Why isn't Star Trek a big movie franchise?
- Thread starter The Overlord
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Have you already forgotten the appropriate procedure and venue for critiquing moderation?
As of this writing, two of the front page topics are about why Star Trek isn't a big movie franchise, and another thread about Paramount going forward with the fourteenth entry in the Star Trek film series.
C'mon, ya'll. Unless you count a branching universe like the MCU, the only other franchises that have more big screen movies include James Bond and Godzilla, who are both pop culture icons. That's pretty considerable for something that supposedly isn't a big movie franchise.
C'mon, ya'll. Unless you count a branching universe like the MCU, the only other franchises that have more big screen movies include James Bond and Godzilla, who are both pop culture icons. That's pretty considerable for something that supposedly isn't a big movie franchise.
You raise a good point. Although I agree with you about Star Trek being a big franchise in both cinema and television someone could argue with this*:
Friday the 13th: 12 movies
Halloween: 10 movies
Hellraiser: 10 movies
Nightmare on Elm Street: 9 movies
Saw: 8 movies
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: 8 movies
And that's not counting the hundreds of Dracula, Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes, Three Musketeers, Tarzan, Zorro, etc., movies from different studios over the decades. Would you consider all the above big movie franchises? Quantity isn't always the best indicator of quality. We need other criteria as well.
* Please don't anyone make the ridiculous assumption that I'm comparing Star Trek with these!
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We just got three Star Trek movies with budgets on-par with 90% of movie blockbusters (excepting Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Batman V Superman and literally nothing else)
Maybe not quite as many people are going to see it as some, but Trek is getting all the production values and whatnot of a big movie franchise.
Maybe not quite as many people are going to see it as some, but Trek is getting all the production values and whatnot of a big movie franchise.
I think where the rubber meets the road with these movies is whether they're making a profit for Paramount. That's what the studio cares about and that's their incentive to make more. ST09 and STID easily made a profit for Paramount -- Beyond, probably not much, if any. But that doesn't worry me yet. One more underperforming Trek film, then maybe they'll take their foot off the gas of this franchise. I don't think it's useful to judge the Trek movie franchise's success on whether it's measuring up to the MCU or Star Wars, because it's a completely different franchise that appeals to a narrower audience. They ought to just trim the budget and/or hire another big name guest star a la Cumberbatch and they'll probably make back their investment.
You made some good points. ST is better suited for the small screen than the big screen, imo. The kinds of stories that ST tells and the character development work better on tv. I agree that ST should be primarily made for tv, with the occasional movie based on one of the established, or future, tv series.
I am more excited about the upcoming Discovery series than the next nuTrek movie.
One of the reasons why horror movies are so ubiquitous is because they can be made on the cheap. A theatrical horror movie can have a budget of $5 million and rake in $50 million, and that would be more than enough to justify a sequel -- there are very few effects, very affordable mid-name actors, and very fast turnaround time for the Insidious movies, for example. That's different than a franchise with a ton of set pieces and repeat ensembles. Doing that with Trek is a bit redundant since the Trek movies generally tend to make more money than that (even if the ratios are different), and the TV shows themselves have higher seasonal budgets (TNG had a $1.3mil per episode budget alone, IIRC). It's easier to make a horror movie sequel than it is to make a Fast and the Furious sequel or a Star Wars spinoff, by several levels.
Whatever we may think of or what we consider to be the weakest of Trek films, it would still take several of the above horror movies just to match the complexity and scale of one Trek movie. Even moreso if we're talking about a Kelvinverse movie.
And with these movies, you either have studio backing (nothing wrong with Dracula or Frankenstein or the Universal monsters in general -- which have already been franchised), whereas someone like Holmes or the Three Musketeers have several incarnations thanks in large part to their age, no different than a stage production of Shakespeare or Homer or Arthur Miller -- and plays generally aren't franchised because it's different producers/houses working on those adaptations. They're typically not expanded upon, but remade to see what a different production would look like. So, sure, they may or may not be franchises, but ultimately they're usually not under the same banner, i.e. Sherlock is different than Elementary is different than Guy Ritchie films is different than Basil Rathbone is different than Cmdr Data.
But here's the thing -- OP asked a question based on scale, not a question based on quality. We've easily established the scale as large. Those horror movies in the first list would have to combine several movies in order to equal the box office of a Bond or Trek, or even higher, a Harry Potter or Star Wars movie. So the scales don't quite match up.
But secondly, you're also mentioning some of those franchises in a kind of disparaging light -- Wes Craven was behind the best Freddy Krueger movies. Francis Ford Coppola made a Dracula movie. Disney had an Oscar winning Tarzan. John Carpenter's work on Halloween made Roger Ebert one of his earliest and most vital cheerleaders, which led to a career boost. But we're not talking about individual quality of those movies nor of the Trek movies because that wasn't part of the OP's original question.
Lastly, consider audience. Those movies are meant more for niches whereas the Bonds, Treks, Potters, Jurassics, MCU movies, etc, are meant for broader audiences in general, hence the higher numbers.
So, directly to your point: no one compares a big broad tentpole franchise to a smaller horror franchise because the scales -- budget, audience, exposure, etc -- are so different, regardless of quality. Simply put, if the Trek movies weren't making money, or if there wasn't the potential to make money, they wouldn't keep getting made. Horror movies get greenlit for this reason; it's trickier for big studio tentpole franchises, but quantity is proof of staying power, which Trek definitely has. Remember, this is a business.
Now, that's not to say that quality should be tossed aside; nobody is saying that at all. But consider that The Insider or Precious or Bridge of Spies or Birdman are all at the absolute top of quality (however they may be judged) and have staying power, but no one's trying to make franchises out of them either (nor should they). So while quantity =/= quality, quantity does indicate something, and there are things you can/can't do with either of those things.
Edit: Typos and additions
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And it was a lot easier to make a Japanese Godzilla movie as well but you used the Godzilla films as an example of a (successful in numbers) franchise.
BTW Star Wars will have 9 movies (not counting the Ewoks/Clone Wars) and Fast and Furious will number 8 movies by 2017.
Again, the same things apply to the Japanese Godzilla movies that you mentioned.
But I agree that the scales don't match up*:
Star Wars: The Force Awakens: 2,068,223,624 $ worldwide box office
Jurassic World: 1,670,400,637 $ worldwide box office
Marvel's The Avengers: 1,518,812,988 $ worldwide box office
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: 1,341,511,219 $ worldwide box office
James Bond: Skyfall: 1,108,561,013 $ worldwide box office
…
Star Trek Into Darkness: 467,381,469 $ worldwide box office
Guess the odd man out.
( * I'm only using the franchises you included Star Trek to them.)
To paraphrase you, those Star Trek movies would have to combine several movies in order to equal the box office of a Bond or a Harry Potter or Marvel or Jurassic Park or Star Wars movie. No one compares a big broad tentpole franchise to a smaller sci-fi TV franchise because the scales -- budget, audience, exposure, etc -- are so different, regardless of quality.
I'm reminded of a scene from a first-season episode of The West Wing. Toby Ziegler, the White House communications director is writing the president's State of the Union address, and the pollsters are pushing him to add the line, "The era of big government is over," because it polls so well. Toby says that the fact so many people think the era of big government is over isn't a reason to say it, but a reason to change it.
Reading over your description of "modern times," I can't think of an era that needs Star Trek more; though I guess this thread is supposed to be about why Star Trek isn't more popular; and what people want is not always what they need.
Beyond had Idris Elba, who isn't exactly an unknown actor.
True, but he was also unrecognizable in pretty much every piece of marketing, and iirc none of the trailers featured any of the actors' names. I've heard several people say they didn't realize it was Idris Elba until the end of the movie.
It was actually pretty pointless casting him IMO. Buried under makeup for 90% of the movie, and It's not like the role required any serious acting chops either, you only saw a little of his actual character at the end. At least Cumberbatch was visible throughout and his role required some acting skill, despite his hamming it up. Krall seemed so generic any average actor could have done the part.
Yeah they put Cumberbatch front and center in all their marketing. Elba wasn't trumpeted that way.
Obviously they couldn't release images of him in his human form (but the still did in a late TV spot that I thankfully avoided - facepalm!) but the should have had his name play more of a part on the posters maybe. Just seems like a waste of a good actor to me.
While I absolutely loved Beyond, that certainly was a strange decision -- not unlike casting an actor on the level of Christopher Eccleston for Thor: The Dark World, then putting him under fifteen pounds of makeup and having 95 percent of his dialogue be complete gibberish.
I wouldn't say they wasted him exactly. I do think an actor of that caliber deserved one more big, character-building scene than he was given. I loved Beyond too, but I would've preferred if they found a way to capture him, rather than kill him, and then have a scene later where he has another conversation with Kirk and they find some common ground, Kirk sympathizes with Edison.
Except sonetimes people are monsters and there's something in them that's hardwired to not allow them to make reasonable and rational decisions.
Not every villain needs to go the clichéd route of being sympathetic which seems to be the trend of late. We're making shows and movies about despicable people that we're meant to sympathize with and understand and it's disturbing on more than one level.
Now they could have written it where he didn't have to die, sure, but having the two find common ground in any way wouldn't be true to either character and would just feel forced. And really, Edison would rather be dead anyways than live in a world that values peace above all other options.
Not every villain needs to go the clichéd route of being sympathetic which seems to be the trend of late. We're making shows and movies about despicable people that we're meant to sympathize with and understand and it's disturbing on more than one level.
Now they could have written it where he didn't have to die, sure, but having the two find common ground in any way wouldn't be true to either character and would just feel forced. And really, Edison would rather be dead anyways than live in a world that values peace above all other options.
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