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#201 Gothneo

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Posted 04 December 2018 - 11:19 PM

No doubt Beyond didn't do as well as they wanted... I realize that the way they do the money on movies is complicated... so you may well be right... but strictly by the numbers... its reported that the production cost for Beyond was 185MM, and the total sales, incl dvd and home sale is currently ~375MM.

 

So if the rule (and I'm just throwing out a random number I think some folks have quoted before) is that a movie has to do 3x its production cost to make money... then actually its closer to a 100MM loss as it would have need to make 475MM. 

 

thing is by that rule... Into darkness falls short too... and it was regarded as a money maker.  So I got to believe that somewhere with these big budget productions certain costs become closer to fixed. I also have to believe that if a movie is marginally profitable... they may cook the books to show a loss because it just works out better.. e.g. take the early deprecation and then pay out if it makes money in the home market or whatever as those may be different deals. 

 

All that being said... compared to say any of the avengers movies, who's production budgets were >300MM... and those easily raked in > 1MMM ea??!!! yeah those were obvious money makers, and just using the basic 3x Production cost rule means a Trek movie hasn't been a real money maker since 1st Contact all the way back to1996. which suggests that they have to be making something off some of these... otherwise they been sinking bad money into the franchise for over 1/2 its films and more than 20 years!

 

Anyhow... I think they are right back where they were with STTMP... which is to say they need to figure out how to keep the budget cheaper... and one way to do that is to get away from all the high speed flashy scenes that are the hallmark of an action movie (because in this case it means more CGI). 

 

One of the best received movies has been the voyage home... and most of that had the cast running about modern day San Fran... TWOK was done with a budget 1/3 that of STTMP.

 

So regardless of the if they decide to reboot the Movie Trek universe again... the analogous budget cut would imply that a Trek movie should be made for ~65MM, which , as Deadpool proved its totally possible make a great action flick in that range... and make tons of money, because sometimes less is more.

 

So I'm not disagreeing that they need to either reboot again or go a different direction... but even if they do I think the production budget for Trek just doesn't warrant a huge 100MM > number because clearly the fan demand (worldwide) just isn't there for the franchise... at least not like there is for the Marvel U currently. 



#202 MisterPL

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Posted 05 December 2018 - 11:59 AM

With this cast and the whole alternate timeline thing -- I think they've taken it about as far as this whole premise can go.

 

I just wish they'd done the alternate timeline on television instead of a big-budget movie.

 

They came up with a brilliant way to recast Trek's most popular characters in their prime (no pun intended) but have hamstrung themselves by limiting it to feature films. Star Trek would have made a terrific pilot to a completely rebooted series, one that could still take advantage of the Shatners and Stewarts fans adore but move forward with a unified show.



#203 MisterPL

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Posted 05 December 2018 - 12:15 PM

One of the best received movies has been the voyage home... and most of that had the cast running about modern day San Fran... TWOK was done with a budget 1/3 that of STTMP.

 

Much of the development on TWOK (ship design, sets, even footage) was recycled from TMP. And TVH was popular because it was self-aware, almost a parody of itself. The fact that most of it was filmed on location instead of on sets that had to be designed and manufactured just made it more profitable.

 

 

So regardless of the if they decide to reboot the Movie Trek universe again... the analogous budget cut would imply that a Trek movie should be made for ~65MM, which , as Deadpool proved its totally possible make a great action flick in that range... and make tons of money, because sometimes less is more.

 

 

The difference is that people going to see Deadpool are going to see Deadpool. Star Trek isn't "The Adventures of Captain Kirk." It's become an ensemble and that ensemble isn't cheap.

 

One could argue that a Tarantino film could focus exclusively on Spock and McCoy and it'd be a damned entertaining film. Then the concern is fracturing the franchise even further. It's already divided by TV series (TOS vs TNG  vs DS9...) and by timeline (Prime vs. Kelvin). I wouldn't want to see it broken by characters.

 

This is why I'm generally happy with what CBS All Access is doing. They've brought Trek back to the smaller screen but with a big screen look. They're offering vignettes that focus on supporting characters, small productions that could attract the industry's best writers and directors. They're willing to give things like an animated series a try.

 

There was a time when one could argue that a story like TMP needed a budget only a feature film could deliver.

 

That time is past.



#204 Gothneo

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Posted 05 December 2018 - 04:43 PM

Again, I agree totally about the cost of an ensemble cast... especially when the cast are all high priced actors in their own right... an issue they didn't necessarily have with TOS or even TNG Trek. When I say they need to figure out how to do it for less... maybe they need to use fewer a-list actors or as you suggest do a film focused on 2 or 3 main characters.... again... I agree that might be damn entertaining. I also agree that Trek doesn't need feature film budget levels to looks great and tell a coherent story... DISCO looks fantastic... I enjoyed it, but it has clear story issues... and since I'm still an AA Subber... I'm willing to see what they do with S2.



#205 Morgan

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Posted 05 December 2018 - 07:14 PM

"Beyond" was particularly expensive too with all those sets and CGI, perhaps more expensive than it needed to be. And just like the other two, it looked like a live-action filmed version of comic book storyboards -- something that has become almost a requirement in the space sci-fi and fantasy genre -- more so than something like "Rogue One."

 

Yeah, there's no reason it needed to top 100 million: Just look at what Nick Meyer was able to accomplish with the two films he helmed. The Undiscovered Country, even with some of its set requirements, was like $45 mil to make. Adjusted for inflation, that's still not a whole lot.

 

"The Voyage Home," it was noted in the commentary track, was the Trek film that reached the widest audience, which is very believable in retrospect. So much so that no one even noticed that the bridge of the HMS Bounty was totally different than in Search for Spock, hahah.



#206 Gothneo

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Posted 06 December 2018 - 04:55 AM

I really like the Undiscovered Country to this day. Even though it was speaking to the uncertainty of the end of the cold war... it still seems apropos to me to this day... and Plummers performance was fantastic. 

 

I read an interview of Ryan Reynolds, who said that studio really had very little confidence in Deadpool as a project... to the point that action scenes  had to be cut short because they didn't have the budget for lengthy drawn out CGI scenes.  and IMO the film was better for it as often such scenes do little or nothing to actually advance the story. I think Beyond would have benefitted greatly from a tighter leash in a similar way as the basic premise of Beyond isn't that bad... it just seemed to wander off track continuously and as mentioned, the action scenes seemed... "Gratuitous"? 



#207 MisterPL

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Posted 06 December 2018 - 03:30 PM

This will be welcome news to most:

 

http://sciencefictio...-youre-talking/



#208 Gothneo

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Posted 06 December 2018 - 06:45 PM

Whaaaa! now I'm outraged that the thing I was outraged about is no longer a thing I can outraged about!!!



#209 MisterPL

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Posted 08 January 2019 - 01:43 PM

So this isn't happening any time soon:

 

https://comicbook.co...-not-happening/



#210 Gothneo

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Posted 08 January 2019 - 05:10 PM

 

The loss of Pine and Hemsworth appears to have set off a chain reaction knocking the sequel, and Starfleet may choose to retire the USS Enterprise early rather than remodel the franchise from the ground up.

 

 

I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention to realize both Pine and Hemsworth were out.

 

Never say never. I think they'll eventually reboot it again with a new front man. 



#211 VulcanFanatic

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Posted 08 January 2019 - 05:37 PM

Here's an idea, how about making a real Star Trek movie set in the prime universe with TNG,DS9 and Voyager cast? There would be more people excited about that than another crappy Abrams verse thing.

#212 Gothneo

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Posted 08 January 2019 - 06:31 PM

Did you read the article? Its shelved indefinitely. which means all bets are off. If I had to guess i'd say it'll be another 5+ years before we see anything on the big screen. Wait strike that... it'll be just short of whatever the time frame it is for the license to expire and revert back to CBS. 

 

For now it seems like they are focusing on the all access shows.



#213 MisterPL

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Posted 09 January 2019 - 09:17 AM

With any luck, they'll stick to television and be done with feature films.

 

The last two TNG-era films are among the worst performers at the box office. There's no reason to think that a cast of geriatric crew members would attract anyone but dusty, old Trekkies and there aren't enough of us left. The youngest TNG cast member is Wil Wheaton and he's 46. Everyone else is in their 60s or older. If the studio thought there was enough demand for the DS9 or VOY casts to leap to the big screen, it would have happened by now.

 

Interest in Star Trek films seems to be trending down however Paramount has also spent much more money producing the last three films than the rest of the film franchise combined. (Approximately $525 million for the Abrams films vs. $344 million for the previous ten.)

 

Unless they can find a way to spend less money and deliver the same quality, Trek films are dead. There's really no reason for them anymore. We have feature film quality production on TV.



#214 Whirlygig

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Posted 09 January 2019 - 09:33 AM

This will be welcome news to most:

 

http://sciencefictio...-youre-talking/

 

Praise Jebus!

 

 

So this isn't happening any time soon:

 

https://comicbook.co...-not-happening/

 

Color me...not surprised.  And also relieved.

No movies is fine with me.  Remember the good old days, the 90s, where Trek fans were the only ones on the Internet and most people under 20 didn't know what it was except for being something nerds talked about?  WE LIKED IT THAT WAY.  Admit it!  And no, I am not being facetious here.  Not everyone needs Star Trek shoved in their face.  If recent events have taught us anything it's that they just aren't ready for it yet.



#215 VulcanFanatic

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Posted 09 January 2019 - 10:15 AM

I would rather Trek films be dead than have crappy Abrams verse junk any day. The original crew movies that were so successful were full of older crew members. The television episodes that featured past crew members were some of the most adored episodes and I think a TNG, DS9, VOY crossover movie would be very popular.

#216 Gothneo

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Posted 09 January 2019 - 07:27 PM

Said it many times before... The films were always just something extra... and most of them aren't really anything special... TVs where Trek belongs.



#217 Nigel

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Posted 10 January 2019 - 10:03 AM

The JJ films will be completely abandoned and forgotten just like any other modern action/superhero series (unless they do a film with some kind of alliance of jj trek, transformers and spiderman and then people will all go see that and say it's amazing then forget it exists a year later). 

 

Edit: I take that back somewhat, they'll forget it until someone else reboots it again with yet another Kirk and Spock....then reboot it again 10 years after that....



#218 MisterPL

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Posted 10 January 2019 - 10:49 AM

Honestly, the only thing that made the films special was that it was where fans could find Spock.

 

If execs had decided to move forward with "Phase II" back in the 70s without Leonard Nimoy, we'd have had a proper continuation of Star Trek with plenty of room for organic growth instead of needlessly reinventing the wheel as casts got too cost prohibitive to keep. Sure, the visual effects might have looked more like Battlestar Galactica or Buck Rogers but the voyages of the starship Enterprise would have been more consistent and the fandom less fractured.



#219 Gothneo

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Posted 10 January 2019 - 11:39 AM

I always liked buck Rogers. Camp and all.back in the day I thought Erin Grey was smokin!

#220 Nigel

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Posted 10 January 2019 - 12:30 PM

I wrote a long paragraph but decided to delete it and just say this: most likely the Star Trek that VulcanFanatic and I like is never coming back. I'm ok with that. But it doesn't mean I'm "not a real fan" just because I don't embrace this new stuff they slap the star trek name on.






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