'Star Trek Into Darkness' nearly matches 2009 opening of original

When Star Trek opened to $75 million in 2009, the performance was considered stellar for the franchise reboot. Sequels usually do even better, so Star Trek Into Darkness' $70.5 million opening (and $84 million over the four-day period) now seems lackluster, especially with many predicting that Spock & Kirk would help bring the feature over $100 million its first weekend. Abroad, however, the movie should have stronger prospects. The original earned two-thirds of its worldwide gross from domestic markets, since foreign awareness of the U.S. television show was not high. The sequel opened to $80 million overseas, so at least for now, domestic and international totals are nearly split. Besides the overseas bright spot, the movie was also a hit in IMAX, which accounted for $13.5 million of totals.

The performance of Iron Man 3 was untouched by Star Trek. The Robert Downey Jr.-led feature dipped 51% to $35 million. That's actually less of a drop than last week, when it fell 58% from opening weekend. The Great Gatsby also dropped by half, placing third with $23.4 million. The Leonardo DiCaprio-led feature is on track to cross $100 million soon, but with a budget of $105 million, this feature will need a strong box office to compensate for its high budget.

Holding on to eighth place for the second weekend in a row, Mud earned $2.1 million, just 15% less than last week. The Mississippi River-set thriller stars Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon. In one month, it's racked up $11.5 million, making it one of the more successful indies of the year.

Releasing in four theatres, Frances Ha averaged $33,500 a screen for a total of $134,000. That's about on target with writer/director Noah Baumbach's previous release, Greenberg, which had a slightly higher per-screen average but only released in three locations. That film starred Ben Stiller and Greta Gerwig, while this one has just Gerwig, a lesser-known name, so that alone is enough for me to declare Frances Ha's opening more auspicious.

On Thursday, the Wolf Pack returns to Las Vegas to wrap up the comedy trilogy in The Hangover Part III. On Friday, Memorial Day weekend kicks off with Fast & Furious 6, which will release opposite Epic, the first fresh animated content in ten weeks.

'Star Trek Into Darkness' on its way to a $100 million weekend

Opening on Wednesday night in over 300 IMAX locations, Star Trek Into Darkness debuted to $3.3 million, similar to The Great Gatsby's early take for Thursday night screenings last week. Totals for Thursday haven't been tallied yet. Now playing in 3,868 theatres, the sci-fi sequel is expected to earn a weekend haul upwards of $100 million. One reason that the Wednesday night totals were so low was because Paramount only made the decision to release that evening last week--long after most fanboys would have made their Fandango purchases.

The 3D and IMAX feature has strong reviews, just like the 2009 original reboot. The 2009 Star Trek earned a 95% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and the sequel is running 87% positive. I felt both movies were equally good, and if anything, the lower ratings this time around are just due to people raising the benchmark about what they expect a J.J. Abrams-directed Star Trek movie to be. The stakes are personal this time around. "One major improvement of Into Darkness is
its more vivid villain," our critic Kevin Lally notes. Benedict Cumberbatch plays the adversary with "tremendously
imposing fierceness and icy elegance," making the movie not only a battle of brute force but of cerebral maneuvering.

Just like with Iron Man 3, no other wide release wanted to play second fiddle to Star Trek Into Darkness. Given the similarity between the two films, Iron Man 3 should experience a larger-than-average drop this weekend, while last week's The Great Gatsby should dip only in relation to its so-so word-of-mouth.

For indie-seeking audiences, director Noah Baumbach's latest may be in black-and-white, but it's already being considered his most accessible work to date. Greta Gerwig stars in Frances Ha (4 theatres), a counterpoint to "Girls" that should appeal to urban 20-somethings and cinephiles alike. In my review, I praised the "spot-on, exquisitely crafted portrait of a floundering 20-something," and this is one movie I'm definitely rooting for. Another indie of note is the "genre gem" Black Rock, "a thriller riff" that gets "the job of entertainment
done very well," according to our reviewer Doris Toumarkine. If the idea of innocent hikers being hunted by deranged army vets sounds fun to you, start standing in the ticket line.

On Monday, we'll see if Star Trek Into Darkness exceeded the $75 million opening of its 2009 predecessor, and if Frances Ha's unspooling suggests an indie success.

'Star Trek Into Darkness' trailer offers little to set the sci-fi sequel apart

Ok, maybe I'm just jaded, but the teaser trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness was a total yawn-fest for me. A big part of the problem is the trailer itself. It uses the low horn blasts first used to such great effect in the trailer for Inception, but have since been copied in other trailers, like the one for Prometheus. In this one, the editing of the footage to the horn blasts doesn't even feel like it's timed right. Plus, where's the story? It's all just random explosions and moments of terror. Oh, and a voiceover from a villain (Benedict Cumberbatch) who vows to destroy all that is good in the world. What's new? This trailer gets a big thumbs down. The 2009 Star Trek was so great because it brought in people who weren't Trekkies. This trailer seems like it's just trying to appeal to a fanbase that will see the movie anyway. I hope the poor quality of this teaser trailer is just the marketing department or the fact that effects-laden footage just wasn't ready. Because it makes me not want to see the movie.

 

 

Compare that teaser trailer to this one for the 2009 Star Trek. By using radio-transmitted announcements and news footage, it evokes the feeling of the 1960s space race. Instead of focusing on the high-tech flight deck, they open with footage of a welder creating the Enterprise. That's the kind of trailer that made people want to see the movie. The second trailer focused on a young Kirk driving a vintage red convertible, and the third showed a grown-up Chris Pine in the desert on a motorcycle and then in a bar with a jukebox. These were images that seemed far outside of a typical sci-fi film (though the desert was a wee familiar for any Star Wars aficionados). Maybe Paramount doesn't have the luxury of including the footage of the origin story this time around, but if they plan to sell this movie on action sequences alone, they're in trouble.