Star Trek Into Darkness is going to win the weekend by a rather large margin, another in a long line of sequels to cash in this summer. Let’s go ahead and undertake a full breakdown of the title, especially because, with these huge movies coming on top of each other, we rarely get to revisit the complete financial picture.
As Brad is away in France covering Cannes, we’ll start internationally. One of the most interesting things about the 2009 reboot was that it laid down an extremely poor overseas multiplier. It made $258 million domestically and a paltry (by comparison) $128 million everywhere else. What happened? Do international audiences not care about the Star Trek franchise? And is there reason to think this equation might turn around this time?
The answer, thankfully for Paramount, seems to indicate a pivot in the market. The groundwork laid by the origin story worked, and this time out they’ll see a respectable multiplier. The evidence, admittedly small in sample size, comes by way of Australia and Germany, where Star Trek only managed $25 million combined back in the day. Today they are already at $13 million, and the film has only been out one weekend. As such, they could be looking at something like an 80% jump, all the way up to something near $220 million overseas.
Then you factor in that nice domestic sequel bump, IMAX dollars, 3-D dollars, and all of a sudden everything is turning up rosy for Star Trek Into Darkness. If we consider it will do around 28% of its business on opening weekend, then a $90 million number puts it around $300 million here in the States. Now we’re up to $520 million worldwide, on a production budget of $190 million. Let’s plug in our “You need to make 2.5x production budget to profit theatrically” theory and note they’ll clear a tidy $45 million for their efforts, and that’s before anything else kicks in — lunch boxes, toys, Blu-ray, vinyl and so on and so forth. Conclusion? The 2016 version of Star Trek, with Abrams likely only producing, will be even more credentialed within the marketplace, and that, folks, is how you build a war chest so World War Z doesn’t wipe your studio completely out.
One caveat? Will Fast & Furious 6 cut into Star Trek Into Darkness in its second weekend more than Angels & Demons did back in ’09? And then, will After Earth sweep away any residual sci-fi dollars still left? The summer is filled with intrigue, I tell you, perplexing all the way around.
Now, go ahead and post your best opening prediction for Star Trek Into Darkness, my math was based upon overall market awareness (huge) and the higher ticket prices this time around. It will be a nice opening, but I can’t go as high as $100 million because sci-fi fans aren’t as numerous as superhero fans, though it’s getting closer by the second.
Predictions away!
Current Streak: Fourteen weekends in a row.
Chances of Streak Being Broken: Nada.
Reason: I mean c’mon, just look at that math.
Major Theater Chain (MTC) Tracking
Star Trek Into Darkness: $80 million
SIDE NOTE: Some of the theater numbers below are estimates. We’ll have the actual counts in Sunday’s wrap-up article.
