wildyams

Consider me dancing a jig on the grave of Star Trek, which is surely doomed to end shortly after the flop at the box office this past weekend. Spanning 5 different decades with 5 TV shows and 10 movies, the insanity that is Star Trek seems to have FINALLY run out of gas. For the first time in decades (and maybe ever) a Star Trek movie was not number one at the box office in its opening weekend in theatrical release. This is the end of Star Trek because what typically happens with Trek movies is that they make all their cash right at the beginning when all the Trekkies go see the film, but because there is little to no interest outside of the Trekkies, the films fall way off immediately afterwards. Insurrection made over 30% of its total domestic gross in its opening weekend, then fell off 62% and limped along to a poor $70 million showing overall. Generations made over 30% of its total domestic gross in its opening weekend, before falling off and hovering around long enough to pull in $75 million. Even First Contact, which was considered a success, made 33% of its total in the opening weekend, and even though it held on for one more weekend of good business, the bottom fell out after that and First Contact ended up doing 62% of their total business in the first two weeks before finishing at $91 million. Trek movies usually start at around $25 million and number one in the opening weekend, then fall off to around $7 million in their second week and are out of the top 10 by their 4th or 5th week in release. If Nemesis follows this trend of falling off (and there's no reason to think it won't), then it and the Trek franchise are in trouble. Nemesis opened at #2 (behind Maid in Manhattan of all things) with a measly $18 million this weekend. Nemesis is possibly looking at finishing somewhere around $50 million total, which would rival Star Trek V for the worst showing at the box office yet by a Trek movie. And following the failure of Insurrection, this is probably it for Star Trek movies. Paramount had hoped to have a winner in Nemesis that they could then use to springboard into a movie with the cast of one of the other shows, but that does not look like its going to happen.

In all honestly, I mean, how long did people think this tired old franchise could last anyway? 5 decades of this nonsense? 10 movies? 5 TV shows? All for "nerds in space"? Come on, please. Nothing stays interesting that long, and nothing is such a good idea that you can keep going in that many new directions and expect people to remain interested. Its a typical problem in the entertainment industry that they squeeze any idea until it is totally dry and until it is no longer profitable. The TV show Enterprise will no doubt go on with its limited audience frothing at the mouth for new episodes, but the reality is that its finished, there are no more places for the show to "boldly go." How it ever lasted this long is beyond me, but evidently its time has come. Stick a fork in it, its done.