Star Trek - Overseas marketing

[Hoopz]

I find this financial aspect to be fascinating.

Since "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" launched the film franchise back in 1979, the 11 movies in the series have taken in more than $1.8 billion, but just $312 million from abroad. Indeed, the franchise's appeal and cast of characters was seen as so U.S.-centric, that Paramount didn't bother to release several of the earlier films abroad.

128 million of the 312, came from the last one so the first 10 films accounted for just 184 million.  Unreal.   

[ChadTower]

That's hiliarious considering how far they went to make the crew look entirely international.  What, Europeans don't like bad fake accents?

[Drnick]

I imagine most of the 184million was from the UK audience too.  Other then UK & US I don't think that StarTrek got much love.

[wp34]

That is really interesting.  I would not have guessed the market was tilted so heavily toward the US/UK but I suppose it makes sense.

It is interesting how far Disney has gone to market Iron Man in China.  Apparently there are slightly different scenes that were shot only for that market.

[Vigo]

My wife loved Star Trek since her childhood in Taiwan. Next Generation was a big hit over there. Before then, Star trek was completely unknown, and I don't think the original series ever saw the light of day in TW. I am guessing the international success of NG  makes me think that the rest of the international sales were probably only from the next gen movies. I can't see paramount suddenly deciding to release star trek 5 and 6 internationally.

[Hoopz]

It is interesting how far Disney has gone to market Iron Man in China.  Apparently there are slightly different scenes that were shot only for that market.

And it's not being received well either by the Chinese viewers.

I wonder if the members here from Europe, Asia, and Australia are a good sampling of the rest of the markets?  Or are all us dorks, well....dorks regardless of where we live? 

[ChadTower]

Why would a movie with a major subplot of complete American dominance of the world do well in China?  That's what Iron Man represents in the second movie.  Iron Man is so invincible he ushers in a "new era of world peace" that pretty much translates to "complete American dominance while the rest of the world is failing to make tin men in caves".

[Vigo]

Yep, I'm pretty sure they saw the movie as some rich assface american flying around policing the world. That, and the lack of hot chicks.

[Hoopz]

Why would a movie with a major subplot of complete American dominance of the world do well in China?  That's what Iron Man represents in the second movie.  Iron Man is so invincible he ushers in a "new era of world peace" that pretty much translates to "complete American dominance while the rest of the world is failing to make tin men in caves".

From what I read, it's more along the lines of the viewers who went and wanted to enjoy it, couldn't make any sense of the extra scenes that were added.  It's like they added scenes to draw in that market, and the market is telling them that they are bunch of idiots.

[ark_ader]

It is interesting how far Disney has gone to market Iron Man in China.  Apparently there are slightly different scenes that were shot only for that market.

I didn't see any Chinese laundries in the film...

[Howard_Casto]

I don't see why this would surprise anyone.  Star Trek, unlike Star Wars, has a dialog.... a LOT of dialog.  It's very technically oriented and very English-centric.  Unless they have a crack team of translators, 90% of any Star Trek film is going to sound like utter gibberish. 

Sadly, this was one of the reasons for the reboot.... god knows all films have to be mega blockbusters that are so lacking in dialog and plot that any nationality can understand them.   


That being said, the tv shows did exceptionally well in foreign markets from what I understand.  It's just the films, which makes sense because TOS wasn't really released internationally so to foreign viewers there would be a bunch of random old guys in the films until Star Trek Generations.