

*Yes, I know about the whentopee app.

 

[psCargile]

The Martian damn near killed me.

 

[I am not Spock]

They managed to make Doctor Who hip . It used to carry much the same stigma as Star Trek fans.

 

[Galactic Alignment]

They managed to make Doctor Who hip . It used to carry much the same stigma as Star Trek fans.

Arguably an even larger stigma, from my memories of the '90s and early '00s! Trek fans used to totally rip the piss out of Who fans for being sad nerds.

 

[wayoung]

A little off topic but since the on topic threads were closed...

Magnificent Seven, a reboot of a 60's film franchise that had produced remakes and spin offs throughout the following decades, starring some of the biggest names in Hollywood, opened at $35 million.

I'm posting this because some members were of the opinion Beyond would have been a smash hit had it opened in September instead of July, despite the box office performance of past September releases


Not a one to one comparison because westerns rarely generate huge box office returns (neither has Trek historically), but in this case the legacy of the brand is the same, cultural awareness is closeish (less than Trek but everyone has heard of it), and Mag 7 stars some of the biggest male box office draws working today (bigger than NuTrek cast) so I feel it is as apt comparison as we can get.

Mag 7 was also produced on a budget of $105 mil vs. Beyonds $185.

Note that I'm not calling Mag 7 a flop, although it's take is less than expected, but pointing out that its take does support the position that the July release for Beyond was not what killed it's box office earning as some had alleged.

 

[I am not Spock]

I do still think Beyond may have earned more if it had opened closer to the actual 50th anniversary in September. And if the trailers had actually made an event of the 50th anni. None of them even mentioned it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Kim and Kayne as Decker and Ilia, even though, they're on the outs.

That'd crack a billion.

Although you'd have to pay them Ryan Gosling money to even think about it.

 

[wayoung]

I do still think Beyond may have earned more if it had opened closer to the actual 50th anniversary in September. And if the trailers had actually made an event of the 50th anni. None of them even mentioned it.

No movie released in September has ever made as much in its opening weekend as Beyond did, and only two movies released in September have ever made more than Beyond overall - a celebrity voiced animated movie about monsters released the last couple days of September to maximize Halloween profits and it's sequel - and Beyond still beat one of those two domestically.

Big budget movies don't succeed in September, the market isn't there. If Chris Pratt, Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'onofrio, and Matt Boomer teaming up can't break $35 mil opening weekend I have a hard time imagining a Trek movie would open past $60 mil.

 

[KGator]

A little off topic but since the on topic threads were closed...

Magnificent Seven, a reboot of a 60's film franchise that had produced remakes and spin offs throughout the following decades, starring some of the biggest names in Hollywood, opened at $35 million.

I'm posting this because some members were of the opinion Beyond would have been a smash hit had it opened in September instead of July, despite the box office performance of past September releases


Not a one to one comparison because westerns rarely generate huge box office returns (neither has Trek historically), but in this case the legacy of the brand is the same, cultural awareness is closeish (less than Trek but everyone has heard of it), and Mag 7 stars some of the biggest male box office draws working today (bigger than NuTrek cast) so I feel it is as apt comparison as we can get.

Mag 7 was also produced on a budget of $105 mil vs. Beyonds $185.

Note that I'm not calling Mag 7 a flop, although it's take is less than expected, but pointing out that its take does support the position that the July release for Beyond was not what killed it's box office earning as some had alleged.

Westerns are not a good comparison because the genre has declined so much from their heyday in the US. Still, your point about September being a bad month is spot on. It has been accepted that way for a while. Maybe Star Trek wouldn't have been as effected by kids going back to school but it sure wouldn't have helped the final numbers any.

Mag 7's problem is not just a lesser Domestic with an "all star" cast but Westerns also do very poorly overseas. They are an American cultural phenomena and as such, don't translate well to other cultures. I can see this movie ending up a definite miss for the studios unless it has very strong legs.

 

[wayoung]

Westerns are not a good comparison because the genre has declined so much from their heyday in the US. Still, your point about September being a bad month is spot on. It has been accepted that way for a while. Maybe Star Trek wouldn't have been as effected by kids going back to school but it sure wouldn't have helped the final numbers any.

Mag 7's problem is not just a lesser Domestic with an "all star" cast but Westerns also do very poorly overseas. They are an American cultural phenomena and as such, don't translate well to other cultures. I can see this movie ending up a definite miss for the studios unless it has very strong legs.

I agree, it's not a one to one comparison but is probably the closest we can get, especially for a September release .

I agree about September being a bad month for blockbusters is old news, I wasn't positing it as something new but responding to the members who have been arguing Beyond's box office problems were caused by its July release date, and that if it had been released in September to coincide with the 50th Anniversary and then it would have made a lot more money. I disputed that and suggested we watch Mag 7 as an example of September earnings, so this post was my follow up to that earlier discussion

That said, I'm excited for Mag 7. Not the best reviews but I still want to see it. Missed it last weekend, maybe this coming one.

 

[I am not Spock]

It is a shame. I was hoping Beyond would be Trek's answer to Skyfall (also released in it's respective franchise's 50th anniversary year), but maybe that was an unrealistic hope.

 

[Ovation]

Bond is WAAAYYY more popular than Trek.

 

[wayoung]

Bond is WAAAYYY more popular than Trek.

Definitely more mainstream, although it isn't that long ago Bond was a second rate franchise as well, coasting on name and formula more than attempts at quality.

I'm probably in the minority here, but despite it having a better director, cast, and cinematography (damn, that was a beautiful movie) Skyfall's completely ridiculous 3rd act makes Beyond the better movie, even with Beyond's paint by numbers plot.

 

[Khan 2.0]

domestically the original Trek films were comfortably beating all the Moore/Dalton Bonds (& NSNA) throughout the late 70s/80s (yes even TFF)
the TNG movies easily lost out to the Brosnan movies throughout the 90s/early 00s.
then the JJ films totally beat the first two Craigs & Spectre (and STB is still comparable) but no where near Skyfall.

overseas however, the tables are completely turned in Bonds favour.