Who really is the Bigger Franchise?

Star Trek vs. Star Wars!

In the end, there can be only one...oh wait, that's an immortal thing. Seriously though, phaser vs. blaster, the force vs. the Q...who has the bigger franchise. Lets look at the numbers and see who wins the title of "Best in Franchise".

Movies

Star Wars - 7 movie releases
Star Trek - 11 movie releases WINNER

In general, the only reason to release a sequel is if the preceding movie make a profit and was moderately successful (the exception to this is making a movie to reboot or rejuvenate a series if the preceding movie tanked in the box office). If all you consider is the number of movies released as a show of how popular a franchice then Star Trek wins. A phenomenon in Hollywood is that every odd numbered Star Trek is cursed to failure. Wrath of Khan (II), Voyage Home (IV), Undiscovered County (VI) and First Contact (VIII) kept this phenomenon alive until the release of Nemesis (X) which marginally made more than it cost to make. With the recent release of Star Trek (2009) as a reboot to the franchise with talk of further sequels it appears Star Trek is going strong.

Financial

Star Wars - $3,487,952,687 WINNER
Star Trek -$1,334,226,925

What is the one thing that matters most to the Hollywood big wigs? Money! Surely it doesn't matter how many movies you make as long as you make a lot of money. Well in this case, Star Wars wins by far. At over $3 million since the original release of Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977 Star Wars has made a combined that is just under 3x what Star Trek has made. George Lucas must be sleeping on three king sized mattresses covered in $1000 bills. I know I would. If money is all that matters to you, you need a life, and it would be obvious that Star Wars is the winner.

*Please note that figures used in this blog are from IMDB.com and uses rental totals, estimated costs and worldwide gross as up to date as possible.

Cost

Star Wars - $415,000,000 WINNER
Star Trek - $483,800,000

If you are going to give gross money made in this argument, you must then consider what the movies cost. The less the movies cost to make, the more you collect as profit from your gross. This is basic economics and business. Once again, Star Wars is again the winner. The eight films cost $415 million with Star Trek a close runner up at just shy of $5 million. However, this is a combined total for the each franchise in their entirety. If one does the math on average cost per film then you get a very different outcome. In this case Star Wars films cost an average $51,875,000 and Star Trek films an average of $43,981,818.18 - actually less per film. Now one could argue that a bigger budget makes for a better film, but a "better" movie has far too many variables to consider so as sheer costs go this batter goes to Star Trek.

Star Wars - Avg. $51,875,000/film
Star Trek - Avg. $43,981,818.18/film WINNER

Rentals

Star Wars -$2,233,100,000 WINNER
Star Trek -$644,000,000

Lets try this from the point of view of rentals. Many movies don't gain major acceptance in the theaters but do develop a cult following later in rentals (both VHS, DVD and more recently Blu-ray). Once again, Star Wars is the winner. It has made more than double what Star Trek has made in roughly the same time (Star Wars debuted in 1977 and Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979). Kudos Star Wars!

Investment

Star Wars - +1378.57% WINNER
Star Trek - +413.03%

It can be argued that above all else, it must only matter how well your gross or average money spent on films gives you are good return in the end. When you do the math of gross earnings plus rental divided by cost - Star Wars again! A return of over 1000% - George Lucas you rich bastard.

Television Success

Star Wars - 55 combined months on TV
Star Trek - 306 combined months on TV WINNER

With 5 mainstream series and one animated series, Star Trek kills Star Wars by a long shot. Traditionally, Star Trek has dominated television where Star Wars has dominated the film industry. Not only has Star Trek been on TV longer, each individual series has had longer runs than any Star Wars television series. It is interesting to point out that Star Trek used motion pictures as a vehicle to continue stories and characters that viewers grew to love on TV, while Star Wars used television as a vehicle to grow the SW Universe that had been developed in the movies. Congratulations Star Trek.

I would love to go on, but I have to admit that any other comparison I look at gives me the same outcome (e.g. merchandise totals - Star Wars!) so I have to give this epic battle to....

Star Wars (however, with honorable mention to Star Trek as the runner up). If anyone has anything else to add to this discussion, leave a comment below or send me an email to reelgeekz@gmail.com and tell me your thoughts.

Trilogies? or Two-logies?

So, here is my first real post! I hope you will enjoy it and follow along as long as this blog is alive, so with no further delay, lets get started.

Has anyone noticed that often trilogies are not in fact trilogies but two movies cleverly disguised as three? I have noticed a trend in Hollywood that I would call a "testing the water" philosophy. With a good many movies, Hollywood will release the first movie to test the water and see if people actually like the film. I submit Star Wars as the peoples exhibit "A" as my first example. George Lucas released Star Wars: A New Hope (Episode 4 of a series of 6) on May 25th, 1977. While the original concept underwent many revisions, A New Hope, was always the first movie of what would be a three part trilogy. However, as time progressed, Lucas realized that the tale of Star Wars could not be contained in three movies but as many as nine (divided into three trilogies). Near the end of the revisions of A New Hope, Lucas made subtle changes to make the movie a self-contained film in case audiences did not like it.

On May 21st, 1980 Lucas released Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (Episode 5) which ends in a cliffhanger with Han Solo trapped in frozen Carbonite and leaving audiences with the sentence, "Luke...I am your father." Fans around the world would have to wait until May 25th, 1983 to find out what happens to the hero's they grew to love but this in itself is my point. The first movie of this "trilogy" is a self contained film and the second and third movies are actually one longer movie cut in half making the series a "two-logy".

I offer you the peoples exhibit "B", the Matrix trilogy. The Matrix was released on March 31st, 1999 by the Wachowski brothers and was a critical success. In fact, it was the success of the first film that lead to the drafting and eventual production of the second and third films in the series. The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions were shot at the same time but released May 15th and November 5th, 2003 respectively. You could very well watch The Matrix and be perfectly happy that humanity will rebel and stop the evil machines, or you can then watch The Matrix: Reloaded and be forced to then watch Revolutions in order to discover what happens to the characters and the history of humanity and the machines. You are left to wonder how did Neo stop the machines with only his thoughts, what is Agent Smiths plans (now inside the mind of the character Bane) and will Morpheus get a new ship since the Nabuchadnezzar was destroyed.

The Back to the Future trilogy shall be entered as peoples exhibit "C". The first movie ends with Marty returning to the future and Doc Brown using the note he left to prevent his eventual murder. Left alone, this would be a great stand alone movie. Back to the Future 2 and 3 however cannot be watch alone but must come as a set. In fact, they were filmed together and clips from the third film can be seen at the end of the second movie. Part II ends with Doc Brown missing in the old west and Marty approaching the younger Doc Brown for help. Part III details Marty's journey to the old west despite the older Brown's express instructions not to come and their eventual return to the future. A trilogy (or at least a three part film) that is really two main movies.

The Pirate of the Caribbean can be weakly thought of in the same vain. Peoples exhibit "D" shows the first film, The Curse of the Black Pearl, as ending with Captain Jack sailing off in search of some treasure with the East India Trading Company in close pursuit. This could be considered a cliffhanger, but in typical Disney fashion this is also a happy way to end a movie. However, the sequels are in fact continuations of the same movie. Dead Man's Chest and At World's End detail the entire journey from the discovery of the heart of Davey Jones and the apparent death of Captain Jack to the rescue of Jake from Davey Jones locker and the downfall of the greedy East India Trading Company. Two, maybe three films, but you get the idea.

I leave you with a few trilogies that do break this rule but with some rationale. The Lord of the Rings is in fact one long-as movie broken into three parts (roughly equal to the same volumes of J.R.R. Tolkien's novel). This breaks the trend as it was never intended to "test the waters". Hollywood knew there would be an audience and so released in pieces so that each was a "viewable" 3 hours. Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill is also an example of a movie that is far too long if seen together so was released in three "volumes". My final example of a rule breaker is movies that are basically just multiple stories of the same character. Superman and Spider-man are such examples. These movies based on comic books can tap large databases of story ideas that they know fans will go see and so do not have to "test the waters" either.

Conclusion

Does one really need to make three movies to have a trilogy? or can you simple cut a longer idea into two pictures (both of whom can then no longer be truly enjoyed on their own) can call that a trilogy. I do not presume to be able to make that decision but I submit to you the evidence and will let you decide for yourselves.