‘Star Trek Beyond’ Boldly Goes Into China, But Why Did U.S. Marketing Ignore The 50th Anniversary?


This week, Star Trek Beyond boldly went into the final frontier for blockbuster movies: China. According to Deadline, the film has done fairly well so far in international markets, especially China. It cashed in this past weekend, with “$36.4 million… The grand majority of that came from China where it beamed up $30.7M at 6,259 locations, 105% bigger than Star Trek Into Darkness… It continued through Monday to maintain a clear lead.”

Star Trek Beyond is also benefiting from a partnership with Alibaba Pictures, the movie subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, along with Chinese film distribution company Huahua Media. If you saw the movie in theaters, you would have seen their two logos, along with U.S. studio Paramount, and production companies Skydance, and Bad Robot.

The logos of Alibaba Pictures and Huahua Media. These two companies helped fund Star Trek Beyond, as well as market it in China. [Image via Alibaba and Huahua]

According to Deadline, Alibaba and Huahua had been heavily promoting Star Trek Beyond ahead of its September 2 release in China. Huahua made “a huge promotional push… while Alibaba said yesterday that its Yulebao subsidiary has launched more than 300 types of movie-derived products in conjunction with the film’s release and which are being sold via the company’s online platforms… Popular [Chinese] variety show Happy Camp devoted an episode to the film with participation from stars Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana and Zachary Quinto. Also upping the Chinese profile, Happy Camp co-host Xie Na and her husband Zhang Jie have a combined 120 million followers on Weibo, the local equivalent of Twitter.”

Star Trek Beyond has, as of today, according to Box Office Mojo, reached a worldwide total of over $294 million. Over $138 million comes from international sales, representing about 47 percent of the total. However, this might not be quite as sunny a picture as it sounds. A general Hollywood rule of thumb is that a movie needs to make about double its production budget to be considered a financial success. According to Box Office Mojo, the production budget for Star Trek Beyond was $185 million. This means the ideal total for the film should be $370 million or higher. Suddenly, $294 million doesn’t look quite as appealing.

It should be noted, however, that the partnership with Alibaba and Huahua may help reduce the target number a bit. Paramount, the main U.S. studio behind Star Trek Beyond, is sharing both some of the risk and reward with these two Chinese partners, possibly reducing Paramount’s overall goal for what would qualify as a success. Additionally, Paramount had U.S. marketing deals with Quicken Loans and Hewlett Packard, who both made tie-in commercials promoting their products and the movie’s U.S. release. These companies’ investments reduced the amount of money Paramount might otherwise have to spend on marketing.

Many feel, interestingly, that the U.S. marketing for Star Trek Beyond was, in fact, rather lacking. An early trailer reminded some fans of how action-heavy the new reboot series had become. Limited marketing followed, with only one other major trailer being released before several TV spots took over leading up to the film’s U.S. release on July 22. Another source of consternation and surprise for some fans, is how Star Trek Beyond‘s marketing did almost nothing to refer to the 50th anniversary of Star Trek as a whole, which takes place today.

Scott Mendelson, a film industry writer for Forbes, is somewhat baffled by the decision. In an editorial, he describes the 50th anniversary of Star Trek a “major marketing trump card that Paramount inexplicably didn’t play.”

“It worked wonders for [James Bond and] Skyfall, and I would argue that a similar strategy would have somewhat worked for Star Trek Beyond… This third ‘new’ movie didn’t have the advantage of being the hot new reboot, nor was it the secretive sequel to the much-liked reboot. It was just ‘Oh, there’s a new Star Trek movie…’ Tying it into the 50th anniversary would have been that hook. Even if you argue it wouldn’t have made that much of a difference, it surely would have helped. You might argue it had nowhere to go but up.”

Mendelson goes one step further, and even suggests that Star Trek Beyond should have been released in the U.S. today, to directly coincide with the 50th anniversary of the franchise.

“The juxtaposition of the 50th anniversary of Star Trek would have been a marketing advantage, and so would (I’d argue) having a film like Star Trek Beyond in the beginning of September instead of the middle of July… I would argue that the prime reason for Star Trek Beyond‘s relative underperformance was the fact that it played as a ‘nothing special’ summer release for general audiences. Opening Star Trek Beyond in September and on the 50th anniversary makes it an event two times over.”

While it is not totally clear as to why Paramount did not utilize the 50th anniversary of Star Trek in promoting Star Trek Beyond, there is one possible reason. The Star Trek franchise has its ownership split between two companies: Paramount and CBS. Paramount owns the film rights, and CBS owns the television rights. Today’s date marks the 50th anniversary of the television show premiere back in 1966. It’s possible Paramount did not want to draw attention away from the films and place focus instead on the original TV series. Another complication is the upcoming Star Trek: Discovery, a new TV series being produced by CBS that is set to premiere in January of 2017 (some fans have speculated that this date was to avoid conflict with Star Trek Beyond). With multiple incarnations of Star Trek swirling around at the same time, it seems Paramount opted to remain focused on the new movie alone. Only today did any mentions of the 50th anniversary of Star Trek appear on the social media feeds of Star Trek Beyond.

https://www.facebook.com/7774903715/posts/10153923388673716/

Do you think Star Trek Beyond will be successful enough overseas to warrant continuing the series? Was it a mistake to ignore the 50th anniversary in promoting the movie? What do you hope to see in future films or TV shows in the franchise? Leave a comment below.

[Image via Paramount]

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