Star Trek Beyond and Ghostbusters box office: What Went Wrong

[kowhite]

1 hour ago, Jonwo said:

The reason why Star Trek rebooted in the first place was because it was life support after Nemesis and Enterprise. It had to become more mainstream because appealing to fans just wasn't cutting it anymore as was making films that were at times just extended TV episodes. If it wasn't for the new films, we wouldn't be having a new TV series coming soon. 

 

 

 

No doubt.  The Star Trek some want?  That shit was never happening on the big screen.  Small screen?  Maybe, but you'd be waiting way longer if not for JJ.

[Ozymandias]

The worst thing that happened to Star Trek in the last few years was the revival of Star Wars.  The new Star Trek movies were made more like Star Wars to reach a wider audience and now the real thing is back.

 

Ghostbusters had terrible trailers, weak WOM, and a largely manufactured controversy by Sony/pundits that backfired on them, or at the very least didn't work.

[cannastop]

2 minutes ago, Ozymandias said:

Ghostbusters had terrible trailers, weak WOM, and a largely manufactured controversy by Sony/pundits that backfired on them, or at the very least didn't work.

Do internet trolls count as pundits? The controversy started with them.

[Gopher]

Ghostbusters was undone by the fact that no $144m live action comedy with that much riding it was gonna return its investment. Especially one attempting to relaunch a franchise that hasn't been in the public consciousness for 30 years. There's not a precedent. Sony became too obsessed with trying to get in all the iconography and references to the original's world that they didn't feel comfortable just letting their leads be funny - this was on the wall for years, when they attempted to launch that Ghostbusters-only company for an extended universe and realized before this movie came out how dumb that sounded. It alienated the audience that usually goes to Feig's work and the audience who'd be interested in a Ghostbusters reboot. I think its legs indicate neither audience is particularly happy with it (Ghostbros can see any other summer tentpole, R-rated comedy fans can see Bad Moms or Sausage Party, there's a lot of options). This error happened with Sony no less six years ago when Green Hornet didn't play as a superhero movie and didn't play as a Rogen/Goldberg comedy (Rogen has said since GH that it's his mission to be the smallest problem for the studio of any of their films by having the smallest budget).

 

Trek did fine for what it was (I assume its international run isn't over yet?). There was no hook for general audiences like there was for the first two. It seemed like a fans-only experience and Trek's fanbase isn't mainstream. Paramount just spends too much money on these movies. Into Darkness probably didn't break even in theaters (2.46x its budget WW) and they decided to spend more on a sequel that offered less. 

Edited August 24, 2016 by Gopher

[kowhite]

2 minutes ago, Gopher said:

Ghostbusters was undone by the fact that no $144m live action comedy with that much riding it was gonna return its investment. Especially one attempting to relaunch a franchise that hasn't been in the public consciousness for 30 years. There's not a precedent. Sony became too obsessed with trying to get in all the iconography and references to the original's world that they didn't feel comfortable just letting their leads be funny - this was on the wall for years, when they attempted to launch that Ghostbusters-only company for an extended universe and realized before this movie came out how dumb that sounded. It alienated the audience that usually goes to Feig's work and the audience who'd be interested in a Ghostbusters reboot. This happened with Sony no less six years ago when Green Hornet didn't play as a superhero movie and didn't play as a Rogen/Goldberg comedy (Rogen has said since GH that it's his mission to be the smallest problem for the studio of any of their films by having the smallest budget).

 

Trek did fine for what it was (I assume its international run isn't over yet?). There was no hook for general audiences like there was for the first two. It seemed like a fans-only experience and Trek's fanbase isn't mainstream. Paramount just spends too much money on these movies. Into Darkness probably didn't break even in theaters (2.46x its budget WW) and they decided to spend more on a sequel that offered less. 

 

In all fairness..Men in Black says this isnt entirely true.  Well, at least your first sentence.

 

That being said, this didn't star Will Smith, nor was it a sequel to Men in Black which has far more modern relevance to international audiences.  You've got a point...but, I can see why there was a thought it might translate.

[filmlover]

1 hour ago, cannastop said:

Do internet trolls count as pundits? The controversy started with them.

Yeah, I don't know why people continue to ignore this. Whenever the news came in that it was the lowest-rated trailer in YouTube history, the "controversy" became too large to ignore.

[Kathemy]

3 hours ago, Jonwo said:

The reason why Star Trek rebooted in the first place was because it was life support after Nemesis and Enterprise. It had to become more mainstream because appealing to fans just wasn't cutting it anymore as was making films that were at times just extended TV episodes. If it wasn't for the new films, we wouldn't be having a new TV series coming soon. 

 

 

Enterprise intentionally tried to be "more mainstream" and it bombed. Appealing to "fans" - as in "science fiction fans" - was cutting it for eight movies while Kelvinverse more or less got its Nemesis after two. It's still cutting it. The Martian was more of a Trek film at heart than anything Trek has done in nearly 20 years. There's a difference between "appealing only to fans" and "alienating the fans you already have." And the notion that "if it wasn't for the new films we wouldn't have a new TV series coming soon" is speculation.

 

Star Trek can't be Star Wars. Its concept does not lend itself easily to cheap action flicks. Deep Space Nine showed us the concept could be adapted as a war series with stellar results, and if Abrams really wanted to up the visceral effect of the movies he should have taken note to that.

 

Then we have the simple fact that until Kelvinverse there wasn't ever a Star Trek movie released which wasn't accompanied by a television show. Those shows are Trek's backbone.

[robertman2]

Ghostbusters went wrong by having an awful marketing campaign, trying to be extremely political, and just being a medicore movie.

Star Trek? I dunno.

[Arlborn]

On 23/08/2016 at 9:49 PM, Lordmandeep said:

Ghostbusters  was marketed as SJW Ghostbusters 

 

Likely did not appeal to wide audience 

 

Nobody over here cared an ounce about this controversy one way or another. In fact almost nobody over here even heard about any of it. The marketing was just shitty, it tried to sell this movie as a children's movie, seriously. I bet similar things happened in the other OS markets.

 

Oh, and it did make some money in the US. That budget though.

 

Trek is coming in September but don't expect Brazil to save it though, Trek09 did less than 2M over here and Into the Darkness did just over 5M. I don't expect more than 10M for Beyond.

[Captain Craig]

1 hour ago, Arlborn said:

 

Oh, and it did make some money in the US. That budget though.

 

What do you know that the industry doesn't know? SONY is in spin mode, so anything they say is a CYA bias.

It's not making any money, anywhere, for some time. 

[Arlborn]

10 minutes ago, Captain Craig said:

What do you know that the industry doesn't know? SONY is in spin mode, so anything they say is a CYA bias.

It's not making any money, anywhere, for some time. 

What do you mean? 130m for a comedy is quite a lot of money. The budget was just too high and OS income sucked.

[Macleod]

1 minute ago, Arlborn said:

What do you mean? 130m for a comedy is quite a lot of money. The budget was just too high and OS income sucked.

 

So it's not "making money"...because Sony surely isn't getting anywhere close to that back from the "box office." 

[Captain Craig]

^^^^^^

I mean that.

 

I take it you aren't aware of how a studio recoups it's money? 

100% of the $12 you spent to see the movie and then roll that up into $130m Domestic total is NOT the totality of what the studio sees. Those funds are split up a few ways. I'm not going to get into them. 

Edited August 25, 2016 by Captain Craig

[Water Bottle]

1 hour ago, Macleod said:

 

So it's not "making money"...because Sony surely isn't getting anywhere close to that back from the "box office." 

 

Like most movies?

[trifle]

4 minutes ago, Captain Craig said:

^^^^^^

I mean that.

 

I take it you aren't aware of how a studio recoups it's money? 

100% of the $12 you spent to see the movie and then roll that up into $130m Domestic total is NOT the totality of what the studio sees. Those funds are split up a few ways. I'm not going to get into them. 

 

I don't think @Arlborn was talking about profits.  He was saying it grossed well for a comedy and if the studio had kept the budget down the amount it made is perfectly respectable, DOM, for a comedy.

Edited August 25, 2016 by trifle

[Captain Craig]

He was saying "it made money", then "that budget though".

1-It didn't make money. Saying it's take is good for a comedy is different, all things are relative to their budget.

2-He then infers he knows the budget is high, so, ergo, if he knows about profit channels on films then he'd know "it didn't make money"

 

 

[Krissykins]

3 minutes ago, Captain Craig said:

He was saying "it made money", then "that budget though".

1-It didn't make money. Saying it's take is good for a comedy is different, all things are relative to their budget.

2-He then infers he knows the budget is high, so, ergo, if he knows about profit channels on films then he'd know "it didn't make money"

 

 

 

He meant, it's making money as in grosses, quite alot of people have been to see it, it's a $125m grossing film.

 

If only the budget was lower, it would be seen as a hit.

 

That's what he was saying, I think.

 

 

[Krissykins]

X-Men: Apocalypse hasn't made any profit from box office alone.
Star Trek Beyond hasn't made any profit from box office alone.
Tarzan hasn't made any profit from box office alone
Independence Day Resurgence hasn't made any profit from box office alone.
 

 

That's just in the top 20 of the year.

 

In terms of Domestic box office, this year, Ghostbusters is closer to matching it's budget than any of these films:

 

Domestic Box Office:

Independence Day: Resurgence
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2
Alice Through The Looking Glass
Ice Age Collision Course
The BFG
The Huntsman Winters War
Warcraft
Ben Hur
The Legend of Tarzan
Star Trek Beyond
X-Men Apocalypse
 

 

It's not the biggest flop of the summer, nevermind the year, nevermind of all time like some people are making it out to be.

[trifle]

4 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

X-Men: Apocalypse hasn't made any profit from box office alone.
Star Trek Beyond hasn't made any profit from box office alone.
Tarzan hasn't made any profit from box office alone
Independence Day Resurgence hasn't made any profit from box office alone.
 

 

That's just in the top 20 of the year.

 

In terms of Domestic box office, this year, Ghostbusters is closer to matching it's budget than any of these films:

 

Domestic Box Office:

Independence Day: Resurgence
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2
Alice Through The Looking Glass
Ice Age Collision Course
The BFG
The Huntsman Winters War
Warcraft
Ben Hur
The Legend of Tarzan
Star Trek Beyond
X-Men Apocalypse
 

 

It's not the biggest flop of the summer, nevermind the year, nevermind of all time like some people are making it out to be.

 

XA has made profit from box office alone, WW.  It's at about $545M world wide right now.

[Krissykins]

Just now, trifle said:

 

XA has made profit from box office alone, WW.  It's at about $545M world wide right now.

 

I'm using IMDB troll math.

 

Not with Marketing costs, 25% of China etc, it hasn't.