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Why didn't Beyond do better at the Box Office?

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I was at Books a Million over the weekend. Star Wars - whose latest offering came out in December of last year... has a front right display stretching 3 shelves and two dedicated independent displays.

Star Trek Beyond - which is STILL IN THEATERS has half an end cap, with nothing tied to the movie at all on display.

Seriously?
 
I was at Books a Million over the weekend. Star Wars - whose latest offering came out in December of last year... has a front right display stretching 3 shelves and two dedicated independent displays.

Star Trek Beyond - which is STILL IN THEATERS has half an end cap, with nothing tied to the movie at all on display.

Seriously?

Sadly, Star Wars is far and away more popular than Star Trek. I wish it wasn't so. I wish the public loved Star Trek as much as they love Star Wars.

Imagine this summer if we'd walked into a toy store full of action figures from Beyond. Kirk in his Altamid survival jacket, a Jaylah action figure, a toy/model of the Franklin, Enterprise 1701, Enterprise 1701-A, and Swarm ships. It would have been so awesome. Rogue One and all the episodes of Star Wars will get that treatment.
 
Has anyone thought of the release date as being an issue?
Both '09 and Into Darkness were released in May, at the beginning of the summer season. Perhaps what is happening is that the movie-going public are getting weary of the big bang zoom films by mid-summer.
Perhaps Star Trek 4 should be released earlier in the year.

The release date could have very well played a role. Movies released in May and June tend to do better box office than movies released after the July 4th holiday. Late July tends to be the start of dump months where studios release whatever they think will make money or get oscar nominations until the start of the holiday box office around thanksgiving.

This summer however has been pretty bad for most sequels while animation movies seem to be the surprise winners.
 
What we need is an insanely rich person who will by the rights of Star Trek from Paramount/CBS and continue to make Star Trek no matter what, profits be damned. If all of you want to start a campaign to make me rich enough to buy Star Trek, I will do so. :p
 
Have to agree the issue is with the terrible, almost non existent marketing. I had several friends and family members who like Star Trek not even know this movie was releasing. Getting general audiences excited is crucial as well, and the lack of build up get very few people excited. The 50th anniversary is a marketing opportunity gold mine, and Paramount blew it. They should have followed BBC's example with how well they handled Doctor Who's 50th three years ago. I don't think the release date was a huge factor, Into Darkness had more direct competition.
 
You realize of course that a lot of America's infrastructure was built in the 30s and 50s, while most of Europe's was rebuilt after WWII, so sure there's a lot newer, but generally speaking the US is more modern and efficient than Europe. There is a lot more air conditioning in the US than in Europe, in fact most European countries frown on air conditioning culturally, societally and because Europe is generally cooler. It is more common for air conditioning to be a standard amenity here when renting an apartment or buying a home.

Well yes, there's more public transportation in Europe, but Americans don't consider that a good thing. We have something called "automobiles". Despite the CO2 emissions, a lot of cities in the USA have cleaned up emissions. Smog levels in LA are down more than 70% since the 70s. One of the most interesting things about my trip to Europe and mostly Italy in 1997 was that the Italians had just passed a catalytic converter law, and the highways and cars smelled terrible..no such thing in the US.

I complained about the state of movie theater picture and sound for many years, but theaters in the US have finally modernized, most use 4K (I've never heard or seen one that isn't air conditioned) projection and almost all are converted to digital, and have excellent sound and picture. It takes time to modernize when you have so many.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...love-of-air-conditioning-is-stupid/?tid=sm_fb

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-07-22/americans-air-conditioning-habit-is-eco-friendly

http://www.emagazine.com/earth-talk/smog-levels-lower-in-los-angeles/

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/us-greenhouse-gas-inventory-report-1990-2014

https://carboncounter.wordpress.com...d-europe-who-is-taking-the-lead-on-emissions/

By the end of 2012, according to Screen Digest, 91.4% of UK screens had been converted to digital and the rest expected to be so by the middle of 2013.[15] Worldwide progress was slower as in some territories, particularly Latin America and Africa. However almost all screens worldwide were expected to be converted by the end of 2015.[16] [17]

As of 31 March 2015, 38,719 screens (out of a total of 39,789 screens) in the United States have been converted to digital (15,643 of which are 3D capable), 3,007 screens in Canada have been converted (1,382 of which are 3D), and 93,147 screens internationally have been converted (59,350 of which are 3D)


RAMA


Thanks for the long and informative answer! I didn't want to start a duscussion about "infrastructure", it's just this "America is the most advanced country in the world and do you even air-condition?"-attitude that can get on someones nerves.

Regarding automobiles: Yes, thank you, you wouldn't believe it, we have them too. If you manage to look really hard you might even see that many of the better working cars in the US even come from either Europe or Japan ;)

It's the "generally speaking the US is more modern and efficient than Europe"-part where you are wrong. America has a serious efficiciency problem, coming from an underfunded infrastructure. In everything from mobility, to healthcare, education, gouvernement spending, regulation and infrastructure, the standard in the US is pretty low, maybe comparable to the underdeveloped southern Europe. This is not a result of "better or worse", but simply of a different focus. US politics generally promote individual advancements and innnovations first, this is the reason why many more new technologies come from the US. As a result, there is a much bigger disparity, with regions like the Silicon Valley that are more modern than anything you will find in Europe, and a vast amount of seriously old-timey tech. You would be hard pressed finding infrastructure in Europe that hasn't been modernized in the last 20 years. It doesn't help that America covers large areas that are only thinly populated, where the cost/benefit factor of modernization is much higher.

Again, no criticism here. America is (together with Japan) one of the biggest technological innovators in the world, and is basically unmatched in modern military and aerospace technologies, and pretty much leading the digital revolution. But this focus-shift indeed leads to a much lower infrastructure standard for the main population, compared to the rest of the developed world. That is a problem that has indeed been in (some) focus in the (democratic) primaries and party program. And since America has managed to retain a relatively high living standard since basically it became a global player, I have no doubt it will continue to do so in the future.

It's just the attitute of "we are better than the rest of the world in every regard, even those in which we clearly aren't" that manages to induce much eye-rolling and a (possibly annoyed sounding) answer from the rest of the developed world :evil:
 
Going back to topic: Does anybody know how Beyond is currently tracking? I seriously hope it manages to top 300 mio. world wide!
(Although to be fair I personally still have my fair share to do so - I wasn't yet able to watch the movie /shame :sigh:)
 
Going back to topic: Does anybody know how Beyond is currently tracking? I seriously hope it manages to top 300 mio. world wide!
(Although to be fair I personally still have my fair share to do so - I wasn't yet able to watch the movie /shame :sigh:)
Bookmark Box Office Mojo. Beyond is just shy of $200 million. I agree with @RAMA - it should top out at $350 million or so. Which is disappointing.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=startrek2016.htm
 
the whole not advertising the 50th enough. could that have anything to do with CBS/TV trek Paramount/movies trek?
 
was Beyond advertised on Facebook and Twitter and other social media sites? Was it advertised on popular sites like Amazon and MSN?
 
I think Beyond was advertised pretty good. Many posters hanging on the street around here. Lots of tv-spots. Ads on Youtube. If you looked for it, you could find it almost anywhere. I think it was advertised almost as much as Into Darkness, which is quite a lot for a movie in this budget range.

The marketing just didn't had anything to stand out on. No Cumberbatch, no big name actor. A bad guy completely plastered under make-up. No big cross-over event. No intuitive plot to explain in the spots. And the single most surprising thing - the destruction of the Enterprise - was already heavily featured in the marketing for Into Darkness.

I think the marketing did a pretty good job advertising the movie as it was given to them. One could only blame them for not putting focus on the 50 year anniversary. But that might have rubbed some fans the wrong way - considering this was a reboot of said old franchise, and pretty much started out distancing itself from "our fathers Trek".
 
Again, more marketing equals more dollars. If the bean counters were determined to minimize investment on a product with an uncertain return, they would definitely not approve more marketing.
 
Again, more marketing equals more dollars. If the bean counters were determined to minimize investment on a product with an uncertain return, they would definitely not approve more marketing.

No marketing is like shooting themselves in their collective foot..
 
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