J.J. Abrams is one of the most successful directors working today, and his unique brand of sci-fi action gets huge viewership, but that didn't stop his sci-fi show Demimonde from getting canceled. The series had a ballooning budget of $200 million, and while there's no knowing what numbers it would have done for HBO Max, when given a movie budget of that much, Abrams has delivered sci-fi epics that have made billions.
The filmmaker has revitalized three different movie franchises and turned them into huge money makers. And he has even proved that he can make hundreds of millions out of modest mid-budget sci-fi dramas too. Thanks to being extremely diligent and picky in what he directs, the filmmaker hasn't had a single box office bomb.
Super 8 (2011) - $260 Million
On the face of it, a $260 million intake for an Abrams-directed movie isn't much, and in some cases, his budgets alone are even bigger than the amount that Super 8 made. However, while Abrams is used to working with budgets with $150 million at the absolute minimum, Super 8 had a relatively small production cost. The sci-fi adventure movie was made with a budget of just $50 million, which makes the $260 million box office intake a huge success, and, ironically, given the production budget, marketing costs, and the movie theatres' cut, the 2011 movie might have even had a bigger net profit that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Super 8 owes its success to 80s movies produced by Amblin Entertainment, and if it wasn't for hits like The Goonies and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Super 8 wouldn't exist. The film was so successful due to callbacks to those movies, but Abrams also managed to stretch that $50 million farther than any other filmmaker could. Action sequences like the train crash are unbelievably spectacular, and the alien's unique design doesn't get enough recognition.
Star Trek (2009) - $385.6 Million
Directing a Star Trek reboot must have been a tough task, and any filmmaker willing to do it was prepared to risk their career. The Star Trek movie franchise had a steady decline in box office numbers with each consecutive release, and it hit rock bottom when 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis tanked with its measly $67 million intake. There needed to be a drastic change in the series, and Abrams did exactly that by turning the thought-provoking science fiction franchise into a high-octane action blockbuster.
Elements of science fiction were still there, but exciting set pieces took front and center. And even though replacing iconic sci-fi characters with new actors must have been daunting, Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine perfectly imitated their predecessors while still putting their own spin on Spock and Captain Kirk. That led to the greatest box office performance the sci-fi series had ever seen at the time, making close to $400 million worldwide.
Mission: Impossible III (2006) - $398.4 Million
Just like Star Trek, the Mission: Impossible series was on a rocky slope when Abrams came on board, quite literally, as Tom Cruise mountain climbing in Mission: Impossible 2 was the most exciting thing about it. While the second installment of the series performed well at the box office, making over half a billion dollars, it was critically scathed, and the studio had to entirely rethink its approach to the series. Abrams came on board and delivered a more serious and much darker movie than any of its predecessors, and it earned the series its best reviews up to that point.
However, each Mission: Impossible movie's box office performance is a result of the previous film's quality. Just as Mission: Impossible 2 did well based on the success of the original, Mission: Impossible 3 suffered because of the critical response to the second movie, despite being a great entry in the series. At just under $400 million, the 2006 release is the lowest-grossing Mission: Impossible movie.
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) - $467.3 Million
Following the huge success of the 2009 reboot, Abrams followed it up with an even more ambitious sci-fi action-adventure with Star Trek Into Darkness. The filmmaker dived more into action, and it loosely retold the story of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan too. Both of those decisions were hugely polarizing amongst longtime Trekkies, but general audiences fell head over heels for it.
There's no art in movie titles, and they're just another way to market the movie. But despite Star Trek Into Darkness having one of the worst movie sequel titles ever, as it uses "Trek" as a verb, it didn't stop the movie from being a smash hit. However, with an inflated budget nearing $200 million, the movie certainly underperformed in the studio's eyes. Movies with that high of a budget in this day and age are expected to reach a billion, if not far surpass it.
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019) - $1.074 Billion
Crossing the billion-dollar mark should be a huge event and an overwhelming success for any movie, but for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, it couldn't have been any more disappointing. It's a sad state of affairs when a Star Wars movie in the Skywalker Saga struggles to reach ten digits, and in The Rise of Skywalker's case, it's even worse, as it's the most expensive Star Wars release to date (excluding Solo: A Star Wars Story.)
The third movie in the sequel trilogy made literally half of The Force Awakens' box office result, but it's hard to blame Abrams. The director had the tough task of wrapping up a hugely disjointed series that was made up of two entirely contradicting movies. Fans are now three years removed from the 2019 movie, there hasn't been another Star Wars film since, and there probably won't be one for a while. But a good, long break between theatrical releases is probably what both Disney and fans need.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) - $2.069 Billion
For a minute, it was looking like The Force Awakens could have surpassed Avatar as the highest-grossing movie of all time, or that it'd at least beat Titanic's intake. The film was the biggest event movie in years, fans went to see the movie multiple times over, sometimes even on the same day, and it was a spectacle that not even Abrams has been able to reach since.
Some fans accuse the 2015 movie of being too similar to A New Hope, whether it was the protagonist being an orphan on a desert planet or having to destroy a much bigger Death Star. But between the new characters and droids and the fan service, it's one of the most exciting movies for all ages. And for as polarizing as the sequel trilogy is, it has a generation of fans that will always prefer it to the original trilogy and prequel trilogy.