Star Trek Beyond's weekend box office estimates are in, and it's a real good news, bad news situation. In this summer of sequelitis, Beyond 's performance is being greeted as perfectly adequate, but when judged according to its budget and franchise history it's a clear disappointment.
Let's do the numbers:The good news? Beyond took the weekend box office crown, finally getting to be the one to knock The Secret Life of Pets off of its perch. Moreover, that $59.6m is the third highest debut for any live-action movie this summer, trailing Civil War ($179m) and Apocalypse ($65.7m). It's also on the extreme high end of the $55m-$60m pre-release projection.
The bad news? This marks a 14% decline from Into Darkness' domestic debut and a new low for the revived franchise. In light of their pricey budget, Paramount now needs Beyond to seriously overperform overseas for that previously announced Star Trek 4 to become a reality.
The good news? Beyond logged franchise highs in 17 markets, including Russia, Taiwan and Thailand, and scored first place debuts in roughly half (16) of the markets it played in. In fact, according to Deadline it opened 31% above Star Trek in Germany, 240% above Star Trek and 13% above Into Darkness in Russia and at least 63% above either Star Trek or Into Darkness in Taiwan and Thailand.
The bad news? It also opened well below the prior films in other markets:
- The UK: 37% below Into Darkness, 15% down from Star Trek
- Germany: 29% below Into Darkness
- Australia: 24% below Into Darkness, 15% down from Star Trek
The good news? China awaits. As Paramount's Vice Chairman, Rob Moore, told THR, "The first film was a completely domestic movie. And then we built up Latin America and Asia. We're confident these markets will continue to see significant growth. We have an excellent date in China (9/2), where we have no competition from another Hollywood title."
The bad news? China is currently suffering through its first prolonged box office slump in years.
Let's throw out some theories for the fall-off between Into Darkness and Beyond"Yes, we know the domestic marketplace is tough, but we did at the hot end of what anyone was forecasting. Justin Lin delivered," is how Rob Moore chose to characterize Beyond's domestic opening. He might as well have said, "Look, Ghostbusters, Independence Day and Tarzan would have all killed to have a debut this big! It's not Justin Lin's fault that everyone suddenly decided this was the summer to hate on Hollywood blockbusters."
However, it's difficult to spin what is so obvious to the naked eye: the domestic numbers for these new Star Trek movies are clearly going in the wrong direction. Paramount's hope is for Beyond to continue the franchise's international growth. After all, Into Darkness improved upon Star Trek's foreign total by $111m. However, no such improvement is likely for Beyond. At its current pace, it will fall well short of $200m domestic, and barely manage $204.6 international thus failing to top Into Darkness ' worldwide take of $467m, the current franchise best.
But why? Here are some theories:
1. The Into Darkness backlash still lingers
Paramount was in a precarious position with Beyond. Into Darkness set franchise highs in international and worldwide gross, and could be seen as a bottom-line success, albeit one which didn't quite catapult the film series into the high-end tax bracket the studio hoped for. Still, there was enough there to warrant a sequel.
Yet the hardcore fans seemed to hate it. Remember, Trekkies voted Into Darkness the worst Star Trek film of all time, an argument perhaps not supported by a more level-headed assessment of the franchise's true low points (looking at you, Nemesis and Final Frontier). That vote took place in the months after Into Darkness release, yet the hatred expressed toward the film still lingers on today.
Beyond, by all appearances another bang-bang, whiz-whiz action-heavy Star Trek movie, gave those fans no reason to come back, especially when the final trailer was less about the movie and more about cross-promoting a new Rihanna song.
2. Yet those who loved or liked Into Darkness also went ignored
Opening weekend audiences graded Into Darkness as an "A" on CinemaScore, and it currently has a 7.8 out of 10 from nearly 400,000 IMDB user ratings. That's the second highest rating on the site for any Star Trek movie, behind only the '09 Star Trek (8.0). Point being, not everyone hated Into Darkness.
How does Beyond reward those fans? By completely ignoring them. They waited three years to see how things turned out between Kirk and Alice Eve's version of Carol Marcus, especially since the Federation appeared to be on the verge of war with the Klingons, and they'll have to keep on waiting because Beyond pretends Into Darkness never happened. Carol, who joined the crew at the end of Into Darkness, is neither seen nor referenced in Beyond. Same goes for the Klingons.
Of course, to know that to be true for sure you have to actually see the movie, but you could tell as much from the trailers which clearly appeared to have no connection to the events of Into Darkness whatsoever. Perhaps Paramount was in a lose-lose situation. Left to honor those who embraced Into Darkness while also appeasing those who rejected it, they attempted a course correction, returning to a more episodic format while also upping the action. The result is a movie which scored a decent A- from CinemaScore, and has a respectable 84% on RottenTomatoes. Yet here we are discussing its lackluster box office.
3. The gap between the core audience and the studio is growing wider
Does "This is not your father's Star Trek" ring a bell? That's was part of the ad campaign for the 2009 Star Trek, and as BoxOfficeMojo argued at the time:
While accurate in its description of the movie itself for better or for worse, this line was not only puerile but unnecessarily insulting to the previous Star Trek incarnations and the audience base. One doesn't have to alienate the fans in order to broaden the appeal (even if most will take the abuse and still see the new movie anyway). The Batman and James Bond franchises were successfully rebooted without openly attacking what came before (and Batman had more to apologize for after Batman Forever and Batman and Robin).
That set the tone for the oddly contentious approach Paramount has taken to Trekkies with all of these films, continually taking for granted that those bunch of nerds would automatically show up no matter what. However, it's a strange feeling to be a fan of a film or television franchise which appears to no longer care about you. J.J. Abrams managed, as an outsider to the Star Trek phenomenon, to pull the franchise from the clutches of the Trekkies and deliver it in an easier to swallow form for the masses. Many admired his ability to make the once byzantine seem accessible. However, there has been a growing chant of "But what about us?" from longtime Trekkies who no longer recognize the Trek they loved in Abrams' version.
That's not to say disgruntled fans should always be catered to [insert obligatory reference to Ghostbusters controversy]. That's also not to say that JJ's approach to the '09 Star Trek was incorrect. In fact, I know people who have only come to the franchise through his movies. However, battle lines have been drawn from the beginning, and when Paramount selected Justin Lin to helm Beyond it seemed remarkably transparent that now Star Trek was going to be turned into a Fast & Furious riff, which is exactly what Lin ended up doing (so much action, so much rhetoric about the power of family). For many, though, what they still don't see is their version of Star Trek, and now that Bryan Fuller is back in the fold, promising a new TV series ( Star Trek: Discovery) which will return the franchise to its core (and be set in the old timeline) what use to certain fans have for the movies anymore?
4. Paramount consistently dropped the ball with their promotion
Everything about Paramount's promotion of Star Trek Beyond felt off, or at the very least very against the grain. Whereas the rest of the summer blockbusters came at us with their best pick-up lines every couple of weeks Star Trek Beyond played it coy from the other side of the bar. A strategic choice? Perhaps. More likely, though, it was birthed by necessity considering Star Trek Beyond's rushed production ( as I discussed last year).
To briefly recap, Paramount had a completely different script and director, and when both of those fell apart they were left seriously scrambling. As Justin Lin told Deadline, when Abrams offered him the chance to direct he hesitated. "I knew that this was going to be a logistical nightmare. This film went from a new idea to production in six months. That's never really been done before on a film of this scale."
He went into even more detail for BirthMoviesDeath, "As the script was being written, I had to prepare to shoot in three and a half months, which is something unusual. For us to be able to have a crew of hundreds of people waiting for directions, while we also had to write the script, was extremely challenging."
As such, it is entirely possible that Paramount's hands were tied with their promotional efforts because the film's effects shots were all being finished right up to the last minute. Maybe that's why they could merely muster one ultra-short teaser in December before going on media silence until dropping the second trailer in May.
Still, this is an era in which studios "market tentpole franchises as relentlessly as McDonald's pushes Big Macs." That's not necessarily a good thing (seriously, WB, enough with the endless Suicide Squad clips). However, it's the name of the game, and when you don't step in line you send up warning flags everywhere.
As Deadline explained:
If a studio is going to expand the fanbase of a franchise, it's never too early to get the word out. Paramount skipped Comic-Con last year with any type of major tubthumping for Star Trek Beyond. [It] also didn't help Paramount in the distribution/exhibition community when they opted out of showing any footage from Star Trek Beyond at Cinema-Con. That move prompted some gossip among rival distribution chiefs, who suspected something was wrong with the film and buzzed about the pic's production delay.
Paramount claims it had a plan: In May, the studio threw a fan event on the Melrose lot, and showed off a new trailer and exclusive footage. Even though that was two months out, shouldn't they have hosted the event six months sooner during the 50th anniversary year of the franchise? Disney just threw its Star Wars Celebration in London with a big spotlight on its prequel Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and that doesn't come out until December.
Paramount did indeed hold a special fan event in May, and they also premiered the film at an outdoor IMAX theater as part of San Diego Comic-Con. Those are both cool, smart marketing tools, but they might have come too late to make any real difference at the box office. Plus, while the controversy surrounding George Takei's surprising disapproval of the choice to reveal Sulu is gay might have, in theory, raised awareness for the film it might have also served as a giant distraction.
