Thanks for some thought-provoking info! Even this “old dog” can learn something new. I’m alternately fascinated/frustrated by the movie biz.. No wonder the constant turnover at the studios. I think they themselves don’t even have a grasp, other than bottom line $’s.

My point was one of timing a release and securing a large theater count. Also, again, in our current ADD culture, there is about a 3 week window to “make hay while the sun is shining”. May was a very crowded month of high budget, potential blockbuster openings. It doesn’t matter if they sucked. They were the latest thing, new and shiny, highly hyped and advertised. By June when the dust settled, Trek ‘09 was old news, despite the good word of mouth. The window had closed.

That’s why I feel the timing of the sequel is crucial, as well as locking up the highest number of theaters possible, and improving the foreign appeal. Almost as important as making the sequel a good movie ;-)

As a side note, I wonder what effect pushing the release back 5 months had on theater counts/commitments. And as a further side note: do we know if any changes were made to the film during that time, or was it already “in the can”?

(Wow, I/we are way off topic, to the point that’s a whole new thread, LOL!)

I can’t answer your question as to how the game is played now but I do know how it was played in 1979. The studios had in place a blind bid auction where the right to premiere and first run went to the highest bidder. It was “blind” because the studios never produced one frame of footage to give the bidders any inkling of what they were getting.

I also recall the high bid for TMP was a record for Paramount and ultimately a disappointment to the Theater company as they were expecting to recoup based on STAR WARS’ numbers. I believe it is a matter of historical note that the TMP “blind bid” auction was ultimately responsible for the demise of the blind bid.

“…after budget recoupment” – RD in #124

I gave in and used BoxofficeMojo’s ABO since that’s what Trekmovie uses and despite no particular reason to give it any more credit than any other, it carried more legitimacy around here.

I calculated the ROI using an inflation calculator based on the Consumer Price Index to adjust the budgets which I deducted from the BOM adjusted numbers.

ABR?

#126 Brian Kirsch wrote: “Again, I respectfully disagree. You can’t always define direct competition by genre or theme.”

Which is why I said in hindsight … the fact that those films did suck, meant there was less repeat viewers looking for another film and in some cases a better thrill ride, which ST’s word-of-mouth heralded. In general, there wasn’t anything really exciting for the general audiences to lure them away from Star Trek during its opening weekend. Imagine if Trek had opened the week after Transformers 2, followed the week after by Harry Potter. So what I’m saying Trek didn’t really have any competition until “UP” and by that time Trek had earned the majority of its Domestic box office. Did Trek deserve it? Of course it did, but it also had opportunity to flower rather than try to bloom in the shadow of other successful blockbusters.

Interestingly enough, TMP went up against two hugely successful films which opened the following weekend: “Kramer Vs. Kramer” and “The Jerk”, but both were adult oriented films and very different experience for audiences to TMP’s G rating Sci-Fi.

I really wish I could address your question about theatre chains more authoritatively, but I think you have it about right … theatre chains compete over releases. Relationships determine what theatres get what films. Theatres lease (or guarantee) a film for a certain term from studios, with the ability to hold over. In some cases I am sure there are promises to play in order to preserve their relationship with a studio, whether a film does badly or not, possibly even subsidized. Also, some of the theatres that did not get the film in the initial release for whatever reason, add it later while other theatres hold over theirs. Keep in mind that not every theatre experiences the same poor box office as the national average and profit from a holdover. In some cases a theatre is faced with a lease term that exceeds the profitability of the film. In that case, they have to decide whether to pull the film and eat their lease fee (or guarantee) for the remaining duration and try to put something more profitable up, if possible, or leave it running to recoup as much of the lease fee as possible, or keep it up for the studio at a subsidized rate. There may also be incentives … the longer it stays in the theatres, the greater the share of B.O. they get to keep against the lease.

I agree with you.

But am curious whose formula you are using to calculate your ABOROIABR?

“(looking back I see ST09 had no real competition).”

Again, I respectfully disagree. You can’t always define direct competition by genre or theme. There are crossover audiences that just want to see the newest, most hyped film. Trek ‘09 had Wolverine opening large the week before. Even though it sucked, it continued to eat up theater counts for several weeks. The following weekend, A&D opened large, eating up more theaters. The next weekend, both NATM and T:S opened large. Then, the next weekend UP opened large, followed by wide releases of LOL and Hangover.

My contention is that had Trek opened at more theaters without the onslaught of big releases week after week after week, it possibly could have grossed $20-25 million more domestically at just 300 more theaters. But in today’s ADD culture what’s new is hot……..what’s 3 or 4 weeks old is not. Just ask Harry Potter ;-)

You obviously have more knowledge in the “hollywood” game than I do, on the business side at least. Can you explain to me how theaters are assigned? Is it a contract between the studio/distributer and a theater chain for a specified number of weeks? This Summer has seen some big flops languish in large theater counts for no apparent reason, while more worthy films (like trek ‘09 IMO) could have benefitted from those screens.

Your observations are a breath of fresh air on a website where the comments tend to gravitate toward the extremes.

Frankly, that is the argument I have been making about Star Trek since day one. The film series used to be made on tight budgets, and returned a decent performance at the box office resulting in a high ROI and more films. Where the Star Trek franchise went wrong at the box office was increasing the budgets to accommodate requisite CGI technology, in part to compete, but at the same time failing to develop coherent scripts. The films became merely an extension of the TV mentality where stories were cranked out as fast as possible to get a film produced and into the box office, while they were simultaneously producing two TV shows – a factory that got used to the profit they were making and failed to re-invest into the product. Then they fell into the trap of relying on CGI to fill in the blanks – flash over substance.

ST09 has done marginally better than TMP in the US (adjusted), but no better than TMP’s worldwide box office returns and with a lower ROI. The sequels will undoubtedly cost a similar amount to make and may not make any more at the box office, depending on its competition (looking back I see ST09 had no real competition). I fully expect them to gross higher than the best of last 9 films, if for no other reason that Abrams intends to keep them unfocused on broad general themes to appeal to a wide audience and undoubtedly filled with lots of non-stop action. But is this Star Trek? That’s really up to the individual.

The question I have is, can Trek even become a mega-blockbuster franchise? If not, why spend the money? Why not make good solid films based around great scripts that address the things that attracted fans to the franchise in the first place and kept the franchise afloat with decent returns at the box office for at least 20 years? Forget Summer tentpoles and focus on the holiday “Oscar” season where the more thoughtful reflective films tend to hit the box office and where Trek has always performed well.

This will be Abrams’ first sequel at the box office. He seems to be very lucky with one-offs: Alias and Lost both blew audiences away with their first seasons then fell into a huge ratings decline until they were cancelled. MI:III did well, but not as well as MI:II, and ST09 was a “pilot” – not a regular “episode”. Only time will tell if Abrams’ vision of Trek will pay off at the box office, but there’s no guarantee based on his track record. I see far too many similarities between TMP and ST09 not to question whether the sequel will do relatively better then TWOK. Of course the reviews are almost twice as good which should guarantee a boost, but the real question is whether the rest of the world is ready to become Trekkies?

Someone here pointed out to me early on that ROI is irrelevant – more is more. ST09 is the second highest grossing film in the franchise in terms of adjusted box office ROI after budget recoupment. As long as that remains the case, there is absolutely no reason for Paramount to settle for less.

I saw it in the company of a young woman, and her legs are just fine.

But I do doubt that District 9 will be some kind of megablockbuster — just as much as i doubt that it _needs_ to. Low-budget, high concept. It’ll make it’s money, cover its time, earn its fanbase and endure in the collective memory of fans, I daresay, when all the flash-powder movies are forgotten in favor of their functionally identical replacements of the day.