This is a good discussion if we are just looking at box office sales and profitability.
Where it gets a little dicey is when folks start talking about why the studios should make film x instead of y.
The thing that needs to be kept in mind is the entire movie value chain. Mega movies are so mega they sometimes do show as a loss when you only consider the movie itself. This doesn’t tell the whole story. Other components include toys, games, intellectual property rights tie ins, iTunes/DVD/BD sales, reruns of your movie hundreds of times a year on FX Network, and so on.
In addition to the total value chain there are two other important things to keep in mind why a studio might prefer the big movie treatment for Star Trek.
The first one is world box office sales. Earlier Trek movies were considered very American and didn’t do well overseas. Turning the films into futuristic comic books did break through to global markets in some respects.
The next one to consider is that people just aren’t going to the theater anymore unless it’s for a big spectacle. The world has changed. When you have near movie production quality TV series streaming into your home, and home theaters with better technology than some movie theaters had just a few years ago, people just aren’t going to leave the house. This is why we are currently seeing so many theaters making the move to higher end facilities, and is why more highly profitable items like alcohol and gourmet food are making an entrance.
Finally there’s one thing to consider from the theaters perspective... when it’s very expensive due to fees to play a movie, and you likely will only make a profit after the first week or two and so you need films with some staying power to make money, why would you bother dedicating one of your theaters to a small niche base that is going to see the movie opening weekend and be done with it... the answer is you’re not, you’re either going to not do that or you’re going to yank it from your screens as soon as you contractually can.
Okay, one more. Paramount is starving for tent poles. They have Transformers, GI Joe, and Star Trek. They can’t afford to lose that and go small with Trek. The studio may literally depend on it.
For all of these reasons I actually think the strategy with the new movies was a good one. If they could hone in the execution more they could really have something, if they decide to keep going.