Star Trek #1 At Box Office Again + New Interviews + Pine’s Paparazzi

Star Trek was the number one movie until Angels & Demons opened on Friday, but it turns out, since then it has gone back to being number one. We have details on the latest box office plus some interviews with Trek’s creature designer along with JJ Abrams and the crew. Plus it looks like Chris Pine has moved into the realm of being a paparazzi-hounded celebrity.

 

Box Office Weekend Update: Star Trek wins Sunday
Yesterday we reported that domestic box office estimates had Star Trek coming in a close second to Angels & Demons for the weekend and now the actual numbers show it was closer than expected (with Angels & Demons numbers being revised down to $46.2M vs. $43M for Star Trek). Even more interesting is that Star Trek was the number one movie on Sunday with $13.0M vs. A&D’s $12.1M. This is the second #1 spot in a row, and Star Trek has won nine out of the last ten days (domestically). As of yesterday Star Trek had brought in $215.4M globally.  

Trek breaks another IMAX record – but run ends this week
Also after breaking the biggest 1st weekend IMAX record the previous weekend, Star Trek broke the 2nd weekend record. But remember that Star Trek has a limited two-week run at IMAX, so you only a a few more days to catch it on the big big screen. Box Office Mojo has the details:

Slowing 43 percent, Star Trek effectively had the best second weekend hold for a Star Trek movie since Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and it had a smaller decline than Iron Man last year. The IMAX portion of its gross was down 27 percent to $5.3 million at 138 sites, which was a record second weekend for the format, beating The Dark Knight’s $4.7 million. The IMAX tally is $17.6 million, accounting for nearly 12 percent of the overall total. Starting May 22, Star Trek is scheduled to relinquish its IMAX screens to Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.

Creature Designer Talks ‘Big Red’
In an interview in the latest VFX World, Star Trek creature designer Neville Page goes into great detail about the Polarilla and the ‘Big Red’ monsters from Delta Vega, including showing off some design sketches. Page specifically commented about some of the objections to the creature:

BD: What about some of the objections to Big Red?

NP: Yeah, there were some online complaints that it’s such a vulnerable animal: it has no hair, it makes no sense that it would be on an ice planet. And it’s red, which doesn’t make sense in the snow. I think the vocal people tend to be pessimistic to begin with about these things. My attitude is that, having spent a lot of time looking at nature, I’m reminded of the age old adage, “The more you know, the less you know.” And the more you know about nature, the crazier stuff gets that you never thought would work, like the angler fish. When it mates, it mates for life and the male gets stuck in the female body and just dangles off her side for the rest of his life. And I guess there are some parallels to the human marriage. But the idea that there is a physical union in that way is just crazy. And there are certain seals that will invert the nasal passage on the outside of their head and then inflate it like a balloon and then wag it about while moaning to create a unique sound as a call, whether it’s a threat display or sexual dimorphism, is absolutely nuts. If I had done that to a creature, without seeing the real video footage, people would’ve thought that was the stupidest… idea. But nature continually does things that make sense for whatever the purpose is. So you could almost do anything and get away with it from a biological standpoint. But the most important thing is, regardless of whether it’s real or not, that the audience at least feels that it’s real. So that was the intent. Combined with ILM’s skill of animation and digital rendering, I think we have something that’s pretty successful.


One of Page’s sketches for the Delta Vega ‘big red’ lobster monster

Chris Pine is officially a ‘Celebrity’
Back before the Star Trek movie came out, Chris Pine, the new Captain Kirk, was named a star of tomorrow. Well tomorrow is today if you judge by the celebirty news sites. In the last few days Pine has been all over the sites, the guy literally can’t go out for coffee. Firstly it was news for Extra & Perez Hilton that Pine was spotted with Hills Star Aurdina Partridge. And then Pine went out for a jog over the weekend shirtless and paparazzi took photos with coverage at: PerezHilton, Celebrity-Gossip, JustJared,
Elites.TV, & LimelightPics. To prove that Pine has ‘made it’ in the world of celebrity Gossip, PerezHilton.com even has a Chris Pine Category


Pine is latest obsession of the paparazzi

Video Interviews
We are trying to catch up on some video interviews…so here goes

Pine, Quinto, Abrams, Cho, Yelchin, Bana w/ MTV

Pine & Quinto w/ Actors Lounge

Urban & Saldana with Actors lounge

JJ Abrams w/ Little White Lies

JJ Abrams Exclusive Star Trek Interview

More from Abrams at LittleWhiteLies.

John Cho w/ MTV Iggy

 

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I knew Angels and Demons wouldn’t be up to the task of putting Trek down for long!

Trek’s Number one, baby!

2 weeks in a row woooooooooooo!

Evolution can make some strange things…. why not Big Red too?

Hold on Cho-You THINK it’s the eleventh movie?????

How in the hell can you THINK that….

IT BLOODY WELL IS!!!!

Thank You.

BTW, I did my math after checking inflation figures at BoxOfficeMojo.com and ST09 needs to do over $219mm to break the tickets sales record of ST:TMP. It’s starting to look like that will be a breeze!

Captain Kirk reads the New York Times? I always pegged him as Wall Street Journal kind of guy. Stupid reboot.

Don’t you mean “Tomorrow is Yesterday” :)

One more real challenger to go.

A&D was not going to survive ahead Star Trek long term. The real test will be Terminator Salvation. Although I could care less about A&D other than the fact that Hanks is in it. Terminator however I will be seeing opening weekend. But only once.

IMDB ratings

Star Trek 8.5
A&D 7.0
Wolverine 6.8

NEVILLE PAGE SAID: “I think the vocal people tend to be pessimistic to begin with about these things. My attitude is that, having spent a lot of time looking at nature, I’m reminded of the age old adage, “The more you know, the less you know.”

I love how he dismisses anybody who criticizes him is simply an inherently unhappy person, rather than to actually answer the question. He simply goes into a lot a vagary about how nature does all of these wacky things you’d never expect, BUT NEVER GIVES AN EXAMPLE of what he based the creature on.

All he and anyone has to say to justify any of their designs is, “because we thought it looked cool”. Seriously. This is FICTION. Films take dramatic license all the time and that’s all that was done here. But to insult those who question his choices as somehow unworthy of response, is really unacceptable.

He’s not insulting anybody. What he’s saying is that many of the most outspoken critics have started out with an already negative slant.

After reading the posts at this site over the past several months, that’s not an entirely unjustified assessment. I think it’s perfectly acceptable to say so.

Looks like Trek has Phasered Angels and Demons to the Neitherworld. Trek number one for 2 weeks. Khannnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree with #10 RD…

This is fiction and the fact that he never gives a direct example is damaging…

However…as a professional biologist, I have to say that “Big Red” is in fact a natural plausibility even on a very white, snow covered planet. The Polarilla had white fur and apparently lived on the surface…. Big Red on the other hand has no fur and is obviously red…however, from what I can tell and I have seen the movie 3 times is that, Big Red erupted out of the liquid water beneath the surface, through an ice sheet, and then was on the surface. Now, let me think….even before I got my Ph.D. I knew of a place where the fact that some sea creatures are red was well known….now what was that….oh, I know… it is Red Lobster.

Lobsters live under the water, they have red carapaces with no fur, and, oh yeah, they can survive out of the water…

So, when I saw the film the very first time…no wait…scratch that….when I saw Big Red in the previews erupting though an ice sheet to eat the big white gorilla-bear-thing, I instantly thought…. “Red Lobster now has an army…”

I think that the Fx on the Monsters was fantastic and as a hard core fan i can find no fault in everything that he did on the monsters. it looked very real and very threatning to one James T Kirk and the acting that Pine did made it even more convincing and real.

10. RD

I don’t think he was insulting anyone. I think he was, merely, stating the truth. Its true that most of the people who become unhappy about little things are pessimistic. Sure, there are those who are just pointing out a criticism, but they amount to some, not the majority.

However, yeah, it does come off a bit as though “the critics are wrong because they’re critics” sort of deal. Although I don’t think this was the intent. I suggest you not get too bent out of shape over little comments.

JJ Abrams w/ Little White Lies video:

Ummm, I may be a huge perve for saying this, but if you look at the beginning of that video, where there is the blue screen and all of the sillouettes of Star Trek ships, did you also notice there are sillouettes for a variety of sexual pleasure devices as well? Hmmmm, not what I would expect to see in a Star Trek interview. I had to do a double take. I was like “Hey, I got my girlfriend one of those once!”

#15, Let me put it another way. I’m in 5th grade art class. I’ve learned my primary colors. The teacher shows me an impressionist painting in which the sun is blue. I ask, “why isn’t the sun yellow like it’s supposed to be”? And the teacher responds with: “you are so pessimistic for asking that question, why are you so negative?”.

Here’s a guy who has studied advanced biology – and let’s face it, every high school student does not graduate with an understanding of the diversity of biology that would allow such a creature – who responds, not with his insight about what he’s learned but by instantly calling his critics pessimistic.

And com’on Gov, you’ve been one of the harshest critics of my “little comments”. ;-)

#13, I’m unfamiliar with the “Arctic Lobster” ;-)

@ 10 – Eeeerm, well what he is actually saying is A) people who are vocal tend to be pessimitic to begin with, ie the initially fear change and complain before rational thought takes over…which is a pretty valid assessment based on most of the posts on this site. B) he actually gave several examples of ‘craziness’ in the wild which he used to justify the ‘craziness’ of big red, he gives no examples of the design basis for big red because he doesn’t have to, thats not his arguement, he is counter arguing! C) I realllly don’t think he has insulted anyone actually, that seems to me like you’re a little tetchy and D) he actually did make a response…hence this discussion, so that pretty effectively negates ur arguement that he views people as unworth of a response!

I really wish someone else would jump in and be the voice of reason around here too! Everyone seems so pent up and tetchy about everything!

Big Red probably ate red matter for breakfast…and that’s why he doesn’t have any fur. That accounts for his anger management problems, fur sure. Needs to hang out with Mugato.

Chris Pine’s life as an anonymous Hollywood journeyman is o-v-e-r.

#18, is that what he’s actually saying, or is that what you are actually inferring? So you think I am wrong about him being insulting and your method to correct that perspective is to insult me? ;-)

11.

Agreed. From what I’ve seen, the only people complaining about the ice planet creature are those who have a problem with just about EVERYTHING in the movie. lol

Personally I thought it was a bit of an outrageous design, but from a alien biology standpoint it seemed plausible enough.

#12. “Looks like Trek has Phasered Angels and Demons to the Neitherworld. Trek number one for 2 weeks. Khannnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

HERE WE GO AGAIN. Just a little perspective please. Trek is doing extremely well and yes it’s exciting that it did so well against A&D domestically. But there’s more to the world than just the USA and the studio is concerned about it as well. In worldwide box-office, A&D did in one weekend what it took Trek two weekends to do. A&D did significantly better than Trek worldwide and it will likely continue to do moderate box office for an extended run, whether you personally like the movie or not. If it follows the A&D pattern it may earn over half a billion dollars worldwide, which is a more questionable proposition for Trek, though not impossible. But, Trek has already proven its worth, at least domestically and that’s enough to keep it going. What more could a fan ask for from a moribund franchise?

#22.. you want to talk outrageous, impossible design (oops, we said design, can’t do that or someone might infer a Designer and that’s taboo), let’s talk the Platypus. You couldn’t make stuff like that up and have anyone believe it.

#12
“Khannnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

LMAO – I love it when posters shout that

#22, since when does “critical” = “pessimistic”?

Filmakers sure love critics when they praise their movies, but are quick to dismiss them when they don’t.

Some of the silhouettes from the Little White Lies video are ships from the FASA RPG. Nice touch!

I think the Delta Vega “polarilla” and “Big Red” were fantastic. How many times in Trekdom has such an exciting scene been portrayed in Trek? We’ve had the Mugatu v. Kirk, Sehlat v. Archer & T’Pol, and Tribbles v. Klingons. IMHO, none of these have been quite as adrenaline pumping as what we’ve seen in the new movie. The creature designs were great. We need to be glad we were treated to this, and I hope we see more strange new life-forms in future movies.

LL&P

Wow, I have to agree that people are way too touchy. On the “Ask Orci a question” thread, people are demanding answers and saying things like “You can’t do that!”

All of the people that created this particular movie are artists. They made their choices – for better or worse in the eyes of their critics. They don’t OWE anyone an answer. We can like their choices or not like them, but lighten up. Art doesn’t always need an explanation. Use your imagination and interpret it yourself.

To me, the most glaring example is the “Where is Delta Vega – Vulcan has no moons – How could Spock see the destruction of Vulcan and not be destroyed himself?” argument. When I saw this scene in, I immediately interpreted it to be Kirk’s attempt to visually interpret what Spock Prime was feeling. That worked for me. Because I was engaged in the adventure, anything else I couldn’t immediately understand allowed me to use my imagination to fill in the blanks. It’s art and it’s fiction; why do I need every bit of data spelled out for me?

I have only seen one perfect movie in my lifetime (The Godfather). This Star Trek movie isn’t perfect. It IS a great adventure and great fun and I can’t wait to see the next one.

I’m just constantly amazed at the lack of civility on this website, the weird sense of entitlement some people have and how thin-skinned some people are.

Oh well, I’m off my soapbox. Bring on the sequel.

Whatsit they call such freaks of nature? “Black swans”? I.e., something no one predicted (or could even conceive of predicting) until it was discovered — and shattered the paradigm.

Seems to me that’s at the heart of Trekdom.

DVD REALESE!?!?!
As a 14 yr old girl with anti-trek friends, and a mom that will not let her go alone to star trek more than 3 times, I really want to know. No doubt it will be in time for holiday shoppers.

SEQUEL
Any info leaked yet?
Trek seems to be all lined up for this, even the leaders are already in.

16. Brad – May 18, 2009
JJ Abrams w/ Little White Lies video:

“Ummm, I may be a huge perve for saying this…”

I looked at that… and it seems you are. You read a lot into those ship silhouettes. Whew.

RD…. I can’t admit to reading the posts as much as I used to… but dam, bud… if the attitude of the alien lobster creator p*sses you off so much why you bothering to be here? I saw a couple other RD posts…. what DOES make you happy in this nuTrek?

31. CTG, You give me hope for the future. If Star Trek appeals to 14-year-old girls, then we’re in good shape.

HEY STANKY…

What did you think?

a quick point for the european end of the international take, Terminator doesn’t open here till the 6th of June so Treks pretty much got a free reign of around a month as the only blockbuster (well bar Angels and Demons but whose counting that?) released in that time…

I’m not complaining about the BIG RED monster. In fact, my soda bloated bladder THANKS big red for giving me the perfect bathroom break opprotunity. ;-) Sorry, but I think that sequence is the weakest part of the whole movie. IMHO, of course. :-D

#But to insult those who question his choices as somehow unworthy of response, is really unacceptable.

I feel like he just put those types of people in their place, as well he should. So many people like to spout off and arm chair quarterback about things they have little knowledge of. His point about the weirdness of nature and how uninformed opinions would look at such things as ridiculous or silly is right on target.

#36

Agreed. I have no beef with the creatures (evolutionary or design wise), but that scene did nothing for me as an audience.

I remember back in 1979 I had just graduated from High Scool the year before. I was still addicted to computers from school (all they had was printed paper Teletypes and 1200 baud modems, and CompuServe was becoming big with the then huge 250,000 users.

They had Topics Forums areas, The big word in the SCi-Fi forum was Star Trek (TMP the first movie) lloked good in the big screen but the witters eyes were so out of focus they could not see what weak stuff they were witting.

Could you imagine what the world would be like today if JJ had made the first movie, and how big Star Trek would be in the world today. and back then if a 14 year old young lady even glanced at the topic of SCI-FI her parents would have been shipping her off to at least summer camps if not girls private schools to only think how to become the perfect wife, or at least how to make beautiful dinners.

How times and Entertainment has changed. And it is a good thing that young ladies can think freely for her self and not need to become a addict to making her man’s life better. One day she will become an Adult with a free open mind that can change the World. Who knows possible as much as James Tiberius Kirk has been able to in the the Sci-Fi future.

31. I’m certain that it will happen. I do not remember where I read it or heard it (it may have been from this site) but rumors has it that the writers are already working on the screenplay for the next one.

#32 so, if the attitude of the President of the USA whom I did not vote for upsets me I should move to another country?

What makes me exceptionally happy about this movie is that for all practical purposes it is a complete REBOOT, which eradicates all of the canon that was killing the franchise. As a side benefit, it most likely means TNG, DS9 & VOY never happen in this universe. Oh and it was a lot of fun.

#37 so, if someone else has less education that you do, your advice is to attack them simply because you are more informed?

#13: “….even before I got my Ph.D. I knew of a place where the fact that some sea creatures are red was well known….now what was that….oh, I know… it is Red Lobster.”

Plus they have butter sauce. But are you suggesting that “Big Red” was actually cooked to the boiling point prior to chasing Kirk?

It would make sense for Spock to hang out with lobster monsters, though; they both have copper-based blood :)

I really enjoyed the design of the creature. Another reason why BIG RED looked so good was because of Pine’s great reaction to it, plus Giacchino’s excellent music gave the whole scene a “1950’s sci-fi” feeling. I think it was exactly what TOS would have done if they’d had the money, or if Star Trek was made into a movie back in the 60’s(complete with Ray Harryhausen animating of course)

: )

You know, if nature can produce the duck-billed platypus, it can produce Big Red.
End of story.

I honestly think a lot of the complainers are unhappy that Star Trek has been a success, because it isn’t what they would have done. That’s a very selfish and short-sided way of looking at things.

I’ve updated my poster of all the Star Trek ships, if anybody is interested. I’ve put in the ships from the new movie, with the new Enterprise front and center. Here it is:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jibbyimages/3524838284/

#44 that’s a nice bit of specious reasoning. But it does wrap up nature nicely for scientists. Hopefully someone is cutting all funding for evolutionary biology as I type this …

#41 “#37 so, if someone else has less education that you do, your advice is to attack them simply because you are more informed?”

IF that’s the only way to get them to face the reality that they really don’t know everything, then yes. Often people don’t realize that they are wrong until they are proven wrong. It’s not so much an attack as it is setting the record straight. Misinformation shouldn’t be allowed to perpetuate, no matter how educated the messenger is.

@ 42:

True…Spock and Lobsters would make good friends…. Spock could even lead an army of large lobster monsters into war and if they were hit, he could give them a transfusion (provided they were also T-negative with some human components).

@ 17:

RD,
First off…let me use your answer of THIS IS FICTION to address the lack of an Arctic Lobster…however, unless Earth has now turned into Delta Vega, different conditions could apply. Also, the size of Big Red should be taken into consideration. Lobsters don’t grow to larger than man size on Earth, but on this supposed frozen moon of Vulcan, they might…

Very satisfying indeed to see Trek doing so well.
Congratulations again to all involved in the production of this fine movie.

crazy trek girl-I have only seen the movie 3 times as well but being 53 no one cares what i do so i plan on seeing it again this time with my 83 yr ole mom and 90 yr old dad! Where do you live u could go with us we could provide security in case yer parents are afraid nerd monsters might get ya heheh