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Wkd Box Office - 1•3-5•20 - Skywalker falls, Little Women soar, and audiences hold a Grudge as Frozen 2 becomes the biggest animated film ever.
- Thread starter PhoncipleBone
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Huh? How? Rian Johnson literally gave him a blank slate to do something creative.
People blaming TLJ for TROS's creative failures are so weird. How can you hate a movie so much?
Star Wars doesn't need saving, they need to be more experimental and think about the future rather than the past.
A blank slate isn't really want you want going into the third movie in a trilogy.
I'm not saying it's fully RJ's fault or that JJ did the best he could with what he had (lol), but at least part of the problem with TROS is that it had to both set up things for all the characters to do and then follow through with them since there were so few dangling plot threads from TLJ (beyond the general state of the world of Kylo bad-ish, First Order bad, Resistance outnumbered)
It's why you don't hire three different directors to write and direct your three different movies that are apparently supposed to come together into a cohesive whole.
Since Denis Villeneuve has his hands full with a superior sci-fi IP, I'm voting Taika Watiti after episode 8 of the Mandolorian
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That title actually goes to The Lion King live action remake. Every shot is in CG except for one frame.
As boring as that Live-action remake was, it's insulting to the animators that their hard work is not properly credited just because they did photo realistic CG.
It's also a funny argument.
ESB had one of the most famous cliffhangers ever and ROTJ grossed less. Some people want to find some way to blame a great movie like TLJ so bad, but as ESB and TLJ show, a great movie doesn't mean an inferior follow-up will do better.
Well of course more people might see a movie that is supposed to be better.
However it is also obvious that of course people might skip a sequel if they were so put off by an entry that they tuned out. In my group of friends, all of whom born in 1972 and who grew up with Star Wars and saw every SW movie in the theater, I am the only one who saw TRoS -- because they all gave up after TLJ because 1) they thought it sucked (as did I) and 2) it made them just stop caring about Star Wars.
Anyone who cares about a series is not going to skip the conclusion because it gets middling reviews. "Oh man I love Harry Potter and have been reading it for half my life but I heard Deathly Hallows isn't so hot, I'll just call it a day at Half-Blood Prince."
The obvious answer of "TFA and TLJ received critical acclaim and TRoS didn't. TFA and TLJ received better word-of-mouth than TRoS," continues to elude a lot of folk for really weird reasons.
More people watch franchises than a minority of a fanbase, as casual viewers are more likely to see TFA/TLJ than a mediocre-reviewed movie like TROS. And people are less likely to give a mediocre movie repeat viewings, fans or casual.
ROTJ grossed less than ESB despite a huge cliffhanger. ESB was also not universally praised upon release, so there's no reason for someone to think, "TLJ is costing TRoS money," but not think the same for Empire to ROTJ. People would have to actually admit that Empire was not viewed as the GOAT upon release, that it didn't do anywhere near what A New Hope did, that the idea that TLJ gave TROS nowhere to go (false) doesn't explain why Jedi grossed less despite a famous cliffhanger at the end of Empire. There's an effort to try to differentiate the two and connect TROS's under-performance to TLJ and carving out an exception for ESB->ROTJ with nothing to base it off of except anecdotal evidence.
I think the only film trilogy that was completely planned out from the start was Lord of the Rings, and that was a) an adaptation and b) all three were filmed simultaneously and released annually.
Sony's Morbius Trailer has been rated and will be online before Bad Boys comes out.
It's time Chaos Legion
It's time Chaos Legion
In addition to that, the prequels had plenty planned out. Lucas knew certain story points that needed to be answered, we knew where the story would eventually lead to in Episode 4, you can hear Lucas during the documentary for Episode 1 talking about Duel of the Fates being a song we could hear again later in the story (IIRC, he was hinting that another battle would utilize this piece and it had to sound significant due to the theme being reused, which it did in 3). And it ended up being the weakest and worst-directed. "Having a vision," doesn't necessarily mean anything in terms of quality.
The OT didn't even have that kind of planning. Three different directors which gave Lucas less direct control of the scenes (he had complete control in 1 - 3), lots of story changes (Vader being the father, the Emperor being the main villain in 6, the Death Star returning), ANH is self-contained and wasn't guaranteed a sequel, 7 - 9 was talked about eventually happening until Lucas gave a definitive, "There is no Episode 7," after 3 came out. The consistency was Star Wars being his idea, but it had no starting and ending point fully planned out, and stories fully planned out, as even Lord of the Rings had. It was better than the planned-out prequels.
Sure, casual moviegoers might skip TRoS because of the reviews. But that's not why it had a weak opening weekend and
It's utterly absurd to think that a significant contributing factor to TRoS's underperformance, especially the weak opening weekend, wasn't the response of many Star Wars fans to TLJ.
As of Oct 28 -- long before any negative reviews -- it was tracking for "the lowest opening weekend of the trilogy", why do you think that was? Wouldn't one logically expect the conclusion of a 40 year series, directed by the guy who did the first of the final trilogy that did absolute gangbusters at the box office, to have a tremendous opening weekend?
Star Wars fans who loved TLJ and hated that JJ was brought in to "pander to toxic fans" or whatever the narrative is, still went and saw TRoS.
Do you know which Star Wars fans did NOT see TRoS? The ones who checked out because of TLJ.
I'm sure plenty of moviegoers -- who don't consider themselves "Star Wars fans" and who pay absolutely zero attention to the franchise beyond going to see the movies once a year or whatever -- skipped TRoS because of the bad reviews.
As an outsider, I believe Rise of Skywalker OW was also skipped by those who liked TLJ, but knew from the ads, leaks, the returning director, etc. that they would be met with a "non sequitur sequel", basically :p
Also, for better or worse, in the mainstream consciousness, the previous Star Wars film was Solo.
Also, for better or worse, in the mainstream consciousness, the previous Star Wars film was Solo.
That's my point.
A "blank slate" at episode 8 of 9, is just downright terrible.
RJ would have made a terrific standalone or separate trilogy (if that's still in the cards).
As a precursor to a 42-some years build up grand finale, it's garbage (obviously my opinion).
But I actually blame both JJ for his lack of trilogy oversight/ planning and KK for letting it all happen in the end.
It literally came in around 20 million below expectations. You can try to hedge it with the "mights," but that's silly.
Of course casual moviegoers would skip a film due to bad reviews. Of course repeat viewings would suffer if a movie isn't that good. And of course a movie with inferior word of mouth to TFA and TLJ would suffer.
"Conclusion of a 40 years series" is bunk. More later.
No, it's utterly absurd to come to your conclusion that it was "significant." Nothing looked as interesting in the trailers as TFA and TLJ's trailers did. I enjoyed TFA a lot; there was little hype for TRoS for me because nothing in the trailers was as interesting.
I feel you're deliberately glossing over the ESB->ROTJ points because it would force people to come to terms with ESB not even being a critical darling at the time and ROTJ grossing less when ESB left huge unresolved plot threads, both of which fly in the face of the idea that, "There was nowhere to go so the box office is lower," because ROTJ could not make that claim.
JJ's Star Trek sequels did not do as well as his first. TFA benefited for being an event movie and the first Star Wars movie with the original cast in 30 years. It's a monumental event of an event. The original Star Wars did gangbusters, too, yet Empire grossed significantly less. And ROTJ did even less than that.
Personally, I like the hypothesis that TROS did better than it should because TLJ was so damned good. Or that people who loved the amazing craft of TLJ didn't have faith in JJ, which was confirmed by the reviews.
This needs to be nipped in the bud.
I did not hear a single thing when Disney announced these sequels about this being the, "Conclusion of a 40 year saga." I didn't hear it during the build to The Force Awakens. I didn't hear it during the build to The Last Jedi. All of a sudden, JJ is saying, "It's weird not to bring back Palpatine since this is all the Skywalker Saga." When was this considered the Skywalker saga? I've been paying attention and I literally first heard that during the build to this movie. As far as I was concerned, this was simply another trilogy. We already thought the saga ended when 3 came out when Lucas said there was no Episode 7.
"Complete the saga" was what they were advertising when the DVD for Revenge of the Sith released. This was another trilogy continuing the story, not completing a story that, in regards to Palpatine, was already complete. There weren't any hints at all during TFA's story that this was going to finish the saga.
HA!
TLJ had bad legs, Solo tanked and TROS is underperforming and its all because TLJ was so damned good.
Solo and TROS weren't critical darlings while TLJ was (because it's so damned good). And TROS has worse legs than TLJ. You blame TLJ for its own gross but you blame TLJ for TROS's, what in the actual hell? xD~
Again, the obvious answer -- those movies didn't have interesting hooks, didn't have interesting advertising, worse word-of-mouth and inferior reviews -- is always ignored. TLJ made gangbusters, btw, with close to one and a half billion worldwide, since America isn't the only place that it released.
ROTJ grossed less worldwide but more domestically. Which at the time was the more important number. American films tended to do bigger domestically than internationally and I believe studios saw a smaller amount of revenue from foreign markets.
It'd be one thing if TRoS followed that example, but it's doing worse than TLJ domestically and international. But it's all really hard to compare anyway because movies were rolled out differently back then and stayed in theaters much longer, so whatever.
Based on...?
Fewer people watched it than Empire. What the studios received in revenue is different than how many people saw it and what people thought of it.
It's easy enough to compare. While changes happened then (and still are are streaming and cheap home options are more prevalent), we know that Star Wars grossed less and less worldwide with each movie and are doing so again. And we know ESB/ROTJ weren't critical darlings upon release or that the fanbase accepted everything ESB did at first. It's not as if the movie industry isn't changing at all now. Tickets are more expensive, there are fewer seats in many theaters as theaters try to make the experience better instead of fitting more people in each theater, streaming options are prevalent and cheap, Redbox exists, etc.
When Disney bought Lucasfilm they projected to their Shareholders new Star Wars films grossing 1.5b. And If you think Disney expected to go from 2 billion to 1.3 billion you're just deluding yourself. Age of Ultron underperformed and it grossed even more than TLJ.
Moreover, that is all assuming you classify The Last Jedi, a movie that earned around 5.75x its approximate $225 million production budget, as a disappointment. It is still the ninth-biggest movie of all time worldwide and the sixth-biggest grosser ever in North America (and should be 40 or 41 when ranked via inflation, ahead of the likes of Goldfinger and Beverly Hills Cop). It may have fallen a little farther from The Force Awakens than a typical Star Wars sequel (-35% instead of -32%, horrors), it's going to be profitable, and it will help cement Walt Disney's market share dominance in the realm of top-tier blockbuster franchises, which is really what this is all about.
If you think Disney expected TLJ to gross the same as TFA, you crazy. $1.31 billion was huge.
But that's besides the point: you're being very selective with what you're arguing. You're blaming TLJ both for its own success and also blaming it for two Star Wars sequels. Solo isn't responsible for its own demise for being a story nobody asked for. TROS isn't being blamed for being a mediocre movie with mediocre reviews and inferior word-of-mouth to TLJ. No, TLJ somehow did it all.
I do agree that The Force is strong with TLJ, but not that strong. xD
Pray for us all. Good, bad, the "give Spider-Man to Disney" crowd cometh.
That is going to be a fun thread.
Look no further than something like Aquaman in terms of being preceded by something that was 'hated' and was a disappointment at the box office (Justice League) and going on to earning a huge gross on its own terms. And it did it with legs too even taking Christmas into consideration.. The power of a well received film does wonders. Granted, Aquaman had more leeway in terms of the story they could come up with but the point is for as much as people might dislike a film, audiences are willing to come back rather easily. But TROS couldn't afford to get the reception it got.
Since I was a child and Lucas said he had 9 movies planned, I assumed it was one big story. Not "well I've got 9 movies in mind, 6 are one story and then the last three are just a random other story in the same universe".
Can I remind everyone that people were already talking about franchise fatigue prior to TROS opening weekend? Most sequels underperformed last year.
Not sure why we'd expect Star Wars to be immune to that, just because the Marvel CU seems to be. The evidence that Star Wars isn't the Marvel CU is already readily apparent.
Not sure why we'd expect Star Wars to be immune to that, just because the Marvel CU seems to be. The evidence that Star Wars isn't the Marvel CU is already readily apparent.
The only impact, good or bad, the previous film has on the current entry is opening weekend. We've seen that countless times where a shitty sequel does huge bank OW because of the goodwill of its prequel. Similarly we've seen good sequels have underwhelming OWs due to an unpopular prequel.
After OW though? The movie sinks or swims on its own merits. TROS has no one to blame but itself.
After OW though? The movie sinks or swims on its own merits. TROS has no one to blame but itself.
Normally it didn't happen during a trilogy but Disney went gong ho in milking the franchise as much and as fast as they could
I hope you're right in being hopeful for this film for your sake.
When Black Widow and Eternals combined don't equal the gross to Endgame are we going to see franchise fatigue articles for the MCU? lol
We'll see a lot of Disney Fatigue articles when their 2020 gross is only half or 2/3 of their 2019 gross.
Taika Waititi should just do his own thing again and break free from the Hollywood machine after Thor 4.
Get him back to New Zealand to make good movies again. Even Jojo Rabbit was mediocre :(
Is there any chance of Morbius actually doing well at the box office?
Like Venom, it doing well made sense because Venom is a geninuely popular character. But do people really care that much about Morbius?
Like Venom, it doing well made sense because Venom is a geninuely popular character. But do people really care that much about Morbius?
Doubt it, as far as I know it hasn't even started filming yet and Anthony Mackie is going to be busy working for The Mouse.
But Thor Ragnarok was so good though. Star Wars desperately needs a guy who can take a terrible franchise like Thor 1 and 2 and turn it into a fun romp like Ragnarok.
Personally I don't see it doing well. Morbius is such a lame character. And then you have Jared Leto and Tyrese Gibson as your big stars... lol.
This year when peoples' preferred blockbuster fails at the BO they can't blame Disney for sucking up theaters lol
True, but I'd rather get him back making his beautiful indie films than making him the Hollywood go-to guy for saving failing science fiction properties, especially when Star Wars already has a pretty good option going for them who wants to get back in Rian Johnson.
I mean, JJ Abrams was the go-to guy for Hollywood for resurrecting sci-fi Hollywood properties and look what happened there. Sure, Waititi is 10 times the writer and director that Abrams is, but still you don't want to become that guy in Hollywood.
They should have taken a hint from Paramount and gotten Justin Lin to make the third movie in a JJ Abrams franchise.
Read my post again:
"As far as I was concerned, this was simply another trilogy. We already thought the saga ended when 3 came out when Lucas said there was no Episode 7.
"Complete the saga" was what they were advertising when the DVD for Revenge of the Sith released."
He talked about 9 episodes in the 70s. That went out the window for the prequels:
"There is no episode 7." "There may be an offshoot movie about an offshoot character, but not about Luke Skywalker. Not about that group of people."
To him, the saga was complete, as told on the back of 3's DVD:
Episodes 1 - 6 were sold as "The Complete Saga"
The "Skywalker Saga" promotion started during Episode 9. In no way did they advertise this as the conclusion of the story started in Episode 1 when TFA and TLJ released unless there's something I missed. This was another trilogy in the same timeline, and the Skywalker Saga advertisements are a gimmick. We already were told the saga ended during the 2000s.
OP
OP
Just you wait and see when Wonder Woman flops because Artemis Fowl is dominating the screens from the previous week!
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