Monday
25Aug
J.J. Abrams Swears 'Star Trek' Will Be "Worth the Wait"
Monday, August 25, 2008 at 10:32PM
Remember the Seinfeld episode about Frank
Costanza and his TV Guide collection? He'd kept every issue going back who knows
how many years, and when I was growing up, I knew somebody like that. But
acknowledging that most people no longer save their magazines, I think there's a
new issue of TV Guide that will be of interest to certain collectors.
J.J. Abrams, whose kids will have no trouble
going to a good school thanks to hits like Felicity, Alias, and
Lost, is juggling television and film quite nicely. His
Mission: Impossible is underrated, and his
production company, Bad Robot, has already backed
Cloverfield and has a few other interesting
sounding projects in queue.
"All I can say is that I think this movie is going to be worth the wait. It’s blessed with a wonderful optimism and an incredibly alive and invested cast. While the visual effects are gonna be unbelievable, the movie is working right now with only 50 of our 1,000-plus visual effects finished. It’s funny, it’s scary, it’s dramatic, emotional and entertaining - all without having the stuff you’d think a movie called Star Trek would require. That to me is exciting."Judge for yourself when Star Trek hits theaters on May 8th. (Thanks to TrekMovie for the TV Guide transcription).
Colin Boyd | Permalink | in J.J. Abrams, Prequels, Sci-Fi, Star Trek, TV Adaptations | Print Article | Email Article | 11 Comments
Reader Comments (11)
I'm sure it will be worth the wait. Personally I think everything J.J. Abrams sheads his genious on is amazing.
Even What About Brian?
As a middle aged man who has seen a shit load of movies, I have to believe that postponing a movie can never really be a good thing...
Star Wreck???
What about Titanic, A-hole???
Lost...
I will give you Titanic. However, look at the release date record:
Star Trek: The Motion Picture...December 7th 1979
Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan...June 4th 1982
Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock...June 01st 1984
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home...Nov. 26, 1986
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier...June 09, 1989
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country...Dec 06, 1991
Star Trek VII: Generations...Nov 18, 1994
Star Trek VIII: First Contact...Nov 22, 1996
Star Trek VIV: Insurrection...Dec 11, 1998
Star Trek X: Nemesis...Dec 13, 2002
As you can see, the overwhelming majority of Star Trek movies (including most of the biggest "hits") have been released when the days are short, and Turkey and Lamb are on the table.
People like to go to "Space: the Final Frontier" when it's cold outside. The numbers prove this (and it's one of the big reasons I'd argue, that "X-Files: I want to Believe" failed). Paramount was all ready to re-boot Star Trek in December...
But then something changed.
I suspect someone saw the movie and said...
"Oh Shit. It sucks. Dump it in Summer."
And now we got JJ all up in here apologizing!
The one with the whales still rocks ass yo!
the new Kirk is hot!
"Dump" it in summer? No. May/June is not a dumping ground. It's the summer equivalent to the Nov/Dec tentpole season. The only difference is that "serious" Oscar contenders tend to get held up for winter release because Oscar voters seem to have short memories.
If we had "Star Trek" next Feb. or March, I'd 100% agree with you that it's being dumped - those aren't the months you put prime movies with built-in audiences into. You only put a movie there because A) it sucks or B) it's actually somewhat decent but you think it'll start slow and build by word of mouth, something it won't have time to do in the prime movie seasons.
Plus, your own evidence can be used against you. The Wrath of Khan is probably the singular best Star Trek movie, and it came out in June 1982. In fact, of the seven Nov/Dec releases on your list, anywhere between two and five of them would end up on many Trek fans' (and casual movie goers') "bottom half" list. Of the three summers, one (Khan, above) is the best, one (Final Frontier) is the worst, and one (Search for Spock) is meh. So time of year vs. quality is _at best_ a push.
Even going by box office, Nemesis - a winter release - had the lowest take of all ten Trek films to date ($43 mil), and that's even including #5 ($52 mil in 1989 dollars). If you eliminate those bottom two and the top two (#4 @ $109 mil and #8 @ $92 mil), you have _six movies_ that make between $70 mil (#9) and $82 mil (#1) regardless of when they're released. That's not really a ton of variance over the course of, what, twenty years?
And the second X Files movie bombed because A) it came out a full ten years after the series' heyday (and the first movie) and B) it was by all accounts a moderately crappy film, especially by X-Files story standards. It was better if you took it as a generic supernatural thriller and pretended the names were different, but even then it was sub-par. That movie would have been squashed by Quantum of Solace (and Harry Potter before it moved) just as thoroughly as it got steamrolled by The Dark Knight and Indiana Jones.
Paramount definitely believes they have next Summer's Iron Man on their hands. Of course, on May 24th 1994 they believed the same thing about a little movie called Beverly Hills Cop 3.
Time will tell. But I'm not feeling good about the studio Hokey Pokey.
But that's just me.
Taliesen...so the number 1 grossing Star Trek movie ever only did $109 million? In 1986? In the Winter?
Looks like they are primed and ready to own Summer 2009!
Yeah, that's correct. Star Trek 4 was the highest grossing of all the movies in terms of unadjusted dollars, with $109 mil. Although when you adjust that for ticket price increases that's still upwards of $200 mil, which would be utterly fantastic numbers nowadays.
Just for everyone's edification, I did a quick adjust for ticket price increases for the Trek films. I just assumed the movie made all its money in the year it came out, so if there were weird ticket price jumps between adjacent years it won't be reflected here.
(2008 average ticket price - $7.08)
Movie - Year - Price - Original gross - Adjusted gross
X ----- 2002 - $5.81 - $43,254,409 - $52,709,331
9 ----- 1998 - $4.69 - $70,187,658 - $105,954,929
8 ----- 1996 - $4.42 - $92,027,888 - $147,411,187
7 ----- 1994 - $4.18 - $75,671,125 - $128,170,231
6 ----- 1991 - $4.21 - $74,888,996 - $125,941,589
5 ----- 1989 - $3.97 - $52,210,049 - $93,110,113
4 ----- 1986 - $3.71 - $109,713,132 - $209,371,691
3 ----- 1984 - $3.36 - $76,471,046 - $161,135,418
2 ----- 1982 - $2.94 - $78,912,963 - $190,035,299
1 ----- 1979 - $2.51 - $82,258,456 - $232,027,836
So there we are.