Box Office

Star Wars isn't in decline. What's really different is the market.

The Original Trilogy came out between 1977 and 1983 and, basically, invented the concept of what we call "blockbuster movie". Even though, immediately after the first movie came out, everyone in the industry tried to make similar movies, SW didn't really have any real competition, at all.

The Prequel Trilogy came out 1999 to 2005. Now, around that time, the concept of "blockbuster movie" was way more established - and even tv show were beginning to show early signs of the potential for huge numbers they have today. However, Star Wars was still the biggest name in the house and the market was WAY less competitive than it is today.

Fast forward to 2015-2019/2020, and the scenario is widely different. We have 4 to 6 comic book movies being released every year, togheter with a LARGE number of other franchise entries and "blockbuster movies" (in 1999-2005 there were years with ZERO comic book movies and 2 or 3 franchise entries/blockbuster every year, top).
On top of that, tv series reached a level of cinematic quality that was simply unknow at the beginning of the century and there's a plethora of streaming services pumping out tons of original content on a monthly basis.

Lastly, let's focus on 2019. Before TROS even hit theaters, seven movies had already passed the 1 billion mark. Seven (and the eight one was already on its way). In one year. Just as a reference, only 37 movies reached that point in more than 20 years since the first.

It's not just a matter of competition on release - it's a matter of competition through the whole year.
What I mean, here, is that movies that make these numbers aim for the general audience and there's only a limited number of times the average person (that constitues the general audience) goes to the movies on a yearly basis.

TROS came out in a though year with strong competition both through the year AND on release and it's still pulling "SW numbers".
People saying "this movie should've made 2 billions" or "SW is in declining" are, simply, not in contact with reality.

 

Yeah, I don't even bother factoring in reviews into my models, but this is mostly because I haven't any money attached to the endeavor, so I can be patient and wait for the data model to self-correct over time.

The largest challenge is getting a forecast right off of just the opening weekend.
That said, even without any variable modulations to the model (e.g. variation spread between weekend and weekday, audience reviews) the original projections off of my standard model hold up reasonably well.

For example, my initial calculations last time were something like +4 to +6 % error of the final.
So far, at the moment, my initial projections compared to the current value is in error by +5% (
$1,047,371,193.37 vs $989,569,690), with an end of $1.17 Billion calculated, which I like to range with +/-5% so that's $1.11 to $1.23 Billion final in the original projection.

Current Forecast is projecting $1.03 to $1.14 Billion ($1.08 Billion +/-5%).

So if the forecast is taken as accurate (which is a projection model that adds the most recent actual values to the calculation set, unlike the original projection which only uses the opening weekend), then the original projection would be off by 8%.

And that's why I don't really bother with the other modifiers. It's really not needed, and the cases that don't follow the pattern well wouldn't follow the pattern much better much faster by adding the additional dimensions to the model. If anything, it increases the error rates because every assumption has to be accounted for in error, which is why I like a model which has an engine built out of percent change of percent change and ratio between International and Domestic.
Basically, this is similar in concept to how many rotations of my foot on the bicycle have to happen for one rotation of the tires, and what is the rise-over-run of the road I'm on (angle). Keep It Simple. Keep It Short.

This essentially boils to two assumptions: 1) The depreciation of revenue will continue to depreciate following its own trend (or if available, the mean depreciation of previous titles of the series). 2) The International and Domestic relationship will approximately follow the same trend over the course of the run.

The second is known to be erroneous, but it's erroneous in relationship of being lower in error rather than higher in error, so that assumption is left as is for initial projections. (Though I am thinking of switching to a static assumed 0.9 value for the relationship in the future.)

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Which is exactly what I keep trying to explain. Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my first attempts to do so. In this scenario, I actively do not care what critics or the average popcorn muncher thinks because it has proven time and time again to usually be somewhat opposed to what I've found makes for a healthy geek fandom.

Also, RT does that odd thing where it just splits all reviews into basically "good" and "bad," right? I think you touched on it but that would help explain the lack of a proper curve, right?

 

Siskel and Ebert would rate movies using 1-4 stars but would also utilize their famous thumbs up or down. If you wanted a more in-depth critique, they gave you a review, but if you just wanted to get straight to the point of if they liked it or not, check their thumbs.

It’s all in good fun. I used to love watching their show and have tremendous respect for Roger Ebert, but if I were sitting next to him, there are times I would have hit him with his own newspaper, lol.

We all agree and disagree, and can get especially passionate at times. And if figuring out the taste of the general public we’re easy, there’d be no box office bombs.

People are strange, but who else am I going to talk to about TIE fighters and lightsabers? This is the Cantina after all. I guess it can be a little rough.

 

RT uses a 1 - 5 star rating which then splits the film's review as "Fresh" or "Rotten" by whether or not 60% of the audience gave a 3.5 or higher grade.
So it's really a 10 star system squeezed into a 5 star display.

So basically, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5

The confusion comes in that they then take these and bin them into percentages rating of 3.5 ratings.
So you get really screwball values like a warped reading of 21% of reviews rating 3.5 or higher, and 45% of reviews rating 3.5 or higher.

It's horribly convoluted and a terrible way to show data, and nowhere close to a properly weighted method. Even if their prior data is weighted right, reducing it down to a presentation of what percent gave 3.5 or higher is just almost basically meaningless.
You aren't getting the rating of the film reviews. You're getting a controlled reading of the ratings of the film reviews.
Two very different ideas.

And I hear what you're saying. For me personally, the way that I can tell if I'll likely be interested in something is whether something like RT reviewers hate it.
If they do, I'll probably like it, because I really don't relate to the mentality of the reviewers, nor their taste.

But really, I was speaking within context of this thread and the purposes of answering the questions of the film's capabilities of appreciation and revenue.
Revenue is doing well, and audiences mostly liked it.

If you're wondering where to check for that last one...don't look at RT or the like. Not for that question. For "will I like this?" - go for it.

I like my wife's term for the RT reviewer community: "Comic book store nit-pick geek club".
I don't fully agree, but in some respects, she's not far off the mark there. It definitely attracts a certain style of reviewer who has a "pop art" or "counter culture art" (two different camps) style aesthetic that I don't have in film consumption.

I can't prove it, but I think this split personality of their user base in stylistic choice is what drives the polarized rating behavior.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

LOL! Exactly! Definitely very similar for me.

*nods approvingly*

Precisely!

 

It did reflect the opening weekend. TLJ had 220 mill vs TROS 177. That’s a 20% drop on opening weekend. The general crowd does not watch cinemascore right off the bat to decide whether they turn up for the opening. Nor is there any word of mouth to speak of for the opening.

Word of mouth does effect the legs though...both TLJ and TROS will probably end up having terrible legs the way it seems now, unless something weird happens with TROS in the coming days and weeks.

https://www.google.no/amp/s/collider.com/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-box-office-monday/?amp

 

The first two nights were pretty even to the TLJ. No one pays attention to cinemascore, but the reviews for the film came in before the film was released. Critic reviews do matter. By Saturday/Sunday if you were on the fence about going the buzz around the film wasn't there. Before the reviews came in the trend data for TROS was better than it was before TLJ.

 

This isn't the complete picture, but it's a snapshot into the behavior a bit. (add healthy grain of salt)

Here's the google trends for each film during the same time window relative to their release date. The axis on the bottom is the day value in relationship to the day in theater. Day in theater numbers follow Box Office standards, so day 1 is "1". Day 2 is "2". Therefore, the day before the release on this chart is counted as "-1".
0 does not exist on this axis. This is done in case someone wants to cross check box office results as a cross reference against the google trends...using Box Office day number makes doing that a bit easier.



They are basically the same, but there's a noticeable drop in search pattern for TROS that deviates from the other two that starts by day 10. The other two films meet back up with TROS by day 20-ish.

Unlike TLJ and TFA, however, TROS never bounces back up in interest after it's first fall-off.

Conversely, TROS had a larger pre-release bump in search interest than either of the previous two films.

Note: This search data is only the United States.
Also keep in mind that google trends does not deliver raw values, but percent values relative to the largest search value in the set, so the axis on the left is percent value out of the maximum possible.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Nice chart. Seems very similar like you said, which makes it a tad unreliable in predicting box office openings. There’s a much wider variation between the 3 films actual opening weekend and 1st week that can not be seen to have been caused by the trend data.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 15, 2020, Original Post Date: Jan 15, 2020 ---

The actual numbers do not support that. I’ve just looked at opening night comparisons, which have a significant 11% drop from TLJ. (Don’t know if it is adjusted for inflation/increased ticket prices which furthers the divide)

I think you put too much into the trends, and critics, word of mouth simply can not explain opening night.

https://www.google.no/amp/s/ew.com/...ker-box-office-opens-below-the-last-jedi/amp/

 

I kind of feel like general audiences aren't really prioritizing Star Wars very high in general at the moment. I keep hearing and seeing folks speak favorably about the film, but they also only just recently watched it.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Here's a article from Deadline the day before the reviews came out...

Also...

So yes, the actual numbers support a strong interest in The Rise of Skywalker with strong buzz before the film's release. The only thing that changed after this report was the reviews and they came in pretty bad.

Reviews matter.

I agree with this assessment and kind of falls in line with a B+ audience score.

This is what I noticed during the run up to the film. I think Disney did a fantastic job withe marketing for the film. Instead of a drawn out campaign they really kicked it into overdrive the final 3 weeks.

 

And we've officially hit a billion!









Cheers,
Jayson

 

Sigh...we were discussing the factual numbers for the opening weekend, and lastly opening night. Posting an article from Deadline which is basically only conjecture opposed to the facts of the box office is hardly enlightening.

Reviews and trends matter, but there was clearly more at play here, with trends near the same and reviews not having that much of an effect on the opening. I will leave it at that.

 

If it were clear I'd agree with you, but the industry experts looked at the data and hedged their bets against bad reviews. A Star Wars film with a RT score in the 50s from critics kills buzz. The story the day before the film came out was how bad the reviews were for the film. The die hard fans who bought up all the tickets on opening night don't care, but the general movie fan cares. The film could have weathered some poor reviews if the audience scores and word of mouth were better, but they weren't. Had the reviews/audience scores been great and the box office was off I'd think you'd have a compelling case that TLJ hurt this film, but the trend data doesn't support that speculation.

So this looks like it's gonna finish better than Rogue One? It looked iffy there for awhile.

 

Maybe.
This thing's legs are really weird.
Usually legs just follow a steady progression up to a ceiling and stop.
This thing keeps going up and down.

Case in point, right? Go look at the past three days' change percent on mojo or numbers.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

This will chop into its legs even more:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/travis...1200-theaters-continues-plummet/#520b886451ce

 

I take umbrage with his off-hand conclusion made up without supporting material evidence that Disney is pulling the theater count because of the box office results being seen as bad by Disney.

That's too far of a reach of claiming knowledge of mind with no material to draw that link.

Maybe they did for that reason, maybe they didn't, but it's garbage to claim they did.

We'll know what Disney thinks on the Quarterly.
Until then, this kind of claim - without a quote - is bull.

But yes, a downshift in theater count will lower domestic. We'll see what international does.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

I agree, Forbes generally have a low quality on their personal opinions. Who knows the «why», and bound to happen some time anyways. Could even be due to legal contracts signed weeks in advance with the cinema owners or preplanning other releases.

What matters is that it will happen, and will affect the box office from now on.

 

My daughter works for an AMC theater, it greatly reduced the screens showing TROS this week. My understanding is AMC governs these decisions, not the producers or distributors.

I think box office returns are excellent and I wager Disney is fairly pleased. So many of the top grossing 20 movies of all time are Star Wars films, this franchise is bank. In fact, I'll go so far to say that the only Star Wars movie Disney is likely disappointed in was SOLO, which by any measure had truly dreadful returns for a Star Wars film.

Even though TROS might come in under TLJ, I wager Disney and their shareholders are still pretty happy. A billion-dollar box office is still a very great thing.

Also totally agree about Forbes, they offered up "click bait" hate articles on TLJ almost daily during the film's tenure at the theater and much of it was just wild speculation of insisting that all the fan rage on Reddit was indicative of the community's reaction as a whole.

Also check out the weird discrepancy in critic/fan ratings for both TLJ and TROS. Fascinating and I loved HelloGreedo's recent video on this subject: