Written by Salvador Nogueira, edited by Steve Krutzler

While producers and executives are trying to find out why STAR TREK NEMESIS failed to gather crowds in North American movie theaters, it is clear the impact of the poor domestic box office destroyed the film's chances in many international markets. The release in small European countries, such as Hungary and Norway, was recently cancelled by distributor United International Pictures (UIP) due to bad performance in the U.S. market. Latin America's huge market is suffering as well.

In Mexico, the movie earned just $142,059 in its opening weekend, shown only in 81 theaters, which won NEMESIS a tenth-place spot in that country. In Brazil, the situation was even worse. In its opening weekend only 30 theaters were showing the film, gathering in a total 13,286 filmgoers.

Exact numbers are not yet available, but a reasonable estimate would give the film an opening weekend box office close to $40,000. In Brazil, the movie received a tenth-place position as well. It is important to note that NEMESIS is the only film in the top ten with a number of available prints less than 100.

STAR TREK movies usually don't perform extremely well in the Brazilian box office, but this hopeless strategy will certainly make NEMESIS's release even worse than that of INSURRECTION, which had to fight the Carnaval holidays in February 1999 and had only two weeks in theaters.

Many could think the current bad performance is part of the same phenomenon that originally made the film a flop in the U.S., but it is not so. Although in the U.S. and Canada STAR TREK has received considerably more exposure in the last decade, Brazilian demand for TREK is, in fact, reaching its peak. The television series finally found their way through cable channels, and ENTERPRISE is one of the three most-watched programs on Sony's AXN Network. USA Network exhibits the four previous series once a week and the recent DVD releases have been best sellers.

Unfortunately, the executives are hardly aware of the very markets they are willing to attract. Due to the poor North American box office, UIP decided to make some changes in the release of NEMESIS -- rather than simply withdrawing the movie entirely, as in other countries. In Brazil and several other places, the movie lost its original name; "STAR TREK" was dropped from the title entirely. The tagline was also replaced by a more general slogan, something akin to, "Be afraid of your dark side," a far more groan-inducing line than film's domestic moniker, "a generation's final journey begins."

To make things even worse, UIP reduced drastically its policy for releasing the movie. They've splintered the huge Brazilian market (Brazil's population is right now around 160 million people), to spend less on copies to be distributed. The movie was launched last week only in a few select cities around the country; the other markets will be attended to only as the copies are dropped from these cities. That will probably happen sooner than later. São Paulo, the largest Brazilian city with its 15 million inhabitants, will not have any theaters showing NEMESIS next week. Belo Horizonte, another major Brazilian city, will see the movie coming out just this upcoming Friday. Some markets will have to wait as late as April to see the movie.

This has enfuriated TREK fans around the country. UIP's response to protesting fans gave clear signs of the reasons behind the lackluster policy: "It is a shame [the fans] don't understand that [this] is business," a UIP spokesperson said in an email response. "That the critics [for the film] were negative, its domestic box-office worse. The film almost wasn't released in Brazil, but [it is] exactly because of our respect for the 'Trekkers' that the launch is taking place -- although in more limited form."

Clearly, Paramount lost all its hopes for the movie as soon as it failed to meet expectations in North America, only making things worse abroad. Except for surprises in Germany and the United Kingdom, NEMESIS will probably be a worldwide failure. According to box office data compiled by Variety, the current foreign total for NEMESIS hovers around $17 million; by contrast, INSURRECTION took in nearly $50 million internationally. The same data indicate that NEMESIS's worldwide take is just over $60 million; less than even INSURRECTION's domestic take of $72 million. In many foreign locales, like Brazil, this is due simply to poor management. Many could argue STAR TREK's fatigue is beyond redemption. But no one would be able to make a case that Paramount and UIP executives handled the delicate situation properly.