Star Trek Into Darkness was expected to be one of the biggest box office hits this summer. The 2009 reboot reignited interest in the franchise by offering audiences a mixture of exciting action and a well-told story that harkened back to the original
Star Wars trilogy. While it wasn't your father's
Star Trek, it still proved to be a very popular film, grossing $257.7 million domestically and earning rave reviews. Its spot in the IMDb Top 250 indicates that it has maintained a strong following in the years since its release. Paramount expected the sequel to earn over $100 million during its opening weekend here in the States, but those numbers were way off.
Star Trek Into Darkness earned "only" $70.1 million opening weekend. Combined with the Thursday opening day, its domestic total for the first four days was $83.7 million, which was on par with how the original film performed. It's a little concerning, especially when you take into consideration the sequel was released in 3D and made
less than its non-3D predecessor. While it's in no danger of being a flop, it's certainly not the monster success the studio was hoping for in a summer tentpole. It was all quite surprising and somewhat unfortunate.
Into Darkness received solid reviews (currently 87% on Rotten Tomatoes) and was also enjoyed by audiences. The film received an "A" CinemaScore and as of this writing owns an 8.3 rating on IMDb. Personally, I find the box office returns disappointing since I loved the movie and felt it was a great second chapter in this new incarnation for the franchise. The purpose of this article is to examine different factors to determine why several of my fellow moviegoers made the decision to skip
Star Trek Into Darkness in theaters.
5. The Four Year Gap
Star Trek was released in 2009 and the sequel was supposed to come out in June 2012. However, director JJ Abrams opted to delay the project until there was a good story to tell. This decision paid off from an artistic standpoint, but may have hurt the film's box office prospects. "Striking when the iron is hot," is a buzz term used in the film industry, particularly when dealing with franchises. Typically, studios will churn out a sequel every 2-3 years in order to capitalize on the momentum generated by the previous film's success. This is why the
Star Trek producers have tentatively circled 2016 as a release date for the third installment. They don't want to see another long delay again, understandably so. Since there was a four year gap between movies for
Star Trek, anticipation may have cooled off. At least, that's what some are hypothesizing. To me, this doesn't make much sense because the Batman and James Bond franchises returned after a four year wait last year (
The Dark Knight Rises and
Skyfall respectively) and dominated the box office, earning $1 billion each. If four years was really a death pill for a series, they would not have seen those types of numbers (particularly Bond, who was coming off the disappointing
Quantum of Solace). Perhaps there's some truth to the belief that the long layoff had something to do with the smaller returns, but the fan base for the first film suggests otherwise. A more likely scenario is...