TFA was a once in decades type of event. Of course people saw it more and it had better legs. But it's overall box office totals match up with ANH->ESB and TPM->AOTC.
ROTS actually performed better than ATOC, so there's also that. I bet we see at least 220M if not higher, and a finish of 1.6B for EP9.
His point is valid, it's actually generous to compare it against TFA because it doesn't accurately explain how weak its legs actually were. It's not just against TFA, but other movies that TLJ shows weak legs. It made most of its money because of the first three weeks falling within Christmas, but after than its declines were very noticeable.
Head to head
Rogue One grossed only 522m domestically and opened to 65 million dollars less than The Last Jedi.
Opening
The Last Jedi: 220 million
Rogue One: 155 million
Starting in week 4-5 Rogue One decisively overtook The Last Jedi in daily earnings and never gave up the lead.
And it's not like there were monsterous releases siphoning TLJ or Jumanji wasn't showing great holds during the same period.
In fact it wouldn't surprise me if The Last Jedi has the worst opening week multiplier in franchise history.
EDIT: Aside from the Clone Wars cartoon stealth launch, it does indeed have the worst legs in franchise history and The Last Jedi is actually closer to the Clone Wars theatrical performance than it is Rogue One's.
The Phantom Menance: 7.32
Attack of the Clones: 3.88
The Force Awakens: 3.78
Revenge of the Sith: 3.51
Rogue One: 3.43
The Last Jedi: 2.82
Clone Wars 3 episode theatrical release: 2.41
And here are other movies with similar opening profiles to The Last Jedi that became 600m earners:
The Force Awakens: 3.78
Black Panther: 3.43
Jurassic World: 3.12
The Avengers: 3.01
Something went wrong with the Last Jedi, this isn't something that's subjective. Viewership was soft in comparison to other films and historical performance for the franchise.Yet there are still posters who are adamant that The Last Jedi as no more controversial or disliked than The Force Awakens.
I mean your point is crabbed because TFA made ridiculous money. No one expected it to make that. And Disney didn't expect TLJ to make the same money. The fact it made 1.3 billion told Disney that while hitting TFA heights again was unlikely, they could almost guarantee a billion dollarStar Wars film a year.
Not to mention how your analogy is flawed. BP isn't a film people have been waiting thirty years to see. Of course that film is going to make more money than a sequel put out two years later.
TLJ missed expectations by hundreds of millions and routinely missed daily and mid week projections, and in the case of weekend projections (that are updated twice to the public before release, mid week and then on friday) The Last Jedi most often missed even revised downward projections. This isn't a matter of Disney expecting TLJ to gross as much as TFA, this is a matter of the movie objectively under-performing. We don't need to compare it against monoliths to see this.
