Star Trek Goes to the Cinema: the box office, adjusted & illustrated
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- Опубликовано: 26 дек 2024
- Which 'Star Trek' feature film did best at the box office? And what happens if we adjust for inflation? Warning: this video may contain dodgy mathematics.
Music: ‘Glimpsing Infinity’ by Asher Fulero (RUclips Music Library).
#startrek #films
I did my own calculations maybe a year ago and ended up surprised at how well TMP ended up doing financially. I had always heard that it flopped or was at least a disappointment. Maybe just because they expected Star Wars numbers or something, because financially it seems to have done better than most of its descendants.
It's entirely because it didn't do Star Wars level money while costing 3x as much. However, it did make money and Paramount thought that if they could keep the budget in check and avoid a disastrous production of TMP, they could do more.
We got Wrath of Khan and it was great.
@@danielhenderson8316Yup. It didn't do Star Wars money but not many films do. SW was a true phenomenon. But TMP definitely made bank for Paramount and relaunched a highly lucrative franchise for them.
Quality wise, it was a disappointment. But economically it was fairly good. The problem with a lot of execs is that if something doesn’t reach expectations; they will consider it a flop no matter the reasonable success or not.
The issue for the budget of TMP is how much was for the movie and how much was the movie + Phase 2 development.
Something else to consider for International numbers is that it wasn't until the Late 90's that every Hollywood movie received a full international release. There were several TOS movies that weren't released in cinemas and was straight to VHS.
A lot of studio development gets turned into Tax Write-Offs if they're cancelled. Phase 2 was cancelled and probably written off by Paramount so they got some kickback from that cancellation.
Also for the sake of the video, wTbN only focused on Theatric releases.
@@TheFlyingSailorYT Except if you research a lot about the Making of TMP, the studio was throwing the cost of Phase 2 into TMP since they had opened up a blank check to get the movie done on that day in December, things got added onto the budget. It's hard to pin down a budget for TMP which is why there's so many different numbers while every other Trek has a pretty concrete number on the budget.
@danielhenderson8316 That's 100% correct. They(Paramount) had promised the movie by December 6th, 1979. They had to fire the first effects company as their work wasn't satisfactory. They originally tried to hire John Dykstra and Doug Trumble, but they were unavailable at the time. When they became available, Paramount gave them an open checkbook to get the effects shots done. TMP never even got a preview to test the film. They were so up against the wall that the film was cut, put into their containers and sent to the Smithsonian where the entire cast, producers and guests would see the final film on the giant screen at The Air and Space museum, which is indeed one of the biggest screens I've ever seen. My pops took me to see it at The Uptown in Wash D.C., I was only a lad of 9 years old at the time and don't recall it being a bad film at all. So, a lot of effects shots were never finished properly and they just did the best they could, all due to the promised release date. For anyone interested, check out TMP Directors Edition. Wise was able to go back and finish effects shots that were planned but never filmed, which was re-release in 2002. A new 4k cut of TMP came out in 2022. It still has the slow pace that not everyone liked, but now it finally has been properly finished with updated visuals and a proper sound mix as well.
Such a beautiful Enterprise model. Well done
It really burns my biscuits that the Kelvin-verse is so well represented in the top 4, no matter how it's spun.
I'm also absolutely shocked at how poorly TUC performed overall.
I feel the same way. But it should be remembered that by ST6 it had been 25 years since the last TOS episode, and TNG was already several seasons in. Younger generations were beginning to associate Trek as Picard instead of Kirk, so it was probably time for the TOS crew to bow out. It was my second favorite movie though.
@@gr8oone007 Very true, and I'm sure the audience of the day were wary of the TOS cast after 5.
It's the way of the world at the time. Same Day Domestic/International movie releases weren't a thing until the late 90's. International box office for the TOS movies was low because in some markets it went straight to VHS.
Out of maybe a hundred channels that I subscribe to, you are one of just a few 'always watch' - And you've done it again. Cheers.
You are one of the few people who will make me sit and watch statistical presentations outside of my work. Well done!
"In Orbit...Around Jupiter."
I see what you did there.
I suppose the big surprise is that across your various calculations, Search For Spock comes out a lot higher than you’d expect. Not because it’s bad - in fact I’d say it gets rather unfairly lumped in with the Odd Number Curse - but because it tends to be rather anonymous compared to the infamy some of the other Odd Numbers have (e.g., TMP is oft regarded as a bloated mess which is too long & slow; or, say, Final Frontier being “Shatner’s Folly”).
I like the Borg Cube aimlessly drifting at the beginning 😂
JJ Trek era nicely illustrates the difference internet hype machinery makes.
Bad reboot was hilarious. TMP is my favorite, along with 6 and 7. Thank you!
TMP was an enormous box office hit as I recall. It certainly out-performed all the subsequent films until the awful JJ Abrams series. The hype around those films was... intense.
Anyway, it was all about A) the tremendous anticipation of seeing the original cast together again on the screen for the first time. B) interest in seeing how the cast had changed, how the ship had changed, and so on. C) it was only a little over a year after Star Wars, so interest in science fiction had become rekindled to a level never seen before or since. TMP benefited from that. I distinctly recall the explosion of interest in everything sci-fi as soon as Star Wars began to hit it big, and naturally Star Trek rode that wave back up to prominence. D) tangential to that, people wanted to see what Star Trek would look like with Star Wars-level special effects. And so on. TMP came out at peak sci-fi rebirth time. The box office numbers ought to reflect that.
It really burns me that _Star Trek into Dumbness_ came out on top here, because I aggressively despise that movie and its success only encourages the bastards.
Having said that, I'm pleased that _The Motion Picture_ fared so well, because it's unironically my favorite Trek film.
TMP is a gem of audio-visuals and sci-fi concepts. While far from my favorite, it has undeniably touching moments and memorable scenes. By contrast, I remember remarkably little from Into Darkness (though Weller and Benedict C. put in fine performances).
@@baahcusegamer4530 The musical score for TMP is also the best of all the films, hands down.
@@MrWhipple42 I still listen to parts of it, especially Ilia’s theme. And the title score is legend.
@@MrWhipple42"It's the score to the movie they wish they made."
@@danielhenderson8316 Nah. It's epic. They wanted to do something like _2001: A Space Odyssey,_ and they came close enough.
One has to remember that when Star Trek The Motion Picture came out in 1979 it was an "Event" it had been anticipated for years. Rumors of TV shows one off specials and then finally a film WOW!! I was 15 at the time and when to see it twice that's all i could afford on my pocket money and i walked the 8 miles round trip to the cinema the second time. It was a bid deal back then.I loved it and still do and when the directors cut came out on DVD back in the early 2000s i was blown away.
It should be pedantically noted that "Domestic" box office also includes Canada (and Puerto Rico).
Your numbers seem pretty spot on to me. I've been a bit of a box office nerd for a long time and the inflation adjustments are about right. The main issues with box office is that the studio only gets back roughly somewhere from a third to half a film's total theatrical gross. That often differs though as different studios have differing arrangements with theatres especially in the US where e.g Disney get something like 70% of total box office from the first couple of weekends and then it reduces over the release window. And different countries have different arrangements e.g. China cinemas take a higher percentage of the gross than in most other countries. And then whatever the studio gets back they have to take into account the marketing and distribution costs which often are almost as big as the production budget, plus any back end deals with the talent. Truth is most studios are more than happy to break even theatrically. A lot of profit will come from over time in ancillary markets like streaming, physical media, TV rights, merchandise etc. which are areas where Trek is always very strong. I'm willing to bet even the lower grossing Trek movies become profitable over reasonable amount of time.
It will be interesting to see the films ranked using their budget to profit figures as a ratio. Traditionally a movie needs to make 3 times its budget to be considered profitable
Absolutely right. These films should be ranked in order of how many multiples of the film budget each film grossed. That would show more fully how the studio likely perceived the true performance of each film (leaving aside complex topics such as TV, home video, and other post-release distribution revenues not necessarily included in the original box office figures).
I did like your clip, 'Beyonds' $246m budget just staggers when you think what the outcome was (how did that get approved!?). But it's great to see TMP get some props. And with the 4k UHD release you can see where the budget was spent. Sure it was mainly on hairdressing and eye-makeup for Shatner, but god it was worth every cent !
(Genuinely, I like your vid, well done)
You should not use God's name in vain.
@@user-xf2oz6gr2o which god?
@@Face2East The true God of the Christian religion.
That’s not rain, they’re tear drops from fans over all those numbers. 😂😉
The population of the U.S. has grown 45% from the first to the latest films (from 222.6 M in 1978 to 323.1 M in 2016). The world population has grown 75% (from 4.29 B to 7.49 B). What we really need to see is this... What percentage of the U.S. population bought a ticket for each film? Take the U.S. adjusted gross, divided by the population at the time the film came out. Global would probably be misleading given the largest growth came in areas of the world that don't get to go to movies as much.
Blows my mind that Bad Reboot’s Into Darkness (so apt) grossed highest (before and after adjustment for inflation). That movie was such a disappointment.
So disappointing to see how ST 6 fared compared to the other films. It deserved better.
Sfdebris when he covered star trek 6 covered this quite well when it comes to the finances, as the movies go on, so do the costs for the actors, so if a movie fails or doesnt do as well as they thought, just by definition because of the increased cost of the cast, the studio looses money, and depending on how bad that is, the next film gets a smaller budget because of it, which is what happened to 6 after 5
as their was supposed to be a bunch of scenes in addition to the change with Savak, that showed why the crew wanted to get back together for one last mission
including Scotty pulling the bird of prey out of the harbor I might add
and this is why their hasnt been another star trek movie since Beyond, the cast of actors want too much money for the risk of it not doing well, which just given how badly they've been written, is a very real concern
also another thing is spill over of the props and costs behind them, for the first film everything was done from the ground up, and they had multiple production studios and special effects teams
that bloated the budget and had to start from scratch, when you got to star trek 2, they had more to work with and that saved on costs considerably, but went further, even renting props instead of outright buying them at points
and were basically doing a second reboot given the 2001 thing while unique in its own way, just wasnt like the best of the star trek series
also international markets back then didnt exist, you had maybe the UK and Germany, the Chinease were completely shut off back then, and japan wasnt big into our culture and was heavily subset into its own
same thing with aultralia, and I dont ever remember seeing a mention of the people doing the dubs in the credits for the original films, those always came after and dont forget russia, that didnt become a viable market until 1989 just like china, and generations was the first movie to actually have a website devoted to it would you believe
so they had those then new markets opened up to them, and now sadly in an attempt to get the mighty dollar they value those markets more than the main one now, which is backfiring and hard on them
also marketing, the marketing is about 45 to 50 million ontop of those budgets I think
but you did do well with your final total thing, the common variable here is not seeing it for awhile
as both the best films started over new and fresh and people wanted to give it a chance, but star trek under alex kurtzman has done away with any chance of any film beyond beyond getting green lit given how poor his performance is, and how much money he has wasted as a whole
to say nothing about how poor his writing is, where under him the woman who gave spock his groove in the original series, is too stupid to work a redial button infront of her captain in private to get her point without mutinying in the first episode of discovery
like the only episode of star trek they saw is the one where Kirk gets put in a womans body from TOS and they used that as the platform for the rest of the series
which with how stupid they are, is entirely possible, and more than plausable, after all as spock said, when you remove the impossible, what remains no matter how implausable it may be, must be the truth
and they are that stupid
I see you hand animating those boxes bouncing on top of each other. Must have been painful to do them all haha
I wouldn't be so down on your numbers, particularly for TMP. Even small compounding over 45 years can have a massive impact, and the early 80s were certainly not easy on the inflation numbers!
Now do Star Wars. You did a great job!
That really was quite fascinating, with some totally unexpected figures. And TMP at the top of the pile! Who would have thought it.... Not quite sure how the BR films made that much money, though...
An interesting comparison
something else to consider: movie tickets cost far less back during the TOS era compared to today's prices not even taking inflation into account (domestically speaking, at least. i can't speak for foreign markets.) a $10+ ticket would've been unthinkable in 1979. so while the newer movies have grossed more by virtue of inflation and increased ticket prices on paper, it can be argued that far more people saw the TOS movies.
I think this is exactly right. I went to see TMP on opening night as a teenager. Of course I can't remember how much I paid for the ticket, but I think it was around $3, well within the modest budget for a teenager using money he earned at a part-time job for kids. Plus, there were matinee prices earlier in the day. I saw TMP a total of about 15 times while it was in the theaters, but several of those were $1 matinees. Current ticket prices for first run movies at my local cinema is $12. That's four times the price, and I think that outpaces inflation. My guess is that many more people actually saw TMP at the theaters than any of the Bad Robot films. The only thing I would add as far as profit is concerned is that you did not take into account home video sales and rental, which during the 80s was enormous. Not only did they sell and rent a ton of ST movies, but the cost of a VHS in the early 80s was from $50 - $100 and most of that was studio profit. The TOS era films did not earn Star Wars Box Office but they were very profitable for Paramount, which explains why they kept making them.
You are hinting at stats and variables we never get to see. Sometimes because it is impossible, they choose not to release publicly, or they don't report it . Things like number of tickets sold, price per ticket, visitors unique and repeat, Distribution and number of theaters.
Do the production values include marketing ?
Interesting! I wouldn't have expected the TNG films to do worse overall than the first four films, or for the first film to compete in terms of revenue with the later Abrams films.
Nemesis never gets the love it deserves.
it doesnt deserve more than a bit
In which region of Britain do you live? Do you get thunderstorms a lot? I know the UK is famous for rain, there certainly some with which we had to contend during me and my family’s visit. I, of course, am assuming it’s Britain, due to your accent. I live in north Georgia, and we’re having some tropical storm doozies, stemming from a larger system about ready to hit the Gulf Coast of the Florida Panhandle.
Either somehow the older films were put into a REALLY low number of cinemas internationally, or the numbers reporting is just BAD when you go that far back. Even with Star Trek being way less popular than Star Wars, I just can't fathom how every country in the world combined has fewer grosses than the USA for nearly every single entry in this franchise.
¹ The $82M reported domestic box office for TMP is for the first three weeks only.
I do think your calculations are a little off as I looked at this years ago and Into Darkness didn't to that well, Trek 2009 was the top over TMP but not by much. But either way, it does show that the "JJ saved Trek" excuse isn't valid as these movies didn't make a ton more than some of the other films. If they were that successful, those 3 shouls be the top earners and it shouls be a huge gap. And people have to remember that until the later TNG movies, overseas was an afterthought and not properly tracked, they only cared about domestic box office. So they really don't know how much the earlier films made overseas which has been a huge part of films over the past 20 years.
Thanks for the breakdown! Digital distribution probably helps the modern worldwide numbers. I think the JJ reboots could have worked if they had reigned in the spectacle and tightened up the scripts. I got about 40 minutes into the inane action in STB and shut it off. The party's over when you ask yourself "why am I watching this? " and "what's happening?" Cheers!
Second! Not what I enjoy the most, but fun to understand all the same! Thank you!
🤔 Basically the much criticized Bad Star Trek aka JJ trek genuinely faired way better than the majority of classic & next gen trek. That is out of this World.
Your world wide $ for the first one is off, clearly. That number you thought was an error may in fact have been correct.
I really don't get how Into Darkness made so much money. It was (and still is) a shit film. Nemesis was a better film compared to ID. The Final Frontier we all agree on, though I love its soundtrack more than the Bad Robot film scores. Just my opinion though.
jar jar star trek doesn't count those are abominations fakes get off here , those jar jar treks was utter rubbish , star trek the motion picture was wow , dolby stereo , those jar jar treks atmos was rubbish
It sounds like you've got Keith Emerson playing keyboards back there with the rain and thunder.
So, on the whole, the Bad Reboot movies make more money. I don't want to live in that universe. 🤮
Better title: $tar Trek Oblivion.
Based on your calculations none of these should ever been produced.
Please don’t make any more videos like this. It was incredibly depressing and dry. It’s almost like a bean counter view of the Star Trek franchise. It took all the life and splendor of a franchise by this kind of analysis.
Why? Almost every movie was profitable, which is a good thing that ensures we get more.
First!
🤡