First Contact was more akin to Aliens.
OK. Still that shows a style overlap between the Star Trek / Alien movie franchises.
All I'm saying is that there are similarities between these two studio properties and that the chances for a sequel can be compared between them.
I think a sequel is gonna come but there will be lots of rewriting and meddling from the bosses and especially a smaller budget but that last part could be a blessing, as creative juices flow better when less money is involved.
Personally I'm not waiting for it but I'm a fanboy so i'll get excited anyway.
The Sun is not God!
I won't f**king tolerate that. Give me a 200 million $ movie with plenty of embryos and angry Engineers or I will f**king riot.
I don't think one man shouting in the street constitutes a riot.
Doesn't matter who's rioting, one man shouting isn't a riot.
A thousand men shouting is power. Powerful loonies.
I'm not an executive in a film studio.
The way I approach this is; I don't pretend to try to fully understand Hollywood accounting or how studio economics works.
* What I can do is look at box office performance with movies in a science fiction film franchise like Star Trek. I can see their production budgets and their worldwide box office and what films got sequels.
That lets me understand about how much money a Star Trek film (or even an Alien movie) needs to make (compared with its production budget), in order to get a sequel.
- "Star Trek: Insurrection" was a slight flop. Production Budget: $58 million. Double that = $116 million. But the film's box office = $112,587,658.
Still "Insurrection" got a sequel.
- The sequel, "Star Trek:Nemesis" flopped hard. What I'd call a bomb. Production Budget: $60 million. Worldwide box office: $67,312,826.
Barely above 1 x production budget. Imo it lost $millions and that ended Star Trek movies for 7 years.
* Back to "Covenant". It could get up to about 2.5 its production budget from Japan's box office.
Both "Star Trek (2009)" and "Star Trek Into Darkness" made box office that was about 2.5 times their production budgets.
Those Star Trek movies got sequels.
- "AVP" had a Production Budget: of $60 million (Box Office Mojo) to $70 million (Google). Box office: $172,544,654. Using the Google budget = box office about 2.5 x the production budget. (The Box Office Mojo budget = box office 2.86 x the production budget.) And "AVP" got a sequel.
- Conclusion based on this information?
If "Covenant" makes about 2.5 times its production budget (after its Japan release), it could get a sequel.
* As for comparing a Star Trek film with an Alien movie; in several ways "Prometheus" was similar to a sci-if adventure Star Trek film.
There can be an overlap between the two franchises in terms of overall style imo.
For instance "Star Trek First Contact" had horror elements in a sci-if adventure (like "Prometheus"). And "First Contact" made about 3 x its production budget.
I'm not sure, but I think distributors get around a third of box office receipts, and in several cases probably half.
Box office receipts should be $300m to $400m (because $100m to $200m will go to distributors) plus 10 pct profit margin (around $20 million).
Other factors may be considered in decision-making, such as domestic sales, whether or not there are other franchises or projects that may make more money, and so on.
Finally, I think one reason why the Star Trek franchise keeps going is that its revenues do not rely solely on box office receipts but multiple movies and TV shows.
1. The claim that box office needs 4 x the production budget to be get a sequel is just a theory.
So, that's two franchises (Star Trek & X-Men) where sequels were approved with box office being about 2.5 x the production budget or even less.
I could find more examples.
2. A movie makes money from more than just theater box office. There are disk sales (DVD/Blu-ray), streaming, cable broadcast fees, and with science fiction there are merchandising fees from toys and comics.
** Back to "Covenant"; a sequel could happen if its box office gets to 2.5 the production budget. Why? Because there are multiple movies which got sequels (like Batman Begins, Star Trek, X-Men) where that kind of performance got a sequel.
3. The Alien franchise is considered to be one of the top science fiction movie/TV franchises of all time.
The challenge for the Fox studio is to figure out how to release an Alien franchise movie which can get better box office.
Whether the studio goes with a film more like "Prometheus" or "Aliens", there is the potential to make money and because of that, the Alien franchise is not dead.
Seeing the performance of Covenant, they might go into the 'Prometheus' route.
The end of 'Covenant' strongly hints at what's to come. Scott has already noted that the Engineers will be returning to find their planet decimated, along with several other factions. His 'war of the worlds' statement has surfaced more than once, now. We have already had the first hints at what is to follow.
In this regard, the next movie (and possibly the one after that) will be a major melting pot of all things 'ALIEN' and 'PROMETHEUS'.
The point isn't that a sequel requires revenues at up to four times the budget. It's that a movie requires revenues at that level in order to profit. For a sequel to be approved, many other factors will be involved, including earnings from other movies produced by the studio, whether or not producers think that they will do better next time, whether or not investors will bite, what other projects are ready to be funded and that might earn more, etc.
Movies do earn from merchandising, but production and marketing involve annual operating costs that need to be paid. Also, studios need to profit to show investors that their businesses are healthy and can afford to expand operations the following year, which is important given the fact that they are competing with each other. It also doesn't help that they are trying to outdo each other with tent-pole flicks each year at expensive ticket prices, and larger budgets needed to make films look expensive and spectacular. That means movies have to earn as fast as possible.
The Alien franchise is one of the best, but that's not shown in the two recent releases. And those two movies were considered only after almost two decades after Alien: Resurrection and after figuring out whether they should make sequels (or something else) or prequels. Meanwhile, the studio tried experimenting by combining aliens and predators.
Reminds me of the present film, which tries to combine aspects of the first two movies plus continue the prequel.