While we’re not exactly that thrilled about how a movie’s box office performance has become a big horse race with the public, it’s often fun to track how a movie does when it finally hits the theaters.
There are many number crunchers and pundits out there who have practically made this a science, although it’s certainly not an exact science by any means.
Nevertheless, it’s funny to think you can put all the elements of an upcoming movie into a computer, and get a fairly good estimation of what it will do opening weekend. Fandango predicted that Iron Man 3 would be the biggest movie of the summer, and sure enough, it’s been making money hand over fist. So what are the current predictions for Star Trek Into Darkness, now that it’s officially out in theaters?
According to The Wrap, $100 million for the weekend. The IMAX screenings for opening day, May 15, which took place in L.A., New York, and San Francisco, had already sold out, and Fandango reported ticket sales for Darkness made up 71% of all online ticket sales. Movietickets.com reported over 300 sellouts, and it’s also gotten an 88% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It also seems that this Trek will do better overseas. We were shocked, genuinely shocked, to learn that Star Trek doesn’t have a big European market, and JJ Abrams and company have been hustling like crazy to reverse this trend, doing promotional tours as far as Moscow to spread the Trekkie gospel. This may indeed be paying off, because it’s apparently doing pretty well overseas so far, making $13 million in the UK alone, and $31.7 million from seven other foreign territories.
As The Wrap tells us, this time “Paramount didn’t have much choice” in trying to build a bigger foreign audience. “With a $195 million production budget, Abrams’ follow up to his 2009 Star Trek reboot will have to score big overseas to be a success. And that’s a feat none of the previous films – including the last one – have been able to achieve.”
The first Star Trek film hit theaters in 1979, and since then the eleven Trek movies have made over $1.8 billion, but the foreign take has only been $312 million. So it will be interesting to see if Star Trek will finally catch on overseas. It’s certainly on track to do very well here, and even with the future of the franchise uncertain, at least as far as who could potentially direct the third installment with JJ Abrams jumping over to Star Wars, we have no doubt Trek will continue to live long and prosper.
