Jul 23, 2016 08:43 AM EDT By Sarah T., UniversityHerald Reporter

Just this Thursday, Paramount Pictures' latest Sci-Fi offering, "Star Trek: Beyond launched with a very impressive $5.5 million in the bag, at night previews showing in 3,100 screens across the United States. All this while "Lights Out," New Line's latest horror-thriller opened to a decent $.8 million, and "Ice Age: Collisions Course by Fox came out with $850,000 from its opening of 2,858 screens.

In a report by Variety, Star Trek Beyond owes 20% of its grosses to 987 Imax screens, which amounted to $1.1 million. Paramount stated that the Thursday night screening numbers can be compared to the latest James Bond film, "Spectre" with its $5.3 million opening in November, which later turned into $70.4 million in its opening weekend.

All eyes are on Star Trek: Beyond, since it is the third film of a rebooted science fiction movie franchise; expectation are definitely at a high. Friday sees it opening at 3,928 locations and is highly anticipated to dominate weekend box-office with a solid estimate of $55 million, while the are some analyst that could project it hitting $60 million. That projection could be below the $70.2 million launch of "Into Darkness" back in 2013, an the $75.2 million debut of the rebooted "Star Trek," which was bothe helmed by director J.J. Abrams.

In a piece done by Hollywood Reporter, Justin Lin, who directed the 6th installment of the fast-paced heist franchise, Fast & Furious 6 helms the new movie, which was screened to audiences at Comic-Con on Wednesday. The production of the film boasts a huge $185 million budget and brings back lead actors Chris Pine as Capt. James T. Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Commander Spock, and Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard McCoy AKA Bones, with Idris Elba joining the sci-fi movie franchise as a fiendish alien commander.

The review for Star Trek Beyond have been mostly leaning to positive. Rotten Tomatoes scores it with an 85% fresh rating, with an audience score of 86%. It is the 13th film of the movie franchise, and will be most remember as being the final appearance of actor, Anton Yelchin portraying U.S.S. Enterprise helmsman, Pavel Chekov in the reboots. The film was heartfully dedicated to Yelchin, as well as the legendary actor, Leonard Nimoy who passed away in 2015. Leonard Nimoy was well-known for his role as Commander Spock in the TV Series, and has made appearances in the 2 reboots. Nimoy remains to be a sci-fi icon for the movie industry and for many fans.

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