Re: So how do you rate this 'success'?
IMDB estimates a production budget of $35 million.
Just out of interest I made a time-line of some of the major series (or what turned out to be) and a few other notable movies to see how their budgets varied - inflation adjusted to 2016 in brackets:
2001 $12m 1968 ($83m)
Star Wars IV $11m 1977 ($44m)
Close Encounters $19.4m 1977 ($77m)
Star Trek TMP $35m 1979 ($116m)
Alien $11m 1979 ($36m)
Star Wars V $18m 1980 ($53m)
Star Trek II $11m 1982 ($27m)
Bladerunner $28m 1982 ($70m)
Star Wars VI $32.5m 1983 ($79m)
2010 $28m 1984 ($65m)
Terminator $6.4m 1984 ($15m)
Star Trek III $17m 1984 ($39m)
Aliens $18.5m 1986 ($41m)
Star Trek IV $25m 1986 ($55m)
Star Trek V $27.8m 1989 ($54m)
Star Trek VI $30m 1991 ($53m)
Terminator 2 $102m 1991 ($180m)
Alien3 $50m 1992 ($86m)
Star Trek VII $35m 1994 ($56m)
Star Trek VIII $45m 1996 ($69m)
Alien 4 $75m 1997 ($112m)
Star Trek IX $58m 1998 ($86m)
Star Wars I $115m 1999 ($166m)
Star Wars II $115m 2002 ($154m)
Star Trek X $60m 2002 ($80m)
Terminator 3 $200m 2003 ($262m)
SW III $113m 2005 ($139m)
Terminator 4 $200m 2009 ($224m)
Star Trek XI $150m 2009 ($168m)
Star Trek XII $190m 2013 ($196m)
Star Wars VII $245m 2015 ($249m)
Terminator 5 $115m 2015 ($117m)
Star Trek XIII $185m 2016 ($185m)
Star Trek The Motion Picture may well have been the most expensive film dollar wise at the time. However, mostly since then they seem to have had tighter budgets than their most contemporary Star Wars film. Having said that there are almost twice as many of them - adjusted for inflation Star Wars total budget $884m at 2016 prices, Star Trek total budget $1184m.
Most notable perhaps is the budget jump from The Terminator ($6.4m) to Terminator 2 ($102m). Also quite noticeable is the amount pumped into Terminators 3 to 5 and Alien 3 and 4 ($801m in total at 2016 prices) and they were all a bit pants.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
