What Exactly is the Status of Star Trek 4?

Four days before the release of Star Trek Beyond, Paramount Pictures, Skydance, and Bad Robot announced that “Star Trek 4″would be made with Chris Hemsworth reprising his role as George Kirk. However, J.J. Abrams’s comments on July 20th at the red carpet premiere of Beyond in San Diego cast doubt on the status of the film.

Abrams told Entertainment Weekly that “[the story for the fourth feature] is his favorite Star Trek story that we’ve had.” Abrams added, “So one of the reasons I’m hoping [Star Trek Beyond] does well is so that we can, without question, get that movie made.” The producer continued, “It really is an amazing story. It’s really the reason we made the deal with Chris Hemsworth as soon as we could because we really want the story to be told, fingers crossed.”

Series regulars appear to be in the dark on a fourth film, especially the man named in the press release. When asked what to expect from the next film, lead Chris Pine said “I have no idea. I have no idea. J.J. hasn’t really told me anything. But I’m looking forward to it. I love Chris. I think he’s fantastically talented. We had a great time on the first one…it’ll be a blast.”

What We Know So Far

What remains crucial and largely unknown is the exact monetary figure Paramount, Skydance, and Bad Robot consider a success at the box office. According to Box Office MojoStar Trek Into Darkness cost $190 million to make and returned over $467 million at the box office, with over half its total being made in overseas markets. Paramount expected Into Darkness to bring in a $100 million opening weekend, according to Moviefone.

As of the writing of this article, Star Trek Beyond brought in $59.2 million during its opening weekend domestically, along with an estimated $30 million international haul as it opened in 37 overseas markets. Beyond’s domestic opening weekend haul was on the high-end of what analysts were predicting it would make, as they estimated a $50-60 million opening weekend before release. As is becoming increasingly common with films, the international market is vitally important. As stated earlier, much of Into Darkness’s success was due to it bringing in $238.6 million internationally. Beyond, while having already opened in 37 countries, still has not opened in France, South Korea, China, Mexico, and Japan. Paramount’s staggered release schedule sees it opening in those countries mainly throughout August, but Brazil will not get it until September 1st, China and Mexico on September 2nd, and Japan on October 21st.

With a budget of $185 million, one has to wonder exactly what figure Beyond will have to bring in for Paramount to consider it a success. Paramount, Skydance, and Bad Robot sought to reduce the cost of the third film by moving production to film industry-friendly locations such as Vancouver and Dubai, yet the budget still swelled far beyond the $150 million needed to make the most successful film in the Star Trek franchise, 2009’s Star Trek.

A lower box office haul need not be a deterrent to making another sequel. Box office revenue from films featuring the original cast oscillated greatly between features, with the actors being told each time to expect the film to be the series’ last. The Next Generation’s features did much of the same. Paramount continued to make more, however, until 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis bombed at the box office.

While Star Trek Beyond is unlikely to top the charts of the Kelvin Timeline series of films, it will likely become the third-highest grossing Trek film, and is unlikely to be viewed as the failure Nemesis was. However, shrinking box office returns could portend a smaller budget for a fourth outing.

The Cast

As we reported last year, stars Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto have options in their contract for a fourth film that would also see them receive hefty raises. Both would certainly be onboard for a Star Trek 4. However, new deals would have to be negotiated with Karl Urban, John Cho, Zoe Saldana, and Simon Pegg. Another complicating factor is Saldana’s commitment to the Avatar series, with filmmaker James Cameron planning to film four sequels in the coming years. Judging by Abrams’s comments, some sort of deal has been worked out with Chris Hemsworth to star in a fourth film if it is made.

With the hefty raises being given to Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto for BeyondThe Hollywood Reporter noted that the rest of the cast received modest raises and performance bonuses for Beyond after representatives for the actors nearly took Paramount to court over their pay not rising since the 2009 film. It is believed that it cost Paramount between $10-15 million in salaries for Beyond, with $6 million going to Pine and an unspecified amount being paid to Quinto.

Given the raises given to Pine and Quinto, it may not be surprising that we could see protracted contract negotiations this time. While Pine and Quinto have not risen to the status of leading men in Hollywood, Saldana’s performance in Guardians of the Galaxy and the her starring role in the upcoming Avatar sequels could see her seeking more.

Hemsworth, however, has skyrocketed in Hollywood after his appearance in Star Trek and it is unknown what salary he is expected to receive for a fourth film, but it is likely to be a hefty one. According to CinemaBlend, Hemsworth was paid $5.4 million for Avengers: Age of Ultron, but is likely to make much more as he stars in 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok.

Greenlighting Sequels Before a Film is Released

It has become common practice in Hollywood to greenlight a sequel even before the first film is released. Some of these decisions are made based on a number of factors, such as favorable pre-release reviews, predicted box office haul, and the desire to create a franchise. However, there are times when a sequel is announced before a first film is released to drum up hype for that first film. In many occasions, the sequel never ends up being made. Greenlighting sequels to Guardians of the Galaxy, Deadpool, The Hunger Games, and 50 Shades of Grey are logical as they either went over well with audiences, scored big at the box office, or both.

However, occasionally studios announce sequels before the first film’s release that never get made. Examples of this are The November Man, Battlefield Earth II, The Green Lantern 2, a follow-up to Superman ReturnsThe Golden Compass, Fantastic Four (2015) 2, The Amazing Spider-Man 3, and a sequel to Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin.

Conclusion

We at TrekMovie are confident, and hopeful, based on our enjoyment of Star Trek Beyond, that a fourth entry in the Kelvin Franchise will be made. We are under no illusion that Beyond will surpass its predecessors at the box office, as it is currently tracking to be the third-most successful Trek film. However, we will likely see a smaller budget, and possibly a different story, due to Beyond’s performance.

Above all, we find it incredibly bizarre that Abrams, whilst on a press tour to promote Beyond, would state that his favorite Trek movie is yet to come. As he will not be directing any of the remaining Star Wars sequels or standalone stories, it is possible that Abrams may return to direct as he is not scheduled to direct any other project in 2017.

Speaking for myself, a fan who tremendously enjoyed Beyond, I am concerned that Simon Pegg and Doug Jung will not be writing Star Trek 4. Their great work with the latest installment surely warrants them having a go at a second film. As Leonard McCoy said, “if you’re gonna ride in the Kentucky Derby, you don’t leave your prize stallion in the stable.” Based on Beyond, it is clear that Pegg and Jung are the prize stallions of the new Trek film franchise, putting together a wonderful film in a short period of time.

187 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Skydance/Paramount cancelled the next Terminator sequel despite Genisys making $440m on a lower budget than Beyond! I hope ST4 does not get the same treatment. Into Darkness only returned a $30m profit. Right now Beyond has not even hit $100m worldwide it has a long way to go before ST4 actually gets made sadly.

How much does DVD sales and secondary sales (Netflix, TV etc) factor in? If, for example, Star Trek has a solid history of bringing in good coin later, does that play a role?

Yeah, so much for saying worldwide is what guides a film now. Genisys did make $440m, but it only made $90m domestically. And it opened with less than $30m coming in third opening weekend. The reviews were not good (unlike Beyond). I really didn’t understand it. Can’t stand Jai Courtney, but I did like Emilia Clarke, and always like some Arnold. Probably doesn’t help the sequels that Emilia Clarke wants out. Also, the ownership of that franchise is so mucked up, there are probably always licensing issues that are a pain to work out.

Beyond has already made $90 million ($60m US, $30m foreign), and that is with Russia and Australia being the only two larger markets with 10 small markets … Japan, China, UK, Germany, and France are going to open soon. With the reviews this is going make a ton. I didn’t see Into Darkness twice, but have seen this twice already, and if the 3D showings (it is just at 3pm now) would be at a reasonable time, my daughter and I will go back.
I would think that Beyond will easily push past $500m worldwide, and when you add in after release sales of the film on Digital and BluRay, Paramount is definitely in for a 4th movie. If they throw cold water on it, it probably won’t help the new series…. which I think they will likely solidify on a greenlight before the series release (I am not so sold the series will work… hopefully CBS knows how much of an experiment this is and might be willing to move it to NetFlix or CW if the All Access thing doesn’t work out)

Should say I “didn’t understand” the poor reviews. I did like the movie.

“Yeah, so much for saying worldwide is what guides a film now. Genisys did make $440m, but it only made $90m domestically.”

LOL — that is an outlier, an extreme case of completely tanking domestically and doing well overseas. The trend is in fact accurate — worldwide USUALLY guides now, except in extreme cases like this.

It’s already out in the UK, where it underperformed. Then again, the pound is weaker against the dollar. Plus, all the British talk shows have been on hiatus. That didn’t help with publicity.

That $30m already includes UK (it finished behind BFG) & was way lower than STID in UK! That is what worries me the low take is obviously only going to be saved if China boosts it but even then it will not do anymore than STID overall.

“Japan, China, UK, Germany, and France are going to open soon.”

It opened in the UK and Germany a week ago.

“Into Darkness only returned a $30m profit”

That is theater only, dude. Every incarnation after that — DVD, Blu-Ray, On-line, Novel, comic..is very solid profit.

Into Darkness made $467m on a $190m budget, not counting marketing.

STID marketing was likely enormous. They shipped the cast -everywhere- to forcibly improve Star Trek’s international appeal. It does appear that the boost was temporary – STB will outgross 2009’s film overseas, but can’t improve on STID.

the movie had Cumberbatch. The Sherlock Holmes fangirls alone carried this movie

Yep. STD was all about Cumberbatch. And JJ also showed the deleted Khan showering scene when he went talkshow rounds so up goes the DVD/home video sales

Terminator was a limited shelf-life franchise though. Paramount was trying to squeeze value out of a property it had the lease to for a short amount of time before James Cameron got it back permanently. Trying to get a slapdash new trilogy out of the gate was dicey, even with Schwarzenegger back in the sunglasses, and there wasn’t the same amount of longterm gain in putting resources into it as Paramount has in keeping Star Trek relevant.

That McCoy comment (and those “metaphors”) are an example of the low-grade writing that was NOT in evidence with STB. Sorry, Mr. Orci, but the characters were so much more ‘themselves’ in this one.

I disagree, I find Mcoy was himself, to a fault. They hit him with every broadstroke on the palatte, creating a caricature. Less is more Simon, less is more.

O c’mon, jonboc, There were a few cliches, but at least McCoy wasn’t reduced to a bunch of metaphors like he was in STiD. And he performed “battlefield surgery,” and protoplased Spock later, and counseled both Kirk and Spock on various aspects of life. Perhaps some of his lines could have been modified, but I liked his “through-line.”

Sorry, Marja…I laughed at “In a Pig’s eye”..and the whole “tracking” gift was spot-on the money….but overall, they really went overboard… and you’re right about his lines in the last movie. They’re just trying too hard for my tastes. Hopefully they will reel it in, just a tad, next time.

I agree.
The Beyond arc showed us the best portrayal of Mcoy in these new films.

100%!
So glad Paramount cleaned house for Beyond. It was fresh and fun and a welcome change from the disaster that was Into Darkness. Beyond showed us how to make nods and tips of the hat to Star Trek. Into Darkness showed us how not to. Lesson learned and Paramount made the right choice. Clean house/fresh blood. The one major difference (when looking at cast and crew) from 2009 to Into Darkness was Lindelof writing for STID. The guy does not know Star Trek.

Marja I agree, jonboc disagree.

I liked McCoy in both films. Uttering two metaphors is hardly being reduced. I actually enjoyed that bit, followed by Kirk’s comment. McCoy was good in STID and I do not understand why so many people are critical of his role, apart from him not having quite enough screen time. We should have seen McCoy’s efforts, synthesising that life resurrecting component in Khan’s blood and giving it to Kirk, the wait to see if it took effect etc, with both fingers crossed, at the end of STID, but instead we saw the overlong ugly punch up between Khan and Spock – perhaps the worst and most unnecessary scene in the whole STID movie.

In STB, he was given more screen time which was a big plus, especially where we see him tending to Spock’s wounds and later recognising Spock’s laughter as delirium, which clearly caused him concern. I loved the callback to TOS where McCoy calls Spock “greenblooded” and makes his objections at having to pilot the shuttle. That was so well done, so TOS TV…:)

I see that, on another thread, some posters were querying why a doctor would be piloting a shuttle or similar. Dr McCoy had to go to Starfleet Academy for training before he could become a crewmember of any Starfleet vessel. Lesson 101 is know how to pilot a shuttlecraft or similar small space vessel. He did not need to have the navigational expertise of someone like Sulu, but knowing the basics of how to get from A to B – yes, he would. This is why and how Dr McCoy was chosen to go with Spock, because he could pilot a shuttle and more importantly was Spock’s medical physician. Spock was not in great shape, medically, despite his stoic Vulcan appearance.

100% agree!

Seriously, can JJ just shut his mouth and move on to the next franchise? It’s no surprise that STB was the best of the Kelvin timeline movies, given his limited involvement.

This is my favorite quote: Abrams told Entertainment Weekly that “[the story for the fourth feature] is his favorite Star Trek story that we’ve had.”

That’s not a really high bar considering.

And another subtle jab at his former buddies.

@ Curious, Yeah … Kinda makes me quake in me boots.

This.

Smartest thing JJ Abrams did. Give the full planning and writing and directing to Lin, Pegg and Jung.

A slightly smaller budget is fine for the 14th (not 4th) movie as we could have greater quality scripts with more science, exploration, character forming, social commentary, discovery and less boom boom and motorbikes.

Unless they want the 4th movie to be the last they have to be careful toning down the action, especially for international markets who are less invested in the translations, and drawn in by the spectacle. There’s one constant here and that is the brand as being embraced outside English speaking countries is based on a certain amount of action, for better or for worse (since previously foreign audiences just didn’t go see it). So the brand has to deliver to remain viable. That’s why the current superhero films have become so over packed with action scenes — each film has to top the previous. Trek will not be immune from that.

@ Curious, I am encouraged by the investment in the film coming from AliBaba, the biggest company in China. Although I do fear it means more ACTION!

Yes, Alibabas investment is very interesting.
It does mean more action.
My friend dragged me to some movie on the weekend. (BFG)
We can expect the same for Trek. I’m dragging him this week.
So if 50% of the audience is being “dragged in” so to speak, they need to appeal to that fan, too.
That means explosions, running and jumping and hanging off of ledges.
I did enjoy Beyond because I knew all the “boom boom” would be present and was willing to look past that.

I wonder if Alibaba’s investment was part of a quid pro quo though – they invest in riskier Paramount projects and in turn get a piece of a prestigious crown jewel which Paramount probably wouldn’t carve up if times weren’t lean for them.

Finally someone who understands why these movies have to be action pack. Trek cannot be exploration only. It must evolve, that evolution is to be action sequences, fast pace. The young’ens are the one paying for all the movies now days, the older folks are home more. Expecially now you can stream on demand the older shows, there is no reason to leave home.

Again you hit it on the head as I been trying to tell a lot of folks (the hard core 60s and early TNG folks), you can’t have a movie that is just based on the original premises of exploration and learning new things. There has to be action, there has to be conflict.

Lastly people who keep saying the enterprise gets destroyed each movie. This, the search for spock, and generations are the only times the enterprise is truly destroyed. All other movies she rises from the ashes to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Now time to make some noise.

It will be lower because Beyond already made the sets. They can use them for the next films to come.

Now they should film in China.

After they switch to multi-party democracy. Not before.

Unfortunately this does not make movies (science and exploration) these days. You have to have the boom boom and the vroom vroom. Unless you are a billionaire and can carry the budget alone, you won’t have the old trek back. Also the trek you want is TV show. All the movies minus TMP had major boom booms.

“A curious metaphor, mister Duchak, as a stallion has to be broken before reaching its full potential.”

I couldn’t resist.

Maybe 4th film will be a touch more thought-provoking. Beyond was tremendous fun. But the spirit of the movie was so high in our minds that we are being very forgiving about yet another very simplified and vapid villain. Action movie was great and fun this time… but boy-oh-boy… that sure was a weak motivation for a bad guy. Yikes!!!

Still not sure why it was called BEYOND. Thought that was giving a hint of some kind of “exploration” plot this time. Didn’t know it meant lizard-alien that wants to blow up a space station for no reason.

But I still loved seeing the movie and look forward to the next one in 36 months (or about 1000 more sleeps away…)

@ST:EXP … At least we got to go BEYOND the solar system to a deep space station.

I hope they can chuck the humanoid Villain altogether next time. But I doubt it.

A deep space station yes, but that’s splitting hairs isn’t it? Ultimately it’s another attack on Starfleet just as we had in the previous two pictures. It may as well have been San Francisco.
As for the humanoid villain-Shinzon, Nero, Khan and now Krall, all antagonists hell-bent on destruction with only the crew of the good ship Enterprise in any position to stop them.
That’s the stock Trek movie plot now and I don’t think Paramount has any intention of ever giving us anything different.

Well what do you expect. If the villian attacks Romulus. Do you think the federation is going to rush in.

The has to attack the federation… I say federation because Starbase Yorktown is a hub for federation in the deepest reaches of space.

Star trek is based on the enterprise and it’s crew. You can’t have it both ways where you have the uss hood saves the day in the movie with characters no one had heard of and expect the movies to continue. You have to do that in TV Land.

Sorry but that’s reality, federation/star fleet aren’t going to give a rats ass what happens with the klingons, Romuland, etc al. Unless their neck is on the line.

Also remember they don’t have many ships at this time. the enterprise is in deep space. Most were destroyed in the original trek, vengeance went down in San Francisco. Original series only had 13 Connies if I remember correctly. The largest and badass of the time.

A task force of six or seven ships was lost at Vulcan. A large chunk of other vessels were in that “Laurentian system”, and who knows what else was tasked with other work elsewhere across the Federation and neighbouring spaces? And how many years since ST XI?

Kind of hoping there won’t be a villain at all and only a non-evil threat of some kind.

I wonder if this story is Bob Orici & co’s original idea for the third film. That would explain why it is ready so soon.

Orci had already checked out, and brought Payne and MacKay in because of their story. So it’s their story. Orci probably screwed it up with his own bizarre additions, and that’s why he was forced out. Fortunately, it looks like somebody realized this and managed not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Curious Cadet,

Re:Orci had already checked out

I’m not sure what you mean? Were you combining Kurtzman’s punching out with Orci’s clocking in as director?

Bob Orci has stated that he will not be writing for Star Trek anymore. Presumably he means for both the Paramount feature films and for CBS TV series. Alex Kurtzman is helping with the CBS production.

Given what JJ Abrams has said, it does appear that Bad Robot has (tentatively?) signed on to do a fourth movie in this series. Initially, Paramount contracted Abrams’ production company, Bad Robot, to make three Star Trek movies, the third one being STB.

My concern too would be the lack of Pegg and Jung (and is Lin doing it?). But if what is completed for 4 is the story, but not the screenplay… giving the screenplay to Pegg and Jung solves that issue.

McKay and Payne’s story had a completed script, with Orci involved, and a rumored 2nd script draft. I would imagine they have been working on a rewrite of those scripts under Bad Robots supervision without Orci’s expensive and distructive involvement. But yes, Jung or Pegg might be hired to take a pass at punching up the final script draft.

Totally disagree with the positive reviews for Beyond. It was disaster of a movie as evidenced by the poor domestic sales and initial international sales. Major reason for Beyond ‘s poor showing is the poorly-developed plot, lack of suspense and the characters saved for McCoy & Spock were underdeveloped. Sulu, Uhura, Chekov were all going through the motions. Kirk had career issues but was never resolved. The villain was boring and unimaginative. Looked like a reject from the 80s Babylon tv series. Very hard to root against him since I was unsure of his motivation and background until the very end. And when it was explained, I was like really? Is that the reason for his vengeance against the Federation? So morose and silly.

Really the story looks like it was scripted by a 12 year old. Plot had no twists and no imagination. It was missing those Wow-I-Need-To-See-That-Scene again moments that was in the first 2 Star Trek reboots. No idea why Into Darkness received such bad receptions among many die-hard Star Trek fans. Guess their fondness for nostalgia clouds their ability to appreciate a good movie. Watched Into Darkness again after seeing Beyond and it was light years better than this Beyond disaster. I remember people cheering during the Into Darkness scene when Spock was putting the beat down on Khan, while in Beyond, I saw a few people nodding off & yawning and some even left midway through. I felt like doing the same but I remembered I paid $12 for it and was hoping the ending could save it. Unfortunately, I was disappointed as the ending was so predictable and silly.

A lot of the die-hard Star Trek fans like this movie because of the witty dialogues between Spock and McCoy. I am also a big Star Trek fan but a movie has to have more than witty bantering to carry it through. Like plot and character development, imaginitive science technology, suspense, ethical issues which were there in the first 2 reboots. Beyond had none of those. Please bring back JJ Abrams to direct the 4th movie. He’s now free from his Star Wars committments so can’t see why not. Most viewers actually appreciate a well written story and not just explosions and disconnected actions which litter Beyond. Oh and please don’t bring back Pegg & Jung as writers or Justin Lin as director. I like Pegg as an actor playing Scotty but writing is clearly not his forte. Lin is better off doing purely action movies and Star Trek is not an appropriate medium for his talents.

Where is the figure of $59.4 million coming from? I don’t mean to split hairs, just want to know. Boxofficemojo is reflecting only $59.25 million.

It’s moot now of course, earned $6.25 Monday bringing it up to $65.5!

“Based on Beyond, it is clear that Pegg and Jung are the prize stallions of the Trek film franchise, putting together a wonderful film in a short period of time.”

-Agreed

Personally I found the writing in Beyond hit and miss. A lot of the character driven scenes were terrific, and the attack and destruction of the Enterprise was as successfully carried out by the details of the writing as it was obviously brought into being by the good work of the visual artists. But the antagonist, his backstory, the nonsense with the artifact, and the fact that there was an intention to include an interesting political argument within the drama (the Frontier pushing back) that was simply forgotten about or just barely touched upon – – all of that was a mess, confusing and predictable at once. I realize they were under the gun time-wise but the script needed at least another Page One re-write and additional polishes to even start coming together as a well-told adventure. I know I’m in the minority here on TM, and will likely stop posting notes, but for me, on pretty much every level, including most definitely the screenplay, Beyond, though a fun, flawed diversion, was not in the same league as the much more sophisticated, made-for-grown-ups Into Darkness.

(Also, Larry – – I am NOT picking on you in particular. I was going to write this anyway and I, too was going to start with the quote from the article (which admittedly is just the writer’s opinion) which you did, so I figured, why not present an opposing view. No meanness intended at all.)

I totally agree Cpt. Pierce. As much as I hate to admit it after seeing STB this weekend STID is the best film of the trilogy. I hate to admit it because the copy and paste of TWOK ending still has me cringe, BUT every other part of the movie just keeps you entertained. Also STID has the best pacing of all the Kelvin Timeline movies, not to mention the most earnings I believe.

NO you’re right Pierce. A lot of people like myself DID like the movie but all the issues you brought up with the villain was indeed a mess. His motives honestly just makes NO sense. He’s basically pissed at the Federation because he crash landed on a planet he already knew was hard to find in a space uncharted. I can buy the going crazy line but then its mixed up with his motivation of no longer being needed as a soldier. I would say just pick one and elaborate more on that. I liked the fact he felt like a guy out of time but then his motivation is to simply target the Federation? Why??? OK, he felt like he was abandoned but why do these guys in these KT films decide they have to take on literally a quarter of the galaxy? Even ‘Khan’ in STID when it was all said and done he had planned to try and rule over all the planets so they can be in his image.

And that whole energy Mcguffin, I still dont get how it works. Does it zap energy from people to just make you live longer but does it also transform you into the people energy you just took? It just wasnt explaned very well nor if it was THAT important what was Kirk and his team doing with it? Why are they offering something this deadly to other civilizations to be friends with? Did they not know what it is? YEah I have to either see the movie again or read a really good recap lol.

The writing wasnt as off the wall as STID but it was still far from perfect. STID got into trouble mostly by adding a villain that just didnt need to be there and then kind of ignore his back story to explain who he really was. This one explained the villain in detail but then the other thing I didnt get why was Krall kind of hiding who he was? Why not tell them all upfront about what happened to him and why he feel so aggrieved? Notice in TWOK Khan didn’t spend 2/3rd of the film just killing people, he told you the first few minutes you met him who he was, why he was angry and what he wanted to do. I get the idea you want to make the villain mysterious but it didn’t make sense in the context of the film since he clearly wanted people to know why he was upset and who he was, hence the ‘be ready’ line in his video message. Ok I ranted too long lol.

It’s a movie. They have a few hours of your attention. They aren’t going to be able to fill in the gaps. That’s what the novel is for (hope they make one). That’s what the TV shows are for.

Also remember this guy is pre kelvin time-line split. He came from the time of xindi and romulans trying to conquer him and his kind. If you come from the enterprise period, you also have vulcan holding you back.

He was a soldier, think of patton or such. They need war cause that is what they are good at. Peace and no enemies is going to make them loco. Remember kirk in prime being given chief of operations in star fleet. He was itching to get back on the bridge. Same as the villian, he wanted to fight not captain a ship and explore.

Maybe, but think about all the recent events with shootings in Fla,Baton Rouge and MINN and Dallas. Does that make sense?? of course not ,but yet they happened. Can you make any make any sense of those events ..nope. So the fact that this villain’s motives wasn’t explained in Beyond is fine with me. The fact that he was stopped is more important.

Thomas Vinelli,

Re:make any sense of those events

Cite any credible story of a WW I, or let’s be generous WW II, veteran that committed a mass shooting on this side of the millennium and claimed the motivation was because of something that his or her present government did to him or her during that service, then get back to us.

Disinvited – Not the same situation. A veteran from either of those wars got to go back home to family, friends, his society. Moreover, it is possible that some who were not of sound mind ended up in institutions to keep them and others safe.

Not so with Edison.

“YEah I have to either see the movie again or read a really good recap lol.”
Yes, you do.

“Does it zap energy from people to just make you live longer but does it also transform you into the people energy you just took? It just wasnt explaned very well nor if it was THAT important what was Kirk and his team doing with it? Why are they offering something this deadly to other civilizations to be friends with? Did they not know what it is?”

The object you are referring to is in fact two different objects.

One was the life-draining apparatus that was on the planet where Edison/Krall crash landed 100 years before. Edison/Krall used that to stop him from ageing, but it had the effect of making the person, physically and mentally, not unlike those who had their life-energy drained from them.

The other was HALF of an WMD and Edison had the other half of the weapon. Both were useless on their own. The people who designed the weapon realised how dangerous it was and so decided to split it in two and threw one half(?) into space. Somehow the Enterprise found this other half of the weapon and Kirk offered it, on behalf of another, to this race as a sign of goodwill. The intention was fine, in that if this race had only half of the weapon, then the other race could not be deemed a threat. However, the race that Kirk was offering it to, freaked out, and started attacking Kirk unceremoniously…They didn’t understand what Kirk, as go-between, was explaining, which does make sense, given what was told about the weapon.

Curiously the other day I bumped into an old friend ( and LONG time Trek fan like myself ) and asked him if he’d seen BEYOND. He said he wasn’t interested based on his experience of STID ( not out of hatred for Beyond, but just that his passion for the movie Treks was dampened by STID ).
I had to go into why he ought to give it a shot.

I imagine sadly there are many people like my friend ( who does not follow all the latest news and reports ), who felt burned by STID. I had to reassure him BEYOND is the sequel STID should have been.

Even if BEYOND is recieved only as well as Mission:Impossible 3, let’s remember that it was Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol that revitalised the franchise from a box office point of view.

BEYOND is being received well by the fans and non-fans alike, and I just hope the word gets out.

Personally speaking, I think it is MILES better than the lacklustre Guardians of the Galaxy, or the abyssmal Transformers movies, neither of which I can comprehend how they made so much money.*

* Okay, I think GOTG has the Marvel stamp – publicly approved so to speak, so it already has a head start.

Star Trek 2009 had that seal of approval from the manistream cinema audience, and then perhaps STID took it away. This means BEYOND has to kind of start from scratch in a number of ways, alas.

BEYOND will get good recommendations by word of mouth from most Trekfans and the general audience who saw it and enjoyed it. So they should keep it in theatres for another few weeks if possible.

I haven’t seen it yet, but plan to after the hype dies down and I can see it with only a few other moviegoers in the auditorium. My favorite way to go to the movies. :)

There has been no word yet on Justin Lin’s return – I expect they are waiting for the box office results. I’ve never really had any issues with JJ, but Justin Lin knocked it out of the park on this one – plus he’s a fan. I’d love to see him return.

@Spock J, AGREED!

Yes, I hope Justin Lin will give serious thought to directing another. Love the day when JJ Abrams and Justin Lin could take turns…:)

A few weeks back there was at least one interview with Justin Lin where he said that he would only do 1 Star Trek movie. I guess, if Paramount offers him enough cash (and maybe also creative freedom) he might change his mind.

IstandwithJustinLin.

I sincerely hope that we get another movie in this universe, because “Beyond” finally hit the sweet spots. I’ve followed its progress from the beginning, and was relieved that it was actually good. It seems weird to be speculating on the next movie so soon- sort of like talking about the 2020 presidential race, or the holiday season in the middle of summer.

All I ask- and I’ve said this before- is for a good story. That’s it- a good story that gives all the characters a moment to shine, a great adventure to run them through, and two hours of optimistic escape. I think about that hilarious trailer for “Hardware Wars” with the announcer saying, “You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll kiss six bucks goodbye”. (I wish it was just six bucks…)

But it’s all about the bottom dollar for the suits behind all of this. Until I see a Dubsmash or an Instagram from the set of the new movie, it’s all speculation. For now, I’ll bask in the goodness that is “Beyond”.

I just really hope this doesn’t become some sort of forced inclusion, with some kind of convoluted machinations to get George and James together at the same time. There are just so many problems with doing it based on the premise behind these films to begin with. It’s hard to imagine how they’re going to do it, and leave the Prime timeline intact, unless the goal is to get the films back to the Prime timeline so CBS can pick up the ball. Maybe this is the end of Bad Robot’s deal for Trek, and CBS is going to shop it around with or without Paramount as a partner. In other words, Paramounts deal with CBS ended last year. In renegotiating that deal, CBS Could have dictated terms giving Bad Robot the decision to make more films by returning it to the Prime timeline, or walking away. Faced with making more money or walking away empty handed, its possible Bad Robot agreed. Maybe this was Prime Spock’s last request, sending the Enterpise on the mission to reset the timeline against starfleets orders, with instructions how to time travel.

But honestly, that seems like a very poor story for a movie, even for enthusiasts of the Prime timeline. And a story that would have limited appeal to broader audiences (saving the whales notwithstanding).

So now we’re back to a convoluted story designed to capitalize on the popularity of Thor (despite having little effect on other films he’s been in).

It could simply be a story of how George Kirk was rescued by powerful aliens, or something. No need for time travel. God, please, no time travel. To paraphrase Amanda: “Time travel! Time travel! I’m sick to death of time travel!”

@ Marja: So he was rescued and then kept hidden for more then 30 years? And he’s an old man now? I somehow doubt they will go that way.

Nero and Spock hid out for 25 years.

@ Eric: Actually, Spock arrived 25 years after Nero. So only Nero waited (apparently he specifically waited for Spock to arrive). Even if they said George Kirk hid all this time, I can’t imagine Paramount will pay a lot of money to hire Chris Hemsworth for this and then cover him in makeup that makes him look almost 70 years old.

I’m not sure how they will bring Chris Hemsworth as George Kirk, James Kirk’s father. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to age Hemsworth but you will end having father and son (Pine/Kirk) look the same age. I think that some time travel or other could be involved…

One more thing –
THE KELVIN TIMELINE DOES NOT NEED FIXING, let along erasing!

Writers – work it out – please….

Not just a poor story but a yuck one. No timeline needs resetting.

Breaking News from KBBL-TV:

Star Trek 4 will skip theaters and premiere on Paramount Television!

Ahmed,

Is that like Sky News Australia’s reporting that STAR TREK 4 will be titled DISCOVERY?

@Disinvited,

I thought that you’re joking but nope, I Just google it and they indeed reported that, wow.

“it is possible that Abrams may return to direct as he is not scheduled to direct any other project in 2017.”

Oh god no… Not having his directorial touch on Beyond, made the movie instantly better (no lens flare generators in sight). Do NOT bring back those lens flares in a potential 4th movie.

No more JJ directing

Quick breakdown: Approximately 50-60% of US box office is returned to the studio. Many other regions get 30-50% of box office. In China, foreign productions get 25% and Chinese productions get $40%. Notice those logos at the beginning of Beyond? Chinese Co-Production guaranteeing both a release date in China as well as 40% gross revenue. Promotion costs typically add 50-100% to the production budget.

So, I believe Beyond production budget is ~$185m. I am not sure if Dubai production credits of 30% of production spending in country are included in this figure.

Lets say, with all promotional sponsors a spend of $125m in marketing.

That gets us to a cost figure of $310m.

US: Star Trek Beyond will likely do $150-200m in US best estimate. Lets say 175, 175 x .55 = $96m revenue
China: Into Darkness did $57m in total x .25 ~13m, Beyond could do 50-100. (Cumberbatch is HUGE in China, but also Star Trek was new property. We’ll see if Beyond shrinks or grows) Either way, 50m x .4 is 20m and on the high side 40m revenue.
Rest of world:100-300. 50-150 revenue.
Ancillary stuff: DVDs and Blu Ray used to make more profit than theatres, then streaming, digital piracy took their toll. You can no longer count on home sales to bolster the bottom line. Unknown revenue

$96+20+100 = $216 box office plus ancillary, better hope that is more than $104m :)

These things are always tricky, confusing, and the gross revenue numbers purposefully obfuscate the truth. Good luck finding out how real these numbers are. :)

I’m confident a 14th movie will be made. Paramount does value it’s Star Trek franchise and will move forward. Budget will be the main issue. Abrams noted they already plan on writing out Chekov in some fashion (a wise decision, IMO) and if they can’t come to terms with some cast members, they may do the same with them. Now, I do believe they will do everything they can to keep everyone on board, but if it comes down to it they may decide to move on. Saldana may be at the greatest risk. Her star power is probably the greatest of the supporting cast and the most likely to walk away if they don’t meet her demands. I would speculate Urban will be one that they will try to keep at all costs for obvious reasons. Pegg is a keeper too but my guess is he’ll negotiate to stay on board. Cho will probably do what he has to as well to remain on board.

@Damien, I hope that Paramount will treat Saldana with respect. She was great in “Beyond” and, with so many other franchises, brings star power indeed. Filming so many other movies, she may need to keep to a cameo appearance or something, but I really hope she’s included.

I think they will try to keep everyone intact. I just think if they were to lose someone, she would be the most likely. She’s got a lot of star power now so she may demand a high salary (of course that’s just me speculating). The producers may walk away if her demands are too great, depending on what Paramount sets aside of course.

Agree on Pegg and Jung. They should at least be the story editors or head writers. They did a great job. And I’m not sure how much a director contributes to a film in terms of story, but I devoutly wish Abrams would remain producer and hire Lin again, or another producer with more “heart” and less “action orientation.” And more acceptance of a better storyline than 2009 or STiD.

This article is WAY PREMATURE. Get back to me after the China release Trekmovie….and it looks like Bourne is getting killed by critics, BTW.

I really think they are expecting to much because Star Trek sadly is not a franchise like Star Wars it is not a Billion Dollar Franchise and it can’t make near that amount it’s audience is too Small it’s a Small Niche Audience, a Small Niche Audience of Losers who don’t want Action they want something more cerebral.

Star Wars is basically a war that took place in space. The reason I like Star Trek on TV is because it explored Earth’s future and what it might be like to actually live there. The problem with the new films (and really some of the old films) is they are about some guy seeking revenge on Kirk or the federation. That gets kind annoying after a couple of them. It would be like someone seeking revenge on a U.S. Aircraft Carrier or the entire U.S.

Off topic, but I’m traveling to a new job and stopped at a hotel in Birmingham, Alabama in the next cross street over is Vulcan.

Regards.

Adjusted for inflation, ‘Star Trek Beyond’ opening of $59.2 million is under the $60.1 million opening of ‘Star Trek: First Contact’.

Comparing to STID opening, STB is behind 15% domestically & 14% internationally.

“As for projecting an overall domestic performance, Star Trek Beyond is probably looking at a domestic haul around $180-190 million, a continued decline when compared to the $228.7 million Into Darkness delivered and $257.7 million 2009’s Trek took in domestically. However, given Beyond’s $185 million budget, all eyes will now turn toward the film’s international performance.”

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4209&p=.htm

“Into Darkness ended its international run with $238M. Star Trek Beyond is said to carry a production budget over $185M (not including distribution and marketing costs of over $100M globally) so if it plays across the board 14% less than the last installment, Beyond would then make a projected $204.68M internationally.”

http://deadline.com/2016/07/star-trek-beyond-lights-out-skiptrace-international-box-office-1201791877/

I’d really like to see a line item breakdown of the 185 million budget. It just seems so exorbitant. The effects were great, is that where it goes? Cast and crew? Catering? Is there even any reason we should believe a studio’s numbers?

Mawazi July 26, 2016 8:55 pm

Yeah, I think the budget in these comic-book genre movies largely goes to FX. It’s like tens of thousands of man-hours to do the CGI. According to this article, the total cast budge was $10-$15 M. And they did the locations on the cheap, shooting in Vancouver and Dubai. It’s all FX.

Ahmed July 26, 2016 5:45 pm

I posted mine before reading yours.

If the figures that you’ve quoted hold, that means that STB will take in substantially less revenue than it saves by costing just $5M less than STID to produce. STID was widely regarded as a financial disappointment, which strongly suggests that STB will be even more disappointing to its investors than the previous movie. That’s two disappointing investments in a row. The author mentions that previous Trek movies spawned sequels despite disappointing financial performance, but that comparison does not take into account the different movie-making business model that has become prevalent in Hollywood today, on which the Bad Robot Trek movies are certainly based—that being the “tentpole” movie model—which is high-investment and presumes a high return. STID didn’t get a high return, and STB is looking to return even less. I wouldn’t necessarily expect Paramount and Skydance to decide to tie up another $200M plus $100M in marketing outlays based on the performance of STID and STB, especially given that Paramount is (if I’m not mistaken) the least capitalized studio in Hollywood—it’s definitely among the least if not the least. $200M is a hefty sum for a small studio like Paramount to tie up in a movie production and not see any return for 2 years. It’s more risky for Paramount to do this than for larger studios, like Sony or Disney. Based on these numbers, I won’t be at all surprised if Paramount decides a fourth BR Trek movie is not worth that risk.

I can’t imagine they spent $100m on marketing which is a figure thrown around for many tentpole films. It started so late compared to other properties, i would assume, as a cost-saving measure. Another thing Trek always fails to capitalize on is merchandise. There is nothing in stores for the kids to buy this time around, and no fast-food tie-ins or video games.

Paramount is releasing the movie for sure which is half the cost, but who is paying the production cost? You saw the two Chinese production companies. If Star Trek can get its marketing/tv/streaming act together (a big if), there may be enough dough in it for everyone to keep the Bad Robot series together for a few more movies yet. While the history and indeed future of Trek is TV, I don’t underrate the halo effect of feature films to carry the flag for the franchise.

Yeah but in all honesty this is not what Paramount expected out of this series, lets just be honest. These films cost more than the Mission Impossible movies and those bring in big money. These films just skirt enough to say they made a profit in the theaters but that can’t be enough, especially the effort to make them.

Simon Pegg gave an interview a few months ago stating Paramount wants these films to be as big as Marvel and cited how the Avengers movies made so much money and yet Star Trek can’t even make a third of those movies. I think its a bit of franchise envy. They obviously have Transformers but they want something else that can grow and has a big name. Star Trek is widely known but it just can’t reach beyond a certain number no matter what they do or how much money they throw in it. My guess is if this film fails to break even its probably done for awhile. I’m not saying they will give up on Star Trek completely but probably these set of films.

When you say “done for awhile” do mean like another 3 1/2 years?

My guess if they retire this film series it could be longer like 5 years but its just all assumptions, they could have a new film out in two lol. Never underestimate the power of greed. ;)

I just hope there are no whales involved or just maybe a spoof mention

This movie did not need to cost $185 million.

I have always wondered what Joss Whedon’s take would be on Star Trek. I think I would like to see that.

I agree. I think Whedon would bring at least as much, if not more, soul to Trek than Pegg and Jung did … that is, if Whedon’s a Trek fan?

Whedon has said in the past that “Firefly” is pretty much his take on Star Trek.

Agreed, and for a while I assumed that a Star Trek movie by Joss would have too much of the Firefly flavor, however he did a pretty good job of “fitting in” with the Marvel universe. So I’m thinking now that we would likely get a pretty good Star Trek movie that has everything that has traditionally made Star Trek good.

And Cowboy Bebop….

I don’t know what Paramount is doing with this “incredible Rotten Tomatoes score” commercial, I just saw it on Comedy Central today, and they ran the score up to 89%, which is just false advertising. The score is sitting at 84% now and has been since it opened. Today the audience score started dropping …. It’s down to 85% now. Not a good sign.

YEah I dont think it matters. A few measly points away from the actual for a half second is not a big deal. The point being made is that the film has strong reviews. And since everyone has the internet it takes but a few minutes to check out the site. And they did the same thing with Mission Impossible last year so it probably works.

If it doesn’t matter then why do it at all? It’s 5% off. it wreaks of dishonesty for anyone who discovers otherwise, and in turn of desperation. And it was far worse when in the same day they advertised 93% in the morning and it dropped to 86% by the afternoon!

I just don’t see it as a very good way to market a movie to begin with, and is a bad sign as to the state of society and movies in general. The ad should compel me to go see the film based on content, not trumpet an arbitrary aggregate rating that turns out to not even reflect the actual standing. I don’t know, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth …

Ads are meant to work for some people and not others…. its obviosly not an ad for you. “Not a good sign” is just over reacting. You thinking about it too hard.

Well I didn’t write “not a good sign”, but I do think it’s a bad sign when entertainment is marketed with a random number, the basis for calculation of which is suspect at best, and essentially encourages people to see a film based on what number it got, vs. it’s appeal to their interests, and strength of filmmaking. Films used to be promoted by actual reviews that gave some inkling of why they appealed to the critics, and why it would appeal to the viewer. Now it’s just a meaningless number, and not only that, but in the case of STB, it’s the wrong number, by 6 points! Not only do I not agree with the gambit employed by Paramount here, for the people such numbers appeal to, it’s backfiring in that it’s false advertising.

Imagine this conversation — one guy says to his friend, “let’s go see STB” I heard it got an 89% on Rotten tomatoes.” The friend says “where did you here that? It only has 83%”. The other guy replies, “oh, that’s not that great. Wonder why the commercial lied about that? Didn’t that film we didn’t like have an 83%?”

In the grand scheme of things, sure this isn’t a big deal. But it sure seems to be dumbing down our culture just a little more than it was before.

Dude calm down. It was just a commercial lol. Trek fans can be anal but my god.

This has nothing to do with Star Trek. It has to do with common sense.

And Rotten Tomatoes score is down to 83% today. 83%, 89% … Close enough. No need to worry about truth in advertising laws here.

OH MY GOD!! Let it go already lol.

So the RT score currently sits at 83%. I saw another commercial tonight that shows it having an 84% rating. OK no big deal, but what a ridiculous marketing strategy … They’ve literally had to update the ad almost every day to reflect the correct RT score, and it’s still wrong. That means an editor opening up the spot, compositing a new graphic, and then laying it back and redistributing to every outlet that’s running the spot — every time the RT score changes. That’s nuts.

But I realized what really bothers me about this commercial — they say: “now with an INCREDIBLE Rotten Tomatoes score”

So, 83% is a good RT score, but it’s hardly incredible. When STB hit its high of 93% (I think), that was an incredible RT score. Anything over 90% basically. But 83% and falling is anything but “incredible”. It’s good, but not incredible, and headed into average territory.

Well – screw RT in this case – I still like Beyond better than the other two!

One thing is for sure, this is shaping up to be a summer so super-packed with franchise films, that many seem to be missing the stratospheric numbers they need to ‘guarantee’ sequels. After BvS’s $872m “failure” and Captain America’s latest billion+, it’s been all cartoons that have pulled in the cash. “X-Men” and especially “Ghostbusters” seem to be performing well below expectations, though the latter is still launching in some overseas markets. There is a new “Bourne” money-grab, and “Suicide Squad” still upcoming. I just hope people have enough money and time to go see “Star Trek: Beyond.” As a depressing side-note, “Ice Age 5” which has been derided as over-the-hill garbage from a dead franchise, has sucked in $200m worldwide in the last two weeks.

An error of fact in this article: STAR TREK 2009 was not “the most successful film in the Star Trek franchise,” neither in terms of profit margin nor in ROI (return on investment). “Most successful” implies financial success, and ST09 isn’t even close to being the most financially successful Trek movie. If the author is measuring “success” on some other sort of terms, he should mention what they are in the article. Or, if he means that ST09 is the most successful movie of the Bad Robot Trek reboots, then that should be clarified.

Most Profitable Star Trek Films, Domestic – Adjusted For Inflation (revenue, profit margin)
1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) $190.3 million 615%
2. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) $152.0 million 296%
3. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) $144.8 million 172%
4. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) $128.5 million 150%
5. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) $264.6 million 135%
6. Star Trek Generations (1994) $119.4 million 116%
7. Star Trek: First Contact (1996) $137.1 million 104%
8. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) $98.5 million 88%
9. Star Trek (2009) $280.7 million 84%
10. Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) $100.6 million 21%
11. Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013) $228.8 million 20%
12. Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) $56.0 million (-28%)

Most Profitable Star Trek Films, Worldwide – Adjusted For Inflation (revenue, profit over budget)
1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) $234.9 million 783%
2. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) $283.6 million 432%
3. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) $195.9 million 411%
4. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) $446.9 million 297%
5. Star Trek Generations (1994) $189.3 million 243%
6. Star Trek: First Contact (1996) $223.5 million 233%
7. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) $161.2 million 213%
8. Star Trek (2009) $420.2 million 176%
9. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) $132.5 million 152%
10. Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013) $467.4 million 146%
11. Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) $170.7 million 105%
12. Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) $87.5 million 12%

http://1701news.com/node/527/what-most-profitable-trek-movie-all-time.html

It is interesting to read here that STB cost $185M to make. That’s just $5M shy of STID’s budget, which is widely regarded as a substantial cause of that movie’s disappointing financial success (that and its enormous marketing budget, which I’ve seen estimated to be as high as $110M.). My guess would be that the marketing budget of STB is somewhat less, due to there having been less visible marketing for the movie. But, that’s just a guess. It also seems, however, that STB is going to take in substantially less revenue than than STID did. So, STB’s cost-savings (over STID, if there was, in fact, any) in terms of marketing could be exceeded by its lower box-office performance.

As an aside, while this writer appears to tout the writing team of Pegg/Jung, I haven’t seen any reviews touting the overall writing in the movie. In fact, a number of reviews criticize the writing—“a story about nothing”—while still recommending the movie based on other attributes, which was also common for STID.

My only concern with Pegg returning as a writer is based on his recent gibberish about canon, and that Nero’s incursion affected continuity in all directions, basically meaning they could completely ignore what came before. Now, I thought they actually did a really great job with STB and there weren’t any major conflicts with pre 2233 Trek canon. But, if he really believes what he recently said, which was primarily in context of Sulu being gay (he mistakenly said Sulu was born before the split in timelines), then I would worry about what might happen in future stories. Hopefully someone is checking the scripts. Memory Alpha is a great and readily available resource for them to use.

There is no proof Sulu was born before or after Kirk. Wikipedia had Sulu’s birth listed before Kirk, but that was based on a reference book which also listed Kirk being born before Sulu too. If those dates are aligned with Kirk’s canon dates then Sulu was born after Kirk. But there’s nothing in canon that confirms it. Not sure where Pegg got Sulu’s birth date from.

Keep in mind that Orci said a lot of things about the timeline. He also said that the KT was split off from an already altered ENT timeline, altered by the events of First Contact. So it’s possible that even if Sulu was born before Kirk, the KT had already changed enough that Sulu had different birth cisumstances.

Pegg definitely throws a wrench into even Orci’s convoluted setup, and he seems less interested in the minutiae of canon, since it would have been very easy to get the Franklin backstory correct. And who knows, they may have done it on purpose. Maybe Pegg has an explanation and is waiting for fans to work it out on their own. I.e. Manufacturing a problem for fans to debate rather than letting them pick apart a well thought out effort to get everything right.

On the Star Wars side of things, that is exactly the way it is done. Memory Alpha in Star Wars is a fellow named Pablo Hidalgo who is keeper and preserver all things Star Wars canon. I’m not sure why memory alpha would be ignored by ANY future Trek movie writer.

Harry Plinkett,

Re:I’m not sure why memory alpha would be ignored

For the same reasons, students overly relying on Wikipedia get F’s on their history essays. Both are fine as hobbies that can reflect the conventionally held lore of humans. But both are lousy at properly vetting what they put out as “facts”.

Both can be useful as starting points for pointing to where the truth may lie but both are lousy at serving as sole and final authorities.

I´m waiting to be released here in Brazil in septembers, so me and me wife are going to watch it. :)

Please no Abrams, Orci, Lindelof and Kurtzman again. Beyond was the best of the last three movies. They shouldn’t go back to them. Get Pegg and Jung again or someone new.

I forgot Lin above. He can also come back, if he likes.

I never thought I’d hear myself say this but I’m more excited by the prospect of a fourth film, than the blandly generic sounding Star Trek Discovery.

Another interesting observation in this article is the bit about JJ Abrams promoting a prospective fourth movie at the expense of the one just released. Now that JJ’s got a spot open for a directing gig, the current Trek movie (which he did not direct) can go to hell. Look, forget about Beyond. The REALLY good movie will be the next one, believe me. For starters, it’ll have ME directing. And I don’t like to toot my own horn, but let’s just say that I have a “flare” for these movies. *wink*

You get a lot of exercise jumping to conclusions don’t ya?

Harry Plinkett Today 3:57 pm

I’ve been led to a conclusion by the observation that I cited. But, either way, your comment is inane and misses the point. Not surprisingly.

You led yourself there. You are making so many leaps I’m surprised you didn’t pull a muscle. Promoting a fourth movie shows that TPTB are behind Star Trek and want it to continue. I don’t think any logical person would take from his statement that we should skip Beyond because the fourth movie will be awesome. YOUR statement was inane and missed the point. Not surprisingly

Harry Plinkett Today 3:01 am

You’re a very silly person and I’m not going to bother reading your comments any more.

Yes you will.

Harry Plinkett Today 3:01 am

You are apparently in need of remedial education: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/satire?s=t

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/remedial?s=t

Oh it was satire. I thought it was just something else that started with an ‘S’

Perhaps a smaller budget would mean a more thoughtful and philosophical story, a more science fiction story, if you will, in the Trek universe. I’m up for that. As a fan of all versions of Trek I like the big whizbang Kelvin movies but a smaller more contemplative outing would also suit me just fine.

Another thought – I wonder if Trek movies should be moved away from the busy summer season, perhaps a later fall release? I would say around Christmas which is still possible, say early December because you don’t want to be caught in the tsunami that is Star Wars. I would especially believe a fall release would benefit a Trek film that is less action and more “Interstellar” for a different audience.

Next time around, I hope we get a May slot again.

Rotten Tomatoes has dropped to 83% and Metacritic to 68. Not sure how that will translate to word of mouth. RT audience score is holding at 85%. Very unusual for audiences and critics to be so close.

Rotten Tomatoes is at 84% as of 8:20 a.m. on July 28th. I can’t think of any OTHER movie that an 84% would scare me away from. I’d be checking it out. It’s amazing. Some Trek fans want what seems to be a 100% rating. Frankly, if you are a fan of TOS Star Trek, then this movie seems as if it should be your favorite in the Kelvin line, IMO. Doesn’t mean I’m right, just sharing how I feel about it. I plan to see it in the theaters numerous times.

I keep reading that the writers and director of Beyond aren’t/or may not be involved in the next one. What I can’t seem to nail down is: who wrote the next one? I fear JJ will direct the next one, simply because unless Beyond really has strong legs and catches fire, Paramount will see that the JJ films brought in more money and will ask him back. Sorry, but if I had to pick between him and Lin, I’d pick Justin Lin every time.

JimJ,

According to EW, “The Trek [14] script will be written by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay.”:

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/07/18/star-trek-chris-hemsworth

Well it’s back to 83% today. But that’s not really the point. That’s still a very good score, especially compared with the other movies out at the moment.

According to Boxofficemojo, Trek pulled in $6.2m on Monday, and $7.0m on Tuesday. The take for Tuesday was MORE than the last two movies, and both of the last two movies decreased from the 1st Monday, where Beyond increased it’s take from the first Monday.

Is this word of mouth, or people going back for a second showing?

Yeah I noticed that too, unusual. My thought was that for most movies the Monday B.O. is the largest, then there’s a decline until Friday. Maybe it is word of mouth or repeat viewing.

Edit: I’ve seen it twice myself.

Ditto. I saw it both times in the epic 3D, but watching it the second time was even better as I was able to take in more of the special effects and background visuals/ new alien species, etc. Krall’s plotline didn’t seem as rushed on the second viewing, though I do wish they would’ve gone a little deeper and I picked up little things I missed first time like Scotty’s remark about “a giant green hand” as one of the legends about the Franklin’s disappearance. Plus the crew’s firefight with Krall’s people aboard the Enterprise was more impressive the second time around. I really hope this movie gets the numbers it needs to continue, I’ve really enjoyed them all.

Word of mouth has been pretty good – next weekend will be the numbers to watch. The actioneers recently have taken a beating in their second weekend, if the drop isn’t huge that bodes well. BOM also noted that five movies finished with 20MM or more in box office – so that might also explain better weekly numbers, folks are going out and seeing what they didn’t over the weekend.

It had a lower opening, so people who didn’t see it over the weekend, went during the week. Tuesday’s actually tend to be better days than Monday as people don’t necessarily want to go out to a movie on the evening after their first day back at the office. But Wednesday saw a significant falloff to below the averages both previous films got. I also didn’t realize that Beyond opened on more screens domestically than STID, with a much lower average, so that doesn’t bode well either. If the numbers don’t start improving, it’s likely to do similar numbers to ST09, yet cost almost as much as STID. Maybe the added international numbers will pull it out, but if this weekend doesn’t pull better numbers than the previous two films, it could be a quick downward spiral for Beyond, and ST4.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdowns/chart/?id=trekshowdown.htm

“Based on Beyond, it is clear that Pegg and Jung are the prize stallions of the new Trek film franchise”.
Totally agree!

Into Darkness was so incredibly poor with it Wrath of Khan plagiarism that people are not want to try this new movie. I wish they would because this movie was as good as the original series movies. I think a forth movie is a good idea. Maybe save money by not having Uhura in the forth movie. Zoe is going too busy with Avatar. Perhaps pay her a small amount for one scene of her leaving the Enyerprise to attend Command School. Star Trek Beyond was Awesome. And I have been on JJ Verse hater club. Give a 4th movie a chance. By the way have the scene mention that Uhura is going to join Checkov in command school so we don’t have to deal with the tragic death of Anton in the next movies.

Don’t leave Chekov out of Star Trek 4. Anton Yelchin wouldn’t have wanted it.

As i think Chekov wasn´t in all episodes of the original series either, i think it would be fair to say that he´s on another ship.

Have Nolan direct ST:Forever

Nah, it fits perfectly with TAS, where Chekov was replaced with an Alien voiced by James Doohan, because they couldn’t afford to pay him!

So now the bashers of Star Trek into darkness now rack it better than Beyond.You guys are really something. Justs proves how dumb the internet can be.

It’s over 200 reviewers at RottenTomatoes ranking STID better than STB, by three points: 86% vs. 83%.

The RT Top Critics rate both movies 80%.

I quite like all three of the new movies and look forward to a fourth. Too much stock is put into RT scores imo

Well – J.J. Abrams gets a lot of pampering from the media – I think STID would have gotten rave reviews even if it was as bad as “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” Beyond was definitely better than STID, no doubt about that.

Sorry, but Star Trek 4 came out over 30 years ago. It’s Star Trek 14 people!

That was Star Trek IV. No one’s eliminating that movie. Relax.

This article is basically like “I just ordered my appetizer, where’s my dessert?” The movie has been out a week. One week. This is like when the news media started talking about the 2016 election in 2013. Too early to even care about a fourth film or to have any credible info.

Thanks, John Duchak. A very well written and informative article!

It’s still ST XIV to me.

You guys kind of drive me nuts and I’ll explain why. I’ve been a fan since TOS; I liked TOS because of the action, but I like other series for other reasons too. I’m a huge fan of film and consider myself a film fan more than a Trek fan these days. I have a friend who is not a Trek fan who has been watching these three movies. He thought the third film was the weakest of the three. So as a Trek fan I get it, I understand why you guys liked he film, but you know all the carrying-on you’ve been doing about 2009 killing the franchise… Well, for real now you guys you are killing the franchise with stuff like STB. Okay it makes logical sense more than the other films. Awesome, I agree that’s important. But look at it as a film… It’s just not that appealing, not to a wider audience. The story is kind of boring. You have no big name stars introduced… You have some mid tier folks added to the roster but then you cover them in makeup to the point they’re unrecognizable. The fun/energy component at Abrams brought wasn’t there this go around. This movie felt like something a Baby Boomer would like. That’s going to sound harsh, and it is partly meant to be to illicit a response. The point is that it doesn’t have the same new moviegoer energy the other two movies had. Hate on him all you want, as a director or editor Abrams is brilliant and the non Trek folks get that from him. Force Awakens is one extremely rewatchable movie. My feelings on why Abrams is talking about *his* idea for ST4 and awesome star power names being in it is because he sees the writing on the wall and is trying to convince casual fans and Paramount that they shouldn’t let the Trek franchise die here. The repeated discussion, often with complete misunderstanding of how Hollywood works, of profit and-what-not also really bugs me. The accounting is different now days… Not saying people play tax games, but the goal is more about breaking even these days. So when you take an old Trek movie and say it was more successful because it had a higher profit margin, but then compare it to a new Trek movie that literally makes multiples on an old movie even when adjusted for inflation, you’re missing the point. Star Trek fans are Star Trek’s own worst enemy. The new reality is sci-fi movies don’t get made these days unless they are giant tent pole movies. Well some do, and they are usually stinkers or they are one time art-love projects. I don’t want to see Star Trek become either and I really hope to gosh darn you guys didn’t just slam the final nail in the coffin. Please stop with trying to make these films like something out of the 1980s… I and pretty much the rest of the world are just done with that. Stop trying to make them better Trek movies and instead let the writers and directors make them better films.

I too am concerned that Pegg and Jung are not writing the next movie. They proved what they could do in a short time with crazy pressure put on them to get this done last minute…and they delivered. To bring back Payne and McKay, has me a little hesitant. First off I know its terrible to judge people but proof has to be in the pudding. I am not at all confident in two mormons writing a Star Trek story and screenplay. After watching some interviews with Payne the guy was tweaky as hell, the guy sounded like he had 10 pots of coffee before the interview, he was talking a mile a minute and did not make himself coherent. Yes they deserve a chance (because IDIC) but after Beyond, I don’t understand why you would change a good thing (Pegg/Jung). If indeed the story McKay and Payne wrote involves time travel in some shape or form and Paramount wants to bring in Hemsworth then I guess it makes sense to use that story and retool it a bit. Again, ill give them a chance but would rather have Pegg and Jung back to write or at least have Pegg and Jung work with Payne and McKay.

Ouch! STB got slaughtered at the box office. Dropped to #3 behind BAD MOMS, only earning an estimated $6.7 million — that’s a 70% drop over last Friday!!

Yikes.

If Bourne turns out to be as bad as the reviews paint it, STB might rebound this weekend, or next since there’s nothing major opening, but that’s a major hit. No two ways about it, that box office stings!

A friend of mine floated the idea of going to the movies tonight, but we both agreed that there was nothing worth seeing.