Who’s to Blame for Star Trek Beyond’s Box Office Performance?
This past weekend saw the opening of Star Trek Beyond, the thirteenth film in the franchise and the third in the rebooted series. While the other two films, Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek into Darkness (2013) both opened to north of $70 million domestically, Beyond only made an estimated $59.6 million this weekend. Already reports have been coming out from box office analysts and journalists calling it a failure at the box office and a strong statement from audiences. There have been several factors that have been blamed for the opening, and in all respects, they may be true: sequelitis that has taken several other names this summer, ie Alice Through the Looking Glass, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows and others, the presence of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), and trepidations about director Justin Lin, more famous for the Fast and Furious franchise taking over for J.J. Abrams. However there are three factors that no one else has blamed yet that I think are very much the reason why Beyond didn’t do better.
The Release Date
For the last two films, Star Trek and Into Darkness the release dates were in May. However Paramount slated Beyond for July. Perhaps the feeling that it’s too late into the summer for some fans might have kept them home. After all, we usually have the biggest hits of the month in the first two weeks, and the last couple of weeks are usually hit and miss at the box office. And especially with the over-performance of other films recently, like Finding Dory, Central Intelligence, The Shallows, The Legend of Tarzan, The Purge: Election Year, The Secret Life of Pets, and Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates have taken up the last dollars of the public with their spending at the theaters. And going forward, Jason Bourne, coming this Friday, is only tracking for a $65 million opening, lower than The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), the last one with Matt Damon which opened to $70 million in August of 2007. When you have a franchise that normally opens on a particular date or time frame for more than one film, then change it up, it can throw off the fans.
The Mixed Marketing Campaign
Last December the first trailer for Beyond was released to universally negative responses. While I actually liked it, it had most fans scratching their heads, wondering when Star Trek trailers became music videos. While I understood the negative views, my rationality for the trailer was simple: they’re trying to advertise the action beats for the people who don’t necessarily call themselves “Trekers”, and as Lin has shown, he can do entertaining action scenes like it’s nobody’s business. Then the next trailer from this Spring had the polar opposite reactions, it looked like everything was back on track for the film. However, just a few weeks ago a third trailer was released featuring Rihanna’s new song. For the most part, everyone saw it as an excuse to advertise the song more than the movie, again sending shock-waves of “what the hell” through the internet. While I’d like to believe most people ignored this trailer, it may be held accountable for some ditching the film just before it’s release.
Comic-Con
I am shocked that of the handful of articles and statements I’ve read about how Beyond flopped that none have mentioned San Diego Comic-Con right off the top. Historically, the weekend of Comic-Con is not the best time to release a film that is targeting the so-called “nerd” community, basically any property in the superhero, sci-fi or action-adventure genres. A lot of fans who would normally pay to see these type of films opening night are glued to their tablet or laptop waiting for news on Marvel, DC, and other upcoming properties. When the next big trailer premieres, they don’t want to be left behind; Star Trek can wait. Plus think about the thousands of fans that go to San Diego. Many, if not all of them, are the target audience for this type of film. They’ve already dropped thousands of dollars to get there and wait sometimes days to get into the most anticipated panels.
Plus one thing I’d like to dispel right now: The Force Awakens is not the reason why Star Trek Beyond failed at the box office. We have seen several cases where similar films in franchises have boosted the other. For example, the James Bond reboot Casino Royale (2006), heralded as one of the best action films of the decade, grossed at the time the most money domestically at the box office for the series. The following year a similar spy film, The Bourne Ultimatum was released and grossed over $200 million domestically. Hmm, maybe James Bond helped. Similarly, an old school example, the Star Wars (1977) boost of sci-fi in the late 70’s helped Hollywood rev up their fantasy and science fiction engines. We saw huge results for Alien (1979), Moonraker (1979) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). So see, Star Wars has boosted Star Trek before. Then again, I’m sure we’ll have some of you box office experts out there pointing out Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). They were released only seven months apart and while Attack of the Clones saw a good result, Nemesis became the lowest grossing Star Trek film in almost two decades. Perhaps we can blame the quality of the film for that one, but still Beyond does have a mid-80’s score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Sure, Force Awakens hit an unprecedented $900 million plus at the domestic box office, and no one was forecasting Beyond to do even half of that, but just because one film in a franchise that has long been compared and contrasted to another is released it doesn’t mean the opposite franchise becomes impossible to watch. I’d rather think that a marketing campaign that had fans first dumping on then cheering for then dumping on again, a bad release date, and one other thing to mention: how about how some fans reacted to Star Trek into Darkness? I remember reading that according to a poll taken just a month after release that fans voted it the very worst Star Trek film. Um, I’d like to see someone defend both Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) and Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) and call them masterpieces in comparison to Into Darkness. True, the whole comparison to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and how it ripped it off is warranted and is truly the worst section of the film, but how about how exciting some of the other scenes were? Anyways, I actually wouldn’t be too surprised if some fans were just totally turned off by the reboot franchise after seeing the last one, but I’d like to think that these make up a minority of those who skipped Star Trek Beyond this weekend.
P.S. An announcement: Starting Monday, August 1st, my regular weekly blog will move to Mondays and I will be starting a new weekly blog: Box Office Preview. This will start Thursday, August 4th. There will be one more weekly blog this Thursday.
