Earlier this week, we shot a hole in (and sunk) arguments that merely looking at gross box office receipts is worse than irrelevant in assessing the quality of James Bond movies. By that standard and the same budget as Quantum of Solace, anyone can insist that Skyfall is “the best James Bond movie ever!” with a return of little more than $2.50 on every dollar invested.
As point of comparison, I decided to look at the Star Trek movie franchise. It, too, had its genesis in the 1960s — albeit not on the big screen, and without the decade-long story and marketing build-up that Ian Fleming set in place before the first Eon Production 007 film in 1962. Star Trek has undergone major lead-actor changes, and, depending on what you count, as many as 2 re-boots.
Putting the Star Trek movies in chronological order, here’s the ROI for each. That is, for every budget dollar spent, the number of dollars returned in world wide gross revenues.
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) … $3.97
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn (1982) … $8.82
- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) … $5.12
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) … $5.32
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) … $2.53
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) … $3.13
- Star Trek: Generations (1994) … $3.43
- Star Trek: First Contact (1996) … $3.33
- Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) … $2.05
- Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) … $1.12
- Star Trek (2009) … $2.75
A few things immediately stand out in this.
First, none of these had the sort of crash from one film to the next, in just 2 years, that we saw from Daniel Craig’s inaugural James Bond in Casino Royale, to Quantum of Solace. Plummeting from $5.85 per dollar generated by the former, to $2.51 per dollar taken from the latter, that loss was more than Star Trek in 2009 delivered. Looked at another way, in percentage terms, the bankable value of a James Bond movie dropped by more than half from 2006 to 2008. Forget about the MGM bankruptcy; MGM Studies had nothing to do with this.
Just as importantly, the Star Trek movies have never solidly returned from decline patterns. Film studies experts would need to weigh-in for a detailed understanding of how Star Trek managed the anomalous 1979-1982 hat trick. For this summary, suffice it to say that 1982 audiences were uniformly rallied behind a loved cast. major changes were made to the production team, and there was a huge sense that the first round was a major screw-up. Not only was this make or break. Everyone recognized it was make or break, and was pulling out all the stops to keep the worst from happening.
Star Trek fanboys can say whatever they’d like. The numbers speak for themselves. The 2009 Star Trek is not “the best Star Trek ever!” with its $386 million world wide gross That fact is most arrestingly evidenced by the fact that we didn’t see its sequel in 2011. Nor will we see one in 2012. It’s a franchise that’ll never again reach the $3.00 ROI mark.
Which is also why I Tweeted yesterday: At best, Skyfall can only hope to do as well as Licence to Kill (the ROI for which was $3.72), plus or minus.
Wouldn’t that be something?
Timothy Dalton was a great James Bond!
How does James Bond movie ROI compare to the Star Trek movies?
Earlier this week, we shot a hole in (and sunk) arguments that merely looking at gross box office receipts is worse than irrelevant in assessing the quality of James Bond movies. By that standard and the same budget as Quantum of Solace, anyone can insist that Skyfall is “the best James Bond movie ever!” with a return of little more than $2.50 on every dollar invested.
As point of comparison, I decided to look at the Star Trek movie franchise. It, too, had its genesis in the 1960s — albeit not on the big screen, and without the decade-long story and marketing build-up that Ian Fleming set in place before the first Eon Production 007 film in 1962. Star Trek has undergone major lead-actor changes, and, depending on what you count, as many as 2 re-boots.
Putting the Star Trek movies in chronological order, here’s the ROI for each. That is, for every budget dollar spent, the number of dollars returned in world wide gross revenues.
A few things immediately stand out in this.
First, none of these had the sort of crash from one film to the next, in just 2 years, that we saw from Daniel Craig’s inaugural James Bond in Casino Royale, to Quantum of Solace. Plummeting from $5.85 per dollar generated by the former, to $2.51 per dollar taken from the latter, that loss was more than Star Trek in 2009 delivered. Looked at another way, in percentage terms, the bankable value of a James Bond movie dropped by more than half from 2006 to 2008. Forget about the MGM bankruptcy; MGM Studies had nothing to do with this.
Just as importantly, the Star Trek movies have never solidly returned from decline patterns. Film studies experts would need to weigh-in for a detailed understanding of how Star Trek managed the anomalous 1979-1982 hat trick. For this summary, suffice it to say that 1982 audiences were uniformly rallied behind a loved cast. major changes were made to the production team, and there was a huge sense that the first round was a major screw-up. Not only was this make or break. Everyone recognized it was make or break, and was pulling out all the stops to keep the worst from happening.
Star Trek fanboys can say whatever they’d like. The numbers speak for themselves. The 2009 Star Trek is not “the best Star Trek ever!” with its $386 million world wide gross That fact is most arrestingly evidenced by the fact that we didn’t see its sequel in 2011. Nor will we see one in 2012. It’s a franchise that’ll never again reach the $3.00 ROI mark.
Which is also why I Tweeted yesterday: At best, Skyfall can only hope to do as well as Licence to Kill (the ROI for which was $3.72), plus or minus.
Wouldn’t that be something?
Timothy Dalton was a great James Bond!