ST Episode VII Box Office Discussion

The bit in bold once again demonstrates a huge bias - this is all based on one single big-budget project of Abrams' which was not even a failure, it just wasn't as successful as it could have been. And you're completely ignoring the big success of Cloverfield, Star Trek and - although this is television - the pilot episode of Lost which was the most expensive pilot episode of all time in 2004, and that was a huge hit.

I get that you don't like STID but you seem to be writing off Abrams' cinema prospects altogether based on this one solitary mild disappointment. There's nothing at all objective about that.

 

True, but there is one thing that JJ hasn't hit out of the park. His characters don't show a whole lot of emotion. That's always concerned me about Abrams' works. People say he's great with actors, but upon death, they don't show a lot of heartfelt sorrow. That concerns me, especially considering the spoilers for TFA.

 

There were some high emotions on Lost at times, even though it didn't always work. I do think Abrams relies very heavily on his cast (which, admittedly he does direct quite well and fosters a good camaraderie between cast mates) to make up for the lack of depth in the characters. Like the Cumberbatch example, the character is actually paper thin and very much a prototypical bad guy, but Cumberbatch added his gravitas to the role, which is why he ended up getting a good deal out of it. On the other hand, I think the other Star Trek cast members like Pine and Quinto are just serviceable actors, which is why they're not breaking out from the franchise.

 

09 Trek as well. Even at $150 million, Abrams couldn't clear 3x budget on the project. I blame the movie. Even though the story and performances were adequate, the visuals were muddy and the much of the stuff that people love about Trek (e.g. the Enterprise doing things in space) was an absolute visual mess. It's absolutely stunning that Abrams wasn't able to put together a Star Trek able to clear $300 million in the U.S. after the level of anticipation built up by Trek's absence from cinemas. Not that Trek movies have ever been good. Abrams can't be blamed for the weakness of the brand.

Cloverfield was more a marketing gimmick than a movie. I agree it paid off handsomely, but the film itself didn't leave much of an impression on anyone. It was bogged down by its hand held pov thing and the interminable party scene at the beginning.

 

One thing I remember about LOST which frustrated me is that they spent a lot of time with backstories to give characters depth. But those back stories never really came to mean anything. I am not sure what JJ's responsibilities were after season 1, but the story went downhill, what there was of one. The first season was great and looked like it was going somewhere.

One thing I also remembered is trying to talk to people about what it all meant and getting responses like "why does it need to mean anythying-why can't it just be a show without much meaning for us to enjoy it".

 

ST09 absolutely overperformed domestically.. it's overseas numbers were what ultimately stopped it from being a true mega hit.

 

Oh yeah, that's my biggest worry too. Like he's constructed this super convoluted backstory for TFA that may or may not amount to much in the story. I think we're all assuming we'll find out the real reason for Luke's exile or Han/Leia's separation, but we might not at all. It might just be a device used to get this story to where he wanted it to be.

 

Making a Star Trek blockbuster is an uphill battle no matter which way you slice it. The last Trek film to have decent worldwide returns was First Contact in '96, and the last to really be successful prior to Abrams was The Voyage Home in '86. The brand has an upper limit on its success, mainly due to how inherently stodgy it is.

 

I agree with that completely. Star Wars definitely has a larger and more forgiving and optimistic audience, particularly in the U.S.

But I still think people are going to be a bit surprised by the size of the TFA foreign audience, and not in a good way. The best evidence we have is the 3D rerelease of TPM, which made about 58% of its money abroad.

That could be enough to propel TFA to $1.5 billion. I recognize it's possible. The release date is odd for that however, and I still think $1.2 is more likely than $1.5.

 

Why is 3x the budget being set as a bar for success anyway? As far as I'm concerned, 2x the budget is a success (this is where you clear the profit line, which means that home media and merchandise are pure, healthy profit) and 3x the budget is a roaring success. To put it into context, a standard blockbuster film of 200-300 million budget would have to hit nearly a billion to make 3x the budget - and that's your bar for success? That's a very, very high bar.

Star Wars has the capability to make those numbers, but Star Trek is nowhere near as big as Star Wars on the big screen - and once again, if this is the standard, you can't ignore that Cloverfield made about 8x its budget and Lost was one of the biggest TV cash cows in recent memory.

 

2x the total budget (including marketing) would be a success, but 2x the production budget would probably just be a small profit. Also with foreign markets, studios get less of that money.

 

I did mean with marketing. I've never really understood why marketing isn't included, money is money. Anyway, what I meant was that with marketing (or even without it) surely 2.5 or even 2.3 is a more achievable target and it's one that would lead to a big profit.

For example, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 reportedly cost nearly $400 million including marketing - if it had made 1.15 billion it would not have cleared the 3x budget line but that clearly would not have been a failure. It ended up doing about 1.8x budget which is obviously a failure but if it had made, say, 900 million then that would have been $100 million profit not including all the home media and merchandise profits. So anywhere past 2x budget is a definite success, surely? I just think 3x is unrealistic and very few recent blockbusters have actually managed that. Age of Ultron will have only barely got past 3x budget including marketing, and that's the sixth biggest film ever.

 

Cloverfield was a big commercial success. I think everyone agrees there are no real box office surprises for TFA unless it fails to clear $1 billion worldwide or earns more than Jurassic World and/or breaks all opening weekend records. Everyone seems to agree it has almost no chance at all of becoming the biggest movie of all time or of being a commercial flop. The brand awareness and familiarity hedges Star Wars both from failure and from Avatar-surpassing success.

And that's why so many sequels get made. It's like currency hedging. Big profits, with the potential clipped on both ends.

good lord. What was its marketing budget?

 

To me some of the best story telling aspects (and this was discussed heavily by, of all people, Michael Arndt) is to bring back elements from earlier in the movie that created some sort of strain for the heroes and make these elements help to resolve the final conflict quickly. It can be feared characters (pirates who were threatening coming back to help), a special skill seen as weird or forbidden, or an object that is held closely by the hero due to sentimental value only to have that hero give it up to save the day. This is seen in Arndt's work. It is seen in a lot of Disney family stuff which have some of the GREATEST stories. I just hope that Ardnt's work had a HUGE impact on the final story that Abrams and Kasdan came up with.

 

My teenage son went to Paul McCartney's concert at Lolla in Chicago last night. He said almost exactly "my expectations going in were extremely high, and he blew them away." At 73, still a master showman and musician.

more anecdotes, but a great inspirational story of hope for kids being attracted to and excited about a nearly half century old brand.

 

The studios use a model of 2.5-3.0 times a film's budget before profits are seen. This includes striking prints, 3-D conversion processes (for films that need it), distribution, and domestic and international marketing. Now a film like TFA is going to make a lot of money up front due to companies buying into food merchandising and other commercial ties ins, and Disney will demand a bigger cut off the ticket gate from theaters... The reality is the film will be close to making a profit on opening day in terms of actual money the studio sees.

I think what's really being discussed here is basically how much money the film makes at the box office, and the perceived success of the film based on the number of people seeing it. Because in reality the film will make the studio money... even if it were Battlefield Earth bad and completely tanked it would still make money due to corporations paying for commercial tie-ins.

 

Wow-I do NOT mean this as disrespect, but I would never have gathered that you have a teenager. This from the way you talk about older people. I stand corrected. I take it that your son does not like Star Wars?

 

he doesn't not like Star Wars. He's just never been interested in it. Probably because none of his friends or his friends' friends were ever interested in it either. It's not much different from how they're not interested in Styx or the Police or Yes. If they reach back for retro chic it's more likely to come out of the 60s.

 

I seem to remember that the grand total for everything including marketing was 400-450, but that's obviously not a confirmed number because they never release the marketing numbers. But that would give it a 3x target of 1.35 billion which it has only just reached.

400 million is actually becoming a pretty standard figure for the really huge tentpoles. This is what I mean about 3x budget being a stretch for most big films.

 

You have to remember that with a lot of these big tentpole flicks there is also a lot of cross marketing bucks which helps offset production costs. That is why MOS was on every single item they could stamp it on. WB pretty much had of it's production costs paid before the movie open thanks to cross promotion dollars. Skyfall got $60 million from Heideken and used it to pay for their marketing promotion. Jurassic World, Minions, Avengers 2 all did similar moves this year. Hell even ST: ID got a few bucks in cross promotion that help pay for it's production costs.

So yes the costs of doing worldwide marketing/releases of films are making the costs of films a lot higher but you have to figure that with international box offices exploding and with companies throwing big bucks at these tentpole movies for cross promotion licensing, the rewards are worth the risks.

 

Minions was off the charts with the tie ins. I'm sure the profits from all that have been huge.

 

I saw him myself last month. Still rocking it...

 

Abrams stoped being as involved with Lost after the first half of the season due to other projects he was involved with from what i heard, but returned to help write Season 3's opener. he then helped with the finale, which didn't resolve much but was still a heart-felt one, to be honest it the final season was very weak for the most part, and the finale was one of the few episodes that did resolve some loose ends. In short, Lost failing wasn't realy Abrams's fault, he helped bring the show to life and give it a perfect start thanks to the pilot episode, problem was that the writers who stayed took a while before they realy knew where they wanted everything to lead.

From his works, Abrams is pretty good at setting the stage and kick-starting a story, which is why he was chosen to direct Force Awakens, while for the next films, they're hiring directors who might develop the characters more and bring a different perspective to the story.

 

Nothing is written in granite until it is accomplished.

 

Estimates for yesterday's box office:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart

Looks like MI: Rogue Nation might top expectations with opening closer to $60 million then the expected $40-50 range. Vacation is a total trainwreck while Ant-Man slowly grinds along and Minions makes it run towards $300 million.

And McCartney still is amazing, seen him three times now.....but no way do I go to Lolla and pay insane prices to stand in Grand Park to watch him with a lackluster lineup behind him. Metallica always puts a good show but I seen a bunch over the years and really have no desire to see them again and Sam Smith? Really???