-Happy 30th birthday, Wrath of Khan-

[StarFuryG7]

Over at Blastr:

Happy 30th birthday, Wrath of Khan. Thanks for keeping Trek alive.

Despite performing relatively well, 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture almost killed the franchise for good. It was too expensive and too inert for Paramount's liking ... but the studio was willing to roll the dice on Gene Roddenberry's creation one more time. And everything was riding on The Wrath of Khan's success.

MORE: blastr.com/2012/06/happy-30th-birthday-wrath.php

[captainbasil]

I love this movie. It's still the best Trek. Heck, it's the Gold Standard for Star Trek Films. Plus, for me it will always have special meaning. This movie was the first topic of conversation I ever had with the woman who would become my wife. We will celebrate our 27th Wedding Anniversary in August. Ah, the awesome power of Star Trek ! ;D

[CRAMBAM]

It is amazing--TMP stunk, yet it didn't just perform well, it was a massive blockbuster.

Today, if there was a movie that big of a hit, the next movie would follow the same formula regardless of whether it stunk.

You have to give credit to the studio for recognizing that despite the box office, they didn't make a good movie, and for correcting the formula.

[Mel]

Jun 5, 2012 7:16:31 GMT -5 captainbasil said:

I love this movie. It's still the best Trek. Heck, it's the Gold Standard for Star Trek Films. Plus, for me it will always have special meaning. This movie was the first topic of conversation I ever had with the woman who would become my wife. We will celebrate our 27th Wedding Anniversary in August. Ah, the awesome power of Star Trek ! ;D

Twenty-seven years! Congratulations! You're both very lucky. (Btw, that's about half as long as I've been a Trek fan. <g>)

[StarFuryG7]

Jun 5, 2012 7:43:43 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

It is amazing--TMP stunk, yet it didn't just perform well, it was a massive blockbuster.
Today, if there was a movie that big of a hit, the next movie would follow the same formula regardless of whether it stunk.
You have to give credit to the studio for recognizing that despite the box office, they didn't make a good movie, and for correcting the formula.

Our one-time friend Bob, who has gone missing since the old AOL message boards were pulled down, used to make the argument that TMP was a hugely successful movie, and in more recent years especially he and I would lock horns over it because it's grossly overstating the case. Nothing personal here, Marc, but I believe this needs to be put to bed once and for all because I'm so tired of hearing it.

Yes, TMP was a disappointing movie critically and with the fans, but it was also a box office disappointment as well. It did well enough to ensure a sequel made on the cheap by comparison, which was why Harve Bennett was transitioned over from television to make a sequel on a television budget (well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much, given that TWoK was made on a measly $11,000,000 budget, whereas TMP's budget was quadruple that by comparison).

You really think TMP was a massive hit? Marc, how old were you when that movie was released? Were you old enough to remember what a dud it really was, the extent to which it nearly sank the franchise for all time, and that the opening weekend box office was viewed as a disappointment, even though the film proved to have enough staying power to actually make it profitable?

"Star Wars" was released in 1977. Let's have a look at its Box Office haul that year for just a moment.

$195,666,111 (USA) (18 December 1977)
$194,427,140 (USA) (11 December 1977)
$192,899,264 (USA) (4 December 1977)
$191,888,000 (USA) (27 November 1977)
$186,924,661 (USA) (20 November 1977)
$184,397,772 (USA) (13 November 1977)
$181,289,965 (USA) (6 November 1977)
$177,811,345 (USA) (30 October 1977)
$174,518,466 (USA) (28 October 1977)
$133,727,463 (USA) (5 September 1977)
$122,576,055 (USA) (28 August 1977)
$113,031,275 (USA) (21 August 1977)
$102,267,928 (USA) (14 August 1977)
$90,284,705 (USA) (7 August 1977)
$77,323,425 (USA) (31 July 1977)
$65,887,563 (USA) (24 July 1977)
$53,777,851 (USA) (17 July 1977)
$42,129,994 (USA) (10 July 1977)
$32,157,349 (USA) (4 July 1977)
$20,514,376 (USA) (26 June 1977)
$12,943,513 (USA) (19 June 1977)
$2,048,249 (USA) (30 May 1977)

www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/business

From the end of May until December of that year, the movie brought in two hundred million dollars. It had staying power, dwarfed the Box Office take of TMP, and it wasn't done yet. It peaked at $260,000,000 by August of the following year.

Contrast that to how TMP performed at the Box Office:

Gross
$39,658,976 (USA) (23 December 1979)
$24,289,369 (USA) (16 December 1979)
$11,926,421 (USA) (9 December 1979)
$82,258,456 (USA)
$7,400,405 (UK)
$139,000,000 (Worldwide)

www.imdb.com/title/tt0079945/business

Now honestly, do you still believe that TMP met or even exceeded expectations, or does instead look almost like a flop by comparison?

I didn't even include the worldwide Box Office results of "Star Wars" --it made so much damn money beyond the domestic take that it's not even worth pointing out here because it would only make TMP look even more pathetic. I'm not saying it did altogether terribly, but given the extent to which the studio put its bankroll behind the movie, well, they were less than happy by how it performed in theaters, and it's by no means a stretch to say that.

[CRAMBAM]

I think you need to forget Star Wars because it was SUCH a game changer. I don't think anyone would argue that TMP was in the league of Star Wars.

I can't say I know what expectations were, because I was obviously WAAAAAAY too young to remember. I actually do remember seeing it in the theater, but not too much about it.

Yes, TMP's budget was quadruple TWOK's. BUT, TMP's budget is grossly inflated because it included all the costs of Star Trek Phase 2.

TMP was the second highest grossing picture in 1979. In 2012 dollars, it grossed $260,694,722.43

That's using the regular rate of inflation.

It does not factor in that a movie back then was about $2.00 compared to about $12 today, an increase far greater than the regular rate of inflation.

TWOK, by comparison was also a top 5 grossing movie that year, making the equivalent of $188,152,218.57 in 2012 dollars domestically.

Huge hit, especially factoring in the budget.

Titanic was the #1 grossing movie of 1997 with about $658 million domestic. In 1998, the top grossing film was Saving Private Ryan. Was that any less of a hit because it didn't come close to Titanic?

Do I think TMP was a dud?

ABSOLUTELY. I can't watch it.

Do I think it was a flop financially? No. It was a big hit.

[StarFuryG7]

Jun 7, 2012 13:37:19 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

I think you need to forget Star Wars because it was SUCH a game changer. I don't think anyone would argue that TMP was in the league of Star Wars.

Well, that's what the studio was looking for --that was what they wanted, a "Star Wars"-type blockbuster. The success of SW had everything to do with why Paramount decided to make a Star Trek feature for the big screen rather than going the TV series route again. And that's why the movie was such a disaster for them, because it didn't even come close to what they were hoping for, and that was also why Gene Roddenberry lost all control over the Trek movie franchise from that point onward.

And the sad fact is that had TMP actually been a darn good movie instead, it probably could have done twice the business it did ultimately, even if it did still fall short of the "Star Wars" box office results.

[CRAMBAM]

I would think any studio would be looking for SW success, but I can't imagine Paramount being too disappointed with having the second highest grossing film of the year, and TMP was that. It was the highest ranked Trek film to date in the year it came out.

And the amazing thing is--it sucked.

It would have been interesting had TWOK been the first movie.

[captainbasil]

TMP was utterly craptastic. I saw it at the theater and I could not get over how boring and just plain terrible it was. If memory serves the only reason I saw TWOK at the theater is because I had read that Nicholas Meyer was involved. TWOK just hits all the right notes.

[StarFuryG7]

Jun 7, 2012 22:30:27 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

I would think any studio would be looking for SW success, but I can't imagine Paramount being too disappointed with having the second highest grossing film of the year, and TMP was that.

They invested about $45 million to make the movie and they only brought in $82 million domestically. To say they weren't exactly thrilled by the results would be an understatement, and if Paramount had deemed the movie as much of a success as you seem to think, then the sequel wouldn't have been made on a mere $11 million budget. They would have spent a hell of a lot more on it.

Jun 7, 2012 22:30:27 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

It was the highest ranked Trek film to date in the year it came out.

No, ST09 surpassed it actually. However, I would argue that TMP hurt the franchise's performance at the box office from that point on because it was such a terrible movie. Had it actually been a sensational movie it should have easily been able to do twice the business it did, especially if it could have been compared to "Star Wars" in an action-adventure sense. Had TWoK been the first Trek movie to be released to theaters instead I think it would have done well over one hundred million dollars domestically at the box office, and as much as Trek fans like that movie, I think there was still room for improvements. I didn't like everything that Meyer and Bennett chose to do in that film, although there's no question that it was a huge improvement over TMP.

[CRAMBAM]

It's a little unfair to call TMP a $45 million movie. A LOT of that budget was for Star Trek: Phase II.

I don't know if the break down is out there, but the budgets were closer than you might think.

TMP, in RANK of movies that year, was #2. Only Kramer v. Kramer beat it.

Star Trek XI came in 7th--which WAS the best ranking since TVH.

[StarFuryG7]

Jun 10, 2012 20:21:59 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

It's a little unfair to call TMP a $45 million movie. A LOT of that budget was for Star Trek: Phase II.

Hey, they factored it into the budget at the time when they were promoting the film, and a lot of what they produced for Phase II was probably utilized in the movie in terms of sets and props.

Jun 10, 2012 20:21:59 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

I don't know if the break down is out there, but the budgets were closer than you might think.

No, they weren't --not close at all in fact. Box Office Mojo and IMDB list a $35 million budget for TMP, and that was because they factored out some of Phase II's production costs in order to save a little face on the film. But I can tell you from firsthand knowledge that it was being reported as a $44-$45 million movie back when it was released in 1979, in part to promote it, and there was also talk of it having run WAY over-budget as well in certain publications.

Jun 10, 2012 20:21:59 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

TMP, in RANK of movies that year, was #2. Only Kramer v. Kramer beat it.

Yeah, and "Kramer v. Kramer" cost nothing to produce by comparison. Paramount still came out looking bad --not "Cleopatra" bad because the film actually turned a profit, and as you said, it came in #2 for the year, but it was a big budget special effects picture for that time, and they wanted it to do much better than it performed ultimately, or they wouldn't have bankrolled it the way they did. They were hoping to bring in four or five times the reported production cost of the movie, and they didn't even come close to that kind of a return on it.

Jun 10, 2012 20:21:59 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

Star Trek XI came in 7th--which WAS the best ranking since TVH.

www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=startrek.htm

As I said, ST09 surpassed them all at the box office.

[CRAMBAM]

The box office mojo chart does not adjust for inflation, nor does it list ranking in the year of release.

And again, much of that budget was due to the failed Phase II attempt.

If you factor in the $35 million budget, they would have needed $175 million.

In 2012 dollars, that's $554 million.

That's an unrealistic expectation.

If you make a movie that turns a massive profit, by any reasonable standard, but you are so ridiculously greedy that you consider that a disappointment, it won't change that financially, the movie was a massive success.

It's amazing too, because it REALLY sucked.

[StarFuryG7]

Jun 11, 2012 10:26:46 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

The box office mojo chart does not adjust for inflation

Yes, it does --you just didn't scroll down far enough. What it doesn't include, for some odd reason, however, is worldwide totals for TMP, although I'm not sure why, especially given that IMDB lists the worldwide box office returns for it.

Jun 11, 2012 10:26:46 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

nor does it list ranking in the year of release.

ST09 came in #7 in the year of its release, with "Avatar" coming in #1 with a $749 million domestic gross, so in a way it's simply ridiculous to compare the 1979 annual box office results to the annual domestic results of 2009 in contrast because so many of the blockbuster films of the last decade are special effects extravaganzas, which was in no way the case back in '79 because not that many special effects pictures were produced back then. The cost made them largely prohibitive, and the optical effects in no way measured up to what can now be done using CGI, so in a way it's trying to compare apples and oranges.

Jun 11, 2012 10:26:46 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

And again, much of that budget was due to the failed Phase II attempt.

:::Sigh::: The studio has since factored out a good ten million dollars roughly to account for Phase II. The reported budget for TMP back in 1979 was $44-to-$46 million as I said, and now the reported cost to produce the movie is listed as $35 million --there's your Phase II costs factored out of the theatrical film's budget.

Jun 11, 2012 10:26:46 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

If you factor in the $35 million budget, they would have needed $175 million.
In 2012 dollars, that's $554 million.
That's an unrealistic expectation.

Comparing ticket sales with the adjusted value of the dollar in terms of production costs does not amount to the same type of comparison though. I would add, however, that the budget for "Avatar" was being reported at about $500 million just before its release, and at the time TMP was being made it was likewise one of the most FX-heavy films ever made.

Jun 11, 2012 10:26:46 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

If you make a movie that turns a massive profit, by any reasonable standard, but you are so ridiculously greedy that you consider that a disappointment, it won't change that financially, the movie was a massive success.

Your interpretation of "massive" is overstated here in my view. I pointed to "Star Wars" because of the "massive" amount of business it did in contrast, having been released almost two years before TMP even hit theaters, and it demonstrated the kind of business a film could potentially do back then. You say, 'well, it was a game-changer, so it can't be counted', which is convenient, but that's still rationalizing. The simple fact of the matter is that Paramount believed that their movie could also do that level of business because it had already been demonstrated as possible by "Star Wars".

Additionally, this just came to my attention today, and it affirms what I've been saying here, and for a long time previously as well for that matter:

In the United States, The Motion Picture sold the most tickets of any film in the franchise until 2009's Star Trek, and it remains the highest-grossing film of the franchise worldwide adjusted for inflation,[148][149] but Paramount considered its gross disappointing compared to expectations and marketing. The film's budget had ballooned to $46 million,[1] including costs incurred during Phase II production.[150] The studio faulted Roddenberry's script rewrites and creative direction for the plodding pace and disappointing gross.[1] While the performance of The Motion Picture convinced the studio to back a (cheaper) sequel, Roddenberry was forced out of its creative control.[151]

Star Trek: The Motion Picture
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Motion_Picture

The movie did not meet their hopes and expectations, as I've been saying, and Roddenberry lost control of the franchise from that time onward. What does that tell you? If the movie was a huge of a hit as you keep arguing, then why wasn't Roddenberry allowed to have creative control over any of the Trek films that followed?

[CRAMBAM]

Using just 1979 dollars and those numbers, the movie made $82 million on a $35 million budget, and was the number 2 grossing movie of 1979. That's 2.34 times its budget, not to mention it was in far fewer theaters back then.

GR lost control because the movie SUCKED. Despite the financial success, people HATED it.

By the way, enjoying that Wiki-link. Ellison's script sounded a lot better.

A LOT of this money seems to have been spent on scripts and development that never came to fruition. They mention $8 million budget before they even started talking about Phase II.

They made a pilot script for Phase II, and were 2 weeks away from starting when they decided to turn it into a movie.

Projected budget: $15 million.

Obviously, with all the Phase II stuff included, they went waaay over that.

Adjusted for inflation, it still remains the highest grossing Trek film, according to that article. You are right that Paramount was not happy enough with the grosses based on expectation, but clearly that expectation was unreasonable.

The critics ripped on the movie, and rightfully so. It was terrible.

Had TWOK started the franchise, I think it would have grossed even more.

[captainbasil]

As much as I pick on Paramount and Hollywood in general, you have to give them credit with TWOK. When TMP disappointed them they didn't just throw money at the problem. They looked at the big picture . They wanted to salvage the property as a Franchise. I don't think that would happen today.

[CRAMBAM]

I think that's a big difference between Trek movies when TOS was the franchise.

When they screwed up, they admitted it and fixed the problem the next time out.

They made 2 bad movies and 4 good ones.

Compare that to TNG which made 3 bad movies and one ok one which is somewhat revered because it didn't suck.

[StarFuryG7]

Jun 12, 2012 6:39:04 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

Using just 1979 dollars and those numbers, the movie made $82 million on a $35 million budget

That doesn't include marketing costs, even if you factor out ten or eleven million dollars for Phase II.

Jun 12, 2012 6:39:04 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

GR lost control because the movie SUCKED. Despite the financial success, people HATED it.

It wasn't just that the movie sucked --he gave the studio a black eye; the film went way, WAY over budget, was marketed heavily, and turned out to be an awful movie, which undermined Paramount and their credibility, as well as the film's potential to do business at the box office. As you said, you weren't old enough to remember how all of this played out, but I remember it clearly because I was watching the movie's development and how it was being promoted because I was a Trek fan even way back then. And on the heels of SW, there was no reason that TMP couldn't have done significantly more business at the ticker counters.

Jun 12, 2012 6:39:04 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

Adjusted for inflation, it still remains the highest grossing Trek film, according to that article.

Yes, and I see that as somewhat dubious because it's basically saying that the film performed significantly better internationally than any of the Trek films that followed, and to me the numbers look hokey. I hate linking to this site, but what the hell, it's about the only place you'll see what's deemed to be the evidence that TMP performed better than all the other Trek films internationally, including the last one.

To me, just on the surface, that looks extremely fishy.

Jun 12, 2012 6:39:04 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

You are right that Paramount was not happy enough with the grosses based on expectation, but clearly that expectation was unreasonable.

It was unreasonable because they had a crappy movie, but it wasn't unreasonable in terms of the potential business it could have done had it been a significantly better movie than it turned out to be. I mean, for cryin' out loud, even most Trek fans didn't like it back then, so how was anyone else not particularly acquainted with the Star Trek universe supposed to?

That's why the movie was such a terrible disaster, and why the studio was pissed.

Jun 12, 2012 6:39:04 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

The critics ripped on the movie, and rightfully so. It was terrible.

And don't kid yourself --that carried a lot of weight with the public, so many people who might have gone out to see it simply didn't bother because of all those bad reviews.

Jun 12, 2012 6:39:04 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

Had TWOK started the franchise, I think it would have grossed even more.

Had TWoK started the franchise instead I believe it would have done $130 million at the box office domestically; the SW fans were still waiting for their sequel, "The Empire Strikes Back", to hit theaters about six months later, and TWoK would have given them something to help satiate their appetites in the meantime. And as I said, I think there was room for improvements in TWoK that could have made it better for Trek fans and non-Trek fans who might have been curious alike.

TMP was such a disaster for the fan base as well, never mind the studio, that it hurt the brand name from that point forward, and thus Trek was never able to capture the lightning in a bottle that it should have been capable of reaching out and grabbing.

[StarFuryG7]

Jun 12, 2012 9:35:33 GMT -5 captainbasil said:

As much as I pick on Paramount and Hollywood in general, you have to give them credit with TWOK. When TMP disappointed them they didn't just throw money at the problem. They looked at the big picture . They wanted to salvage the property as a Franchise. I don't think that would happen today.

Well, it enabled them to say to themselves, "We grossed X-amount with a lousy picture, so what kind of business might we do with a good picture instead?" Also, they wanted to make up for some of their perceived losses from the Phase II-TMP debacle, and making a sequel on the cheap, and turning to a television producer in order to do it, enabled them to add to their profit margin using the Trek name and lick some of their wounds. But no one should kid themselves about whether TMP did the franchise long-term permanent damage. It most certainly did, and that's one of the reasons I cringe when I hear people referring to it as a huge hit. It wasn't --"Star Wars" was a huge hit; TMP was a grossly over-budget filmmaking and marketing disaster on an epic scale, and when it finally hit theaters the studio execs were praying they didn't have another "Cleopatra" on their hands to make them look bad that time around.

[StarFuryG7]

By the way, CRAM, glad you're enjoying the Wiki article on TMP --glad I could be of help in that regard.

[CRAMBAM]

Marketing costs were nowhere near then what they are today.

I agree with all your statements about why GR lost control. The most important reason--the movie just was terrible.

It's a miracle this movie sold as many tickets as it did, but that's a testament to the true popularity of TOS, and the sheer fanaticism of the fanbase at the time.

It took decades before Berman and Braga finally put out enough crap to put an end a temporary end to Trek.

I believe people want Trek to succeed overall. It's why the franchise has not been killed off, and why all they have to do is make a story that doesn't suck and the box office will balloon.

TMP is the obvious exception because it was the first.

I wish we could find out what would have happened had they released TWOK in 1979.

I do agree that a better movie would have done better. But even that article showed that there was a lot more than GR having sole discretion that got that script approved. It clearly showed it was filming unfinished.

The interesting part of that article was reading some of the alternative story ideas. Several were better.

[captainbasil]

Jun 12, 2012 12:07:18 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

I think that's a big difference between Trek movies when TOS was the franchise.

When they screwed up, they admitted it and fixed the problem the next time out.

They made 2 bad movies and 4 good ones.

Compare that to TNG which made 3 bad movies and one ok one which is somewhat revered because it didn't suck.

I agree. The TNG films are pretty horrible. I like First Contact and even though nobody else likes it..Nemesis. Let's face it TNG does not translate well to Feature Films. The series is just too talky. Don't get me wrong, I love TNG but how many episodes have you sat through when you have said to yourself: "This is thought provoking and all but blow something up already !" ;D

[CRAMBAM]

Very true. And when TNG tried to turn Picard into Kirk, it didn't work.

[StarFuryG7]

Jun 12, 2012 14:02:36 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

Marketing costs were nowhere near then what they are today.

Neither was anything else for that matter, but cumulatively it added up to a nice hefty sum even back then and just added to the ledger as to how much money Paramount was going to have to bring in on the film in order to turn a profit.

Jun 12, 2012 14:02:36 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

I agree with all your statements about why GR lost control. The most important reason--the movie just was terrible.

It's a miracle this movie sold as many tickets as it did, but that's a testament to the true popularity of TOS, and the sheer fanaticism of the fanbase at the time.

True, but at what cost to the movies that followed? The fact that TWoK didn't bring in quite as much as TMP shows that it was the fan base that drove that sequel at the box office, but the prior film had turned off the uninitiated to the point that a larger potential audience just didn't show up to give it a look.

Jun 12, 2012 14:02:36 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

I wish we could find out what would have happened had they released TWOK in 1979.

I think it would have sparked more of a clash between the Trek fans and the "Star Wars" fanatics to be honest, because Trekkers would have had a film they could be proud of also, and which had a good deal of pretty good action and a smart story to its credit. I also think it could have been tweaked to be made better though, and there are two or three specific areas that I would have focused on if I was involved in the project in a significant way back then ...of course, I was only just about to get out of high school when it came out though.

Jun 12, 2012 14:02:36 GMT -5 CRAMBAM said:

I do agree that a better movie would have done better. But even that article showed that there was a lot more than GR having sole discretion that got that script approved. It clearly showed it was filming unfinished.

It was also basically the pilot episode for Phase II, which the studio then decided to transition to the big screen, which was a big mistake. On television that story/script might have worked out fairly well, or perhaps even just as okay, which would have been fine for a pilot. But not for the big screen --they tried to make it too grand, spent way too much money on things that would have been trimmed down for television, specifically all those special effects scenes, and the movie wouldn't have been otherwise weighed down by that kind of stuff to boot, which only made it more painful to endure as a feature film as it turned out, and with all that money spent on sequences that weren't really necessary to move the picture along. But Roddenberry was a problem too in his own right --he got his share of the blame because of his continued demands and for slowing down the production beyond what was acceptable, especially with that release date, knowing full well just when the studio planned to put it out in theaters.