‘World War Z’ and 'Star Trek' bring Back Double Feature
Release Date: June 21, 2013 (USA)
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‘Star Trek,’ ‘World War Z’ Bring Back Double Feature
Paramount Pictures hopes Star Trek fans will once again go where no man has gone before – and then stick around for the zombies of “World War Z.”
The Viacom Inc.VIAB +0.19%-owned studio said Tuesday it was rereleasing its summer blockbusters “Star Trek Into Darkness” and “World War Z” as a double feature – an unusual move by the studio as the summer movie season comes to a close.
The double feature will run from Aug. 30 through Sept. 5, and customers will pay one ticket price for both. On Tuesday evening, one theater in Rhode Island was selling tickets to the double feature for $10.50. Both movies will be offered in 3-D showings.
Together, they total 239 minutes.
Both movies performed well during their initial runs, with “Star Trek” being the sixth-highest grossing movie of the summer and “World War Z” taking seventh place. “Star Trek Into Darkness” grossed $227.4 million domestically after it was released in May – about $30 million less than the original franchise reboot grossed in 2009. Paramount and Skydance Productions spent about $190 million to make the movie.
“World War Z” grossed nearly $200 million domestically after it was released one month later – a strong showing for a movie that had been beset by costly reshoots that took the movie’s production budget to nearly $200 million. Paramount, which brought in three financial partners on the film, has said a sequel to “World War Z” is in the works.
Paramount has experimented with “World War Z” before. In June, it offered a “mega ticket” at certain theaters in a handful of U.S. cities that allowed customers to pay $50 for a ticket bundle that came with merchandise, concessions and an HD copy of the movie when it’s released on home video.
After enduring a troubled production that included an entire third act reshoot, World War Z is finally making it to the big-screen this weekend. While those issues have caused the movie to get endless grief from the entertainment press, they aren't something that general audiences are going to care much about. As usual, potential moviegoers are going to make their movie-going decision by what's presented in the marketing, not by what's happened behind the camera.
Despite how popular zombies seem to be right now, Paramount hasn't shown the creatures up close in World War Z's marketing; instead, they're presented as a faceless horde of unknown origin. Maybe this is for the best: excluding I Am Legend (more vampires than zombies), the highest-grossing live-action zombie movie is 2009's Zombieland ($75.6 million). Paramount is instead positioning World War Z as a global disaster movie, which is a genre with a much better track record. If you're playing the odds, this seems like a good move, though to some extent it has watered down the product and caused confusion.
Another key part of World War Z's marketing is lead actor Brad Pitt. While Pitt is one of the biggest movie stars in the world, it's been a while since he's had a major hit: Inglourious Basterds is his last live-action movie to open over $20 million, and that was four years ago. Unlike Will Smith's role in After Earth, though, Pitt's heroic role in World War Z fits his brand, and so his presence should help improve turnout this weekend.
Ultimately, Paramount has marketed the movie hard enough that it should do solid business this weekend; they're currently predicting high-$30 millions to low-$40 millions, but it wouldn't be surprising if it did slightly better than that.
It is currently on 68% on RT. Since it grossed $25 million on Friday, I think it is now expected to do over $50 million by the end of the weekend. It will surpass Zombieland as the highest grossing zombie movie by the end of its run.