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

Let's look at this Vulture article for a moment.

There's nothing new here. It's a repeat of the Wall Street Journal article that was discussed weeks ago. The rest is speculation from an actor! Who is the actor? So the article is citing an old article and an anonymous actor from Solo who is also apparently an expert about box office projections.

"If they want to keep making Star Wars movies..."
LOL

 

I'm trying to piece together a reading of this.
Do I understand you correctly to say that the success is a tiered key performance indicator rating, such that:

Target: Greater than or equal to 0% increase over the predecessor
Acceptable: Less than 0%, but greater than 25%, decrease from the predecessor
Underperformance/Not acceptable: Less than 25% decrease from the predecessor
(to be clear, "less than 25% decrease" in common talk would probably be said "more than a 25% drop")​

Numerically:

>= 0% change : Target
0% to -25%: Acceptable
< -25%: Underperformance/Not acceptable​

Is this what you are expressing?

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Adjusted that a bit for you. And as stated, predecessor is defined as its direct lead-in. In this case, the lead-in to 8, is 7. It is not Rogue One. Standalones and the flagship Episodic Saga movies are expected to perform differently given they're different, separate stories. By that same measure, comparing Solo to 8 financially (which will inevitably happen), is a bit dubious, as Solo is more a movie in the style of Rogue One.

Now, expectations can't just be set anywhere, it has to have a justification based on the series, but can act as a firewall if placed at the low end. 1.5billion was fairly low, but not obscenely low. I definitely like your wording of Target and Acceptable. Nobody *wants* to lose money movie-to-movie, but if you're coming from a peak, as we've said previously, it isn't avoidable in some cases. As such, you want it to be as light a drop as possible(it both gives you enough room to make as many movies as possible, but also gives you room to put air back in and rebound with a better movie). And you certainly don't want a massive drop your second flagship movie out(granted its the 8th of the series, but 7 reset things after a very long layoff, and its considered the middle part of a trilogy). At these price points, it doesn't matter if your name is SW, if you start freefalling towards cost, you will not last long.

But that it ended up pulling $1.3 billion? You can hide your head in the sand like Disney while making a false comparison to Rogue One, or you can be a fanboi that juggles numbers for narrative spin like a Washington Hack, but when you get far enough away from release, people will start dogpiling you. Hasn't happened yet, but it'll come, this is just the start, and will likely amplify sometime after Solo. Solo in some ways will reset the narrative. Either it gets scapegoated by Disney for performing badly to save the flagship, or like this article.. it performed well and steadied the overall ship after the drop of TLJ. There isn't much in between.

Ideally, disregarding TLJ, you'd want Solo to build on RO and hit 1.1-1.2 billion, with Expectations being that it at least draws even with RO, as RO was supposed to set the floor for the standalones and wasn't a peak. Anything less than RO numbers in this case, given there isn't a lot of movement before you start losing money given the production problems for Solo, is not a good look.

But probably the single biggest criminal act with these movies, is not having an overall story plan and strong presence in place that gives the writers/directors a good idea of where to go, the constraints to work within, and keeps them on target. This tends to be how Marvel keeps a steady ship and how you sustain a certain level of quality movie-to-movie. The tone across a trilogy shouldn't be all over the map.

Kennedy is running this like it were an 80's or 90's franchise, where you slap talent on a project and hope for the best, and that is a deadly mistake IMO in the current era.

 

Since you don't have a set value for the drop, who defines the expectation that you accept in the scale?

Target: Greater than or equal to 0% increase over the predecessor
Acceptable: Less than 0%, but greater than expectations, decrease from the predecessor
Underperformance/Not acceptable: Less than expectations, decrease from the predecessor

Cheers,
Jayson

 

The company, based on the particular film series and where its currently at. As I said, they can't just say anywhere, it has to be based on what came before it and how they expect this one to do.

TFA could be considered a peak, so the expectations were a 25% drop-off or 1.5 billion. They gave it room to hit a mark(or hopefully do better) that they could then say exceeded expectations. Its all in how you frame it. But $1.3 billion? There is no framing that. It clearly didn't meet anyone's(even the company's) expectations.

Either way, if you think its hard and set numbers, its not. You're simply trying to stay as high above cost as you can, for as long as you can.. such that you make as many movies(and as much money) as you can. Its largely dependent on the particular series, and where within that film series it is. As stated, any expectations that Solo doesn't at least make RO money, should be rightfully laughed at, as RO was the first of its kind and is supposed to set the floor for standalones that other movies of its type could build upon.

This is at the high-end of price though. As an example of franchises on the ultra-low end of price, you could look at the SAW movies or any of the micro-budget stuff.

 

Who set this value?

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Asked and answered.

 

Then I am not understanding you, possibly.

You said Disney did by TFA's performance; is this what you are referring to when you say you already answered?

Cheers,
Jayson

 

$1.5 billion has always been the number that's been tossed around as Disney's internal expectations for TLJ and confirmed by the WSJ article. People were actually kind of shocked by it pre-release(as in, no way it could go That Low), but it made more sense as the movie started its dive and maybe Disney was on to something. But that it eventually landed at $1.3 billion, nobody, not even the company, had that as the number or anywhere close. I mean, when your spin(fanbois) consists of trying to explain it away by comparing it to a 38 year old film, just wow.

Just a completely different era where that type of thing isn't expected. If your second saga film(granted, 8th of the series) drops by that much, you have some serious issues with production that need to be addressed before they snowball. Unless of course the plan is to what.. take 10 years off before the next episodic trilogy or set of films to build back demand? I seriously doubt that is the plan.

 

And again,

So, to be clear, because I don't want to misunderstand how you think of film finance and set grades - keep in mind, I'm not trolling you. I'm earnestly attempting to understand your measuring stick because we clearly use different measuring systems and that has caused nothing but talking past each other.

You're saying that 1.5 Billion was set by Disney.
And you're saying that we know this because of a Wall Street Journal article.

Forgive me here, but do you have the link to that article again, or the post where it's listed.
I don't have a memory of reading that article, but perhaps I overlooked something in one of the articles, or perhaps I've forgotten that I read it.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

I *think* this is the article. Its behind a paywall so I can only see the first paragraph or two.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-la...omentum-raising-concern-for-disney-1517245312

And keep in mind, looking at it this way(as part of a film series rather than just on its own financial merits) is fairly new, because by and large, huge multi-film franchises with production overlap so you can get say two in a year or one every year(heck, Marvel is moving to 3 per year), are fairly new and can likely be traced back to Harry Potter. At that point, the most important part isn't necessarily whether any particular film is a financial success(as really, if its healthy, they all should be.. and in particular, with SW its very hard not to be profitable), but how it performs within the whole(because a major adverse drop can effect those that come after it with the fans and put profitability in doubt).

You got more Transformers films until 5 **** the bed(even though it still likely made money). At that point, profit wasn't assured and we likely get a shakeup. Before that, each had been pretty much building on the next financially, even though it was no critical darling. The cold calculus being that you keep putting out movies of that type until people get sick of them. For Marvel, they're at #20 and through good planning have kept things going well, while minimizing the impact of their turds(IM2, Thor 2, Avengers 2) and learning from those mistakes.

LucasFilm is at the second film of a new trilogy and they coughed up ~40% of their money. Not good for long-term stability for the overall IP, and a direct result of the whiplash storytelling with tone all over the place like a Pollock painting.

 

Here is the full article via a paywall bypass.
http://www.cetusnews.com/business/‘The-Last-Jedi’-Loses-Sales-Momentum--Raising-Concern-for-Disney-.Sy-eWPAhBM.html

I've quoted it here:

Can you point out which part in this article is providing you with your understanding that Disney's internal expectations were 1.5 billion or 25%, so that I can understand how you're reading things?

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Nope. Not here to play go fetch, and I've been more than patient with you.

I've given you my opinions, and you have all the information requested. If you don't know what to do with it, that's not on me.

 

Mean while last jedi is the most profitable film of 2017 as Indicated by deadline

 

I'm not spinning you for kicks here.
I'm honestly attempting to understand your measuring system.

I personally cannot find anything in that article which refers to a 1.5 billion dollar internal expectation by Disney, so I'm assuming that you are reading something in that document that causes you to translate the information in the article as that value...otherwise, I would assume, you wouldn't have said that this article is what informed you that Disney's internal expectations were 1.5 billion.

So, please do continue to help me understand your way of measuring because I'm still not really clear on how you're determining the value for an expectation.
Currently we're at the point where you've stated that Disney had an internal expectation of 1.5 billion, and that we know this due to this WSJ article.
However, I'm not seeing anywhere in this article that says that so I'm asking you to point out what it is that let you determine that value in this article.
If this is the wrong article, then was it another?
If it was another article, do you happen to know what it was?
If you don't know where the article is, but think you read something once somewhere, then can you just tell me that so we can assume that axiom and move on with the conversation?

Cheers,
Jayson

 

@ScumAndVillainy
Just checking to make sure you didn't miss a response notification due to the email hiccup.

I am still interested in how you gauge the success of films.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Star Wars The Last Jedi got Number 1 in the tournament of the most valuable blockbuster tournament of deadline

http://deadline.com/2018/03/star-wars-the-last-jedi-box-office-movie-profits-1202351603/

 

Disney strongarmed the theaters into coughing up 65% per ticket for TLJ. In addition that Deadline number includes predictions for TV rights/rentals/home video revenue. And even with all of that included, it says The Last Jedi is -46% from The Force Awakens and 31% from Rogue One.


Deadline movie (theatrical and home) net profit estimates
TFA: $780.11M
RO: $318.80M
TLJ: $417.50M (TFA -46.48%, RO +30.96%)

 

It turns out that TFA's percent was 64%, so this appears to be a new approach in general that Disney is trying out with more than just TLJ.
I had originally assumed that it was unique to TLJ, but later it turned out that TFA also hiked up the rates.

Cheers,
Jayson