OFFICIAL NEWS A Lasting Record Of TLJ's Financial Performance.

Defeated by Furious 8... so pathetic. Remeber the glorious days when The Force Awakens smashed Furious 7 in the foreign market?
Everyone knows that Star Wars has the exact same appeal in the foreign market as in the domestic market. Especially in China.

 

*peeks into thread*

Hmmm....still judging quality of a film by how much money it pulls in?

*out*

 

When it comes to Star Wars? Absolutely. Lets not pretend Star Wars fans haven't been doing that for 40 years, or we wouldn't need threads like this to track every last movement of said film with fanbois playing Defenders of the Faith by trying to spin every bad movement. No need to stop now, just because The Lost Jedi underperformed badly and people didn't like it enough to go back in the numbers that they did for TFA.

We now have exhibit (B)lack Panther. A movie that, unlike The Lost Jedi, held its popularity in its second weekend as people went back to see it.. and has clocked an estimated $108 million. That still leaves The Lost Jedi as the only $200+ million OW movie to crater to well below $100 million in its second weekend.

At the end of the day, its butts in seats(Black Panther) or lack thereof(The Lost Jedi), and you can't fake that. It was what it was. People either pay money and show up to watch, or they don't. If they don't, when they normally would have, its safe to say they probably didn't like the film.

 

Well scum, you left out a lot of variables there, is well known that sequels dont make more money or outgross the original, only in a few cases that the sequel could get this feat.

Novelty, is a word that TFA and Black Panther has in common, what? novelty? if Marvel keeps premiering movies about heroes, yes, but Black Panther is actually the first movie that is centering about that particular hero, so the audience is curious about what its his story about ( Marvel and Disney had been doing a good job with the marketing about this unknown hero, to make people get exciting about him).
With TFA you had the first Star Wars movie in 10 years since the realese of the Revenge of the Sith, and a movie that the Star Wars fans were waiting for 32 years, a movie that is a sequel of the Original Trilogy and the fact that there is going to be the old characters that excited more to the people and the fans. The general audience was curious what Disney and Lucasfilm would do with the franchise, so that's why you have the reason of why TFA performed in that way. And now you have The Last Jedi the third movie where is almost no novelty, comparing it with the rest of the movies, since Disney and Lucasfilm have been realeasing star wars movies every year, and even so gets people to the theaters, but not in the same way that TFA did. We have to see how episode IX will behave in the future. Im still curious how Solo will do in the Box Office

Audiences, I belive Marvel movies have a larger overall audience rating than Star Wars (Yes, tough you do not believe it), if you compare it with the rest of the world and not only in the US, it seems that Marvel movies have a slightly higher degree of acceptance in the general public than Star Wars, so you could have a reason why Black Panther is going to surpass Star Wars. I think that is one of the reasons why Jumanji also surpassed the Last Jedi, seeing which audience was directed, the general public felt more comfortable with a comedy movie ( that also was the first jumanji movie since 1994) than with a movie of action and drama.

In relation with the previous point you have the Lenght and the Rewatchability of the movie are another thing that TFA and Black Panther have that TLJ lacked, given the length of time that TLJ has and how the film is structured, affected the schedules available in the cinemas, besides that this movie can be feel "heavy" given its length, people do not get as excited as the fans in going to see the same movie again (there you can add that there is a kind of "division" in the fans that we do not know how big, because the Internet generally makes things seem bigger than they are, only time will tell and how they do episode IX) (I think the length was also what affected Blade Runner 2049 (among other things)) So that they did not like the movie is not a totally conclusive argument, due to the reasons given above

In short, while I believe that The Last Jedi underperformed a bit and could have had a better performance than what that movie had in the Box Office, I do not think it's performance was as terrible as several people are making him to believe, since the amount of income that genre, it was not minor. Also the movie ended as the number 1 movie of the year 2017 in the box office worldwide, something that in the eyes of Disney and Lucasfilm is not "Terrible"

 

Um mate, mate look where "The Lost Jedi" sits all time at the domestic box office 6th! An TFA is first all-time domestic. Don't tell me that "The Lost Jedi" didn't have any "butts in seats." Also, at most all a box office does is gauge interest. I mean, look at Transformers box office success and the general Internet agreement is that their not good movies. Yet they still make money.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm

 

Again, if 1.3 billion means it "underperformed badly", I would like to know what the bar for success is.

 

Pretty much most estimates pre-release. But just sit back and Black Panther is showing you how its done.

Couldn't even beat The Avengers, a 6-year old movie.

It did. For the first weekend. Take a look at the difference between The Lost Jedi and Black Panther in the 2nd weekend. BP bested TLJ to $400 million by two days. It beat it like a government mule in its non-holiday 2nd weekend where its 3-day total($108 mil) was better than the The Lost Jedi's 4-day CHRISTMAS weekend($99 million).

It gauges butts in seats and their willingness to pay money to see the film. In essence, it judges how popular and liked a film is. If people only go to something once, when they normally would go to it more times, the movie was a bad movie and not well liked.

We can see this play out in something like Transformers 5, where it shed a lot of popularity(like The Lost Jedi) and people didn't much like that film in comparison to previous releases. Hence, we likely will see a retooling for Transformers at best, a hiatus for the series at worst. And i'm sure T5 still made money. But at the price points we're talking here, it doesn't take much movement to signal a change in strategy.

Now factor in that Star Wars lost more money and brand popularity between TFA and TLJ($700 million on this movie alone, along with likely at least a billion in overall brand damage) than Hasbro did between Transformers 4 & 5($500 mill). SW just had farther to fall.

Its not a good look, and while its not your money and don't care... losing $700 million movie-to-movie will likely get some heads rolling. That Black Panther is providing a nice contrast and showing just how badly LucasFilm screwed up probably won't help.​

 

Missed this post. But allow me to retort.

You are showing a level of ignorance that I have yet to see in this thread, if you think seqeuls don't make more money and outgross the original. Is this your first rodeo? Are you going off of TFA?

Its been very well-known that sequels for successful IP tend to outgross their original for twenty years now. Ever since Austin Powers, of all things, set the standard. Typically what happens with new IP is people are slow to warm up to it as they do not want to take chances on something new and instead it will build post-release as people watch it on video. Then they come to the sequel. People tend to go to what they know.

This is the Absolute Standard when it comes to Marvel IP, and Black Panther shattered it up one end and down the other. Lets give examples.

THOR
CAPTAIN AMERICA
IRON MAN

All 3 had fairly weak initial releases, in relation to their sequels. Nobody knew what to expect, and so they were skittish to 'buy in'. Furthermore, singular IP that focus on one particular character have traditionally performed worse than team-up movies, not better. That's why phase 3 has typically been tossing proven characters like Hulk, together with Thor... or Iron Man with Spider-man. Once again... BP has broken the mold.

Other IP which had relatively slow starts compared to their sequels?

Furious movies.
Transformers movies.
The Nolan Trilogy.
The Hunger games movies.
The Twilight movies.
The Matrix Trilogy.
The Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
The Planet of the Apes movies(thie version this decade).

The popular movie that doesn't spawn an overperforming sequel is the exception, not the rule, and usually indicative of a poorly-received movie. The rule is that well received new movies start slow, build post-release, and you cash on the sequels until it falls off. Its how Hollywood had worked for decades.

You're just blowing smoke here. Audiences don't typically do that. They tend to approach new IP slowly.

Lol.. audience rating. What in the good lord are you talking about?

And Marvel Movies, with the exception of The Avengers films, have never typically rode with the elite of the box office. Star Wars have. TLJ did its first weekend, until people actually saw how bad the film was. Its now so far underwater that you'll need to search in the twenties for the movie, while the movie that opened the very next week.. Jumanji 2, is still playing well. One was liked and continues to find its audience, one was not and flamed out. It was what it was. You cannot fake butts in seats. Either people show or they don't.

I'm also really interested in seeing how Solo performs. I have a feeling that even though its actually looking ok from the trailers that it will land with a dull thud of MEH. When you cripple your IP with a movie that doesn't satisfy the viewer, that's what tends to happen.

Honestly.. I think it was nothing more than a fun movie that was well-received. And the combo of Johnson and Hart tends to be money given their contrast in styles and personality. Anybody can pop a big weekend with a lead-in like TFA, how well your movie is received and satisfies the viewer tends to set your legs and determine repeat business. When you put out garbage like The Lost Jedi, you have no legs.

Not only its length, but all Rian Johnson had to do was actually resolve some mystery boxes, have good action, while setting up the final film. Instead, he set the mystery boxes on fire, mooned the audience by telling them 2017's version of Shatner's Get A Life, and should rightly never step foot on a Star Wars set again.

He's dead money.

His only hope is Disney willing to light some money on fire by proving it with his next 'Star Wars' film(after the Thrones guys got hired, anybody can see this is the equivalent of drafting another quarterback because your current one sucks. Maybe they turn his movie into Original IP and slash the budget, but I seriously doubt you'll see a RJ SW Trilogy at this point).

 

But Lucasfilms, Disney, critics and general movie goers liked the movie.

2.8x multiplier and over $1.3 billion saying that people find the movie or a very small amount people payed millions of dollars for a single ticket. Which one is it?

Even if you dont count TLJs opening weekend it still made more money than Jumanji.

 

Good post, but common sense and facts won't get through to him. There are already dozens of pages in this thread showing the actual numbers, percentages, trends, and facts. But he continues to rant on about his bs.

It's all wheel spinning at this point.

 

I laughed.. hard. Haven't had a whopper like that since Burger King!

2.8? Lol.. ouch! Oh wait.. you think that was GOOD? Jumanji was 10.7 if you go by the 3-day weekend. 7 if you go by the 4-day weekend.

And TFA posted $2 billion. $1.3 billion not only impresses no one, it was predicted by no one. Had you said those two numbers before release, you would have been laughed off the boards and probably banned for trolling. That they represent the actual numbers is a failure of staggering proportions.

Jumanji only had a $90 million budget(and knowing Hollywood, probably tax breaks from somewhere). It wasn't max load like The Lost Jedi at $250-300 million(they don't release exact figures) with an overall $350-400 million pricetag when you factor in advertising budget.​

 

here is table with some comparisions, and i add other some movies (shrek was impressive)

Back to the Future I (WW: $381,109,762 ) Back to the Future II ($331,950,002)
Fast and the Furious ($363,164,265 ) 2 Fast 2 Furious ($236,350,661)
(Not sure if is a good comparisson) Batman ($411,348,924 ) Batman Returns ($266,822,354)
Captain America 1: ($370,569,774) Captain America 2 ( $714,264,267 )
Matrix ( $463,517,383) Matrix Reloaded ($742,128,461 )

more comparissions, and this article was interesting
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywoods-new-problem-sequels-moviegoers-899765

This not sound to me like the common rule Scum, so you are telling me that all those movies that didnt make more money than its predecesor are a failure? So following what you said, Spiderman 2 is considered the best movie of the whole Raimi films and still made less than spiderman 1, that indicates that this movie was poorly received? do you know that sound stupid?. Not to mention Empire strikes back, in relation with a New Hope

Second point You really understimate Marvel's marketing power, do you? add to that Black Panther (as character) was well received by the audiences after Captain America: Civil War, there a lot of things in internet talking about it

Third Point, maybe rating was a bad word to use, but generally Marvel Movies are pretty accepted by audiences even in places like South America and Asia

Fourth point for a " garbage" like you said, is impressive that it's the 2nd highest grossing Star Wars movie of all time, the highest grossing domestic movie of 2017, the 6th highest grossing domestic movie of all time, and the 11th highest grossing worldwide moving of all time. By any reasonable metric, the film did very well financially. I have to say that Jumanji was an impressive competition . No argument that it had bad legs in the box office, but not horrible. The butts were on the cinema, but not like some predictions were estimating, that's why many here we are saying that the movie underperformed but not that bad like you are trying to make it look

And now lets analize the differences in the final and the estimates there a lot of factors that might explain it

- Competence: Jumanji wow no one, not even in his dreams, could imagine that this movie would be a success, even that movie took away some of the general audience of star wars and the other films that were playing in that time

- The whole China thing: A lot of people were optimistic in that the performance of the movie would do well in this market, but seeing how were received the previous movies (PT, Force Awakens, Rogue One, and you can see how much the income decreased with every new entry of the series in that market) they were not massive hits. Also the General opinion about the Original Trilogy like i said previously they think that they are chessy soap opera films, with chessy dialogue and chessy effects. They clearly dont like Star Wars at all.

- (in relation with the financial status of TLJ) Poor Toys Sell: Let's be honest, the line of toys launched by Hasbro, was quite poor, most of the figures were from the same line of the force awakens, only they were either re-painted or they added one or another detail. The film did not help much either because no new things were introduced, in relation to weapons, ships and technologies (things that could be taken as toys). The only highlight was the porgs. We must add this, the bankruptcy of Toys R Us, the largest distributor of hasbro toys and other brands of toys, which also explain the low sale of toys ( I wish that the starships of star wars, would have been like the line of hasbro toys, when they brought to the market the vintage collection, those ships had many details and a good proportion, in comparison with the figures)

Finally, i dont think Rian's Trillogy is in danger for now, the announcement of the new series by game of throne writters is just Lucasfilm saying: Hey we have more star wars for you!!

 

The Avengers couldn't beat Titanic a 1997 film... lol having two films in the top ten all time domestic is real screw up mate. Also, Marvel has had seventeen films and only two (both Avengers) have cracked the top ten (I think three now with Black Panther). Having four films (I'm including TPM) to cross the One Billion dollar mark is nothing to sneeze at. Of course, it's all from a certain point of view and i'm sure you'll find someway to spin this to make this look bad.

 

First, you seem to be all over the map here between domestic and WW. I'm specifically talking total gross. YMMV.
Second, your first and third comparisons are to movies that came out well before the time period I've spotlighted(1997-now), which started with the Austin Powers movies.

I liked the article, but its spotlighting a single year while saying exactly what I've been saying about sequels. What I will concede is what we may be seeing is poorly-received sequels that no longer live up or surpass their originals simply by having the name.

Back in 2010, you had Iron Man 2. The movie was poorly-received, largely sucked, but still made more money than its predecessor.
Same thing with Thor 2 in 2011.

Also factor in that with information getting around so fast, people can often audible off a movie before they go see it. Star Wars has largely been Opening Weened proof, as people are used to ignoring spoilers, where nobody wanted to hear anything about the film before watching it. After The Lost Jedi, I could see that changing and people actually waiting to find out if the movie is actually worth the time and money.

No.. they are the exception. You are talking about one year out of like 20+. The entire point of that article is that it isn't hewing to the norm and wondering why that was. It specifically spotlights Huntsman 2, a sequel nobody needed, and the Pitch Perfect series, whose first sequel Was bigger than the first.

Spider-man 3 made more than both. You keep confusing popularity with quality. What strikes a chord with the audience may not be some artsy endeavor. In fact, it usually isn't, because art films appeal to a narrow subset of people... where as popular movies have to appeal to as many sets as possible to get people in the door.

Yup.. and TESB was poorly-received by the audience back in 1980 and caused direct changes to RoTJ. It was also a different time.

Marketing usually gets people in the door and makes people aware your film exists. A movie they do not like makes sure they don't come back, and a movie having legs is extremely dependent on repeat viewing. No amount of marketing can save people not liking a film.

Most core marketing these days is practically free for Marvel in people talking about movies on websites and forums. Feige can put out a simple tweet and it'll be covered by a myriad of sites spreading the word.

TFA put a lot of air back into the series. Opening Weekend for TLJ, most people knew nothing substantial about the movie, they just went. Not so much the second weekend, which saw an absolutely massive drop-off. When your predecessor makes $2 billion, its almost impossible to simply flop.

I completely agree. It made money. Never said it hasn't. But the movie business isn't just about this movie, but the next and next. And burning off at least a billion dollars in overall Brand Damage is never supposed to happen and is pretty unprecedented.

 

Well in the overall we agree to disagree then , but I think that at the end we have to see how episode IX will behave in 2019 to see the real effects in Disney and Lucasfilm pockets of the franchise, and if they can keep audiences hook up in the story that they want to tell. Like i have said numerous times there are so many factions in the star wars fandom, that is literally impossible to please them all, Lucasfilm ( so Disney) must already know this.

 

Agreed. Its not unprecedented to get the ship turned around. Both Iron Man 3 and Thor 3 being examples of a nice rebound from fairly weak second installments.

And TFA did a good enough job pleasing most. As much as people want to amplify the severe minority that had minor issues, the movie itself was almost universally well-received and most of that flak didn't start until well after the movie was out of theaters. Even then, that flak was from people who likely went to see the movie multiple times and wouldn't hesitate to watch it again. It wasn't an absolute showstopper for a good amount of fans like The Lost Jedi.

Still.. as you said we can agree to disagree, it'll come down to the final two movies in this set.

 

2.8x multiplier is not bad, not amazing, just in the middle little above what a average movie does. So I will call it good but maybe not GOOD if capital letters make the difference.

​

I thought you talk about actual "butts in the seats" and not ROI%. And why does it matter what the budget was?

 

Correct. In fact, a few pages ago, he declared that percentages are an invalid form of evaluation all together.

 

Yepp remember that, and suddenly he talk about percentage like it matter now.

 

ROI%?

Is that what you call a multiplier? Because unless my math is a bit rusty, it has nothing to do with a percentage. Multiplier is just the ratio of total domestic gross to opening weekend, hopefully designed to give an indication as to the strength of a movies 'legs' and directly indicative of butts in seats on the backend in comparison to its opening weekend. You thought a 2.8 was any good, I pointed out how it wasn't.

Your return on investment is the amount of money you make above and beyond the cost it took(both budget + marketing) to produce and sell the film.

Now, you could turn ROI into a percentage amount you made in comparison to your cost... but nowhere do I do that.

Except I don't...

I talked multiplier, which if you think that's a percentage you need to go back to remedial math. Its a ratio.