logo Sign In

The Rise of Skywalker box office results: predictions and expectations — Page 25

Author
Time

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

I’m not sure how anyone could be saying it might not break a billion. They’d have to pull it from theaters to accomplish that.

DrDre said:
but given the recent history, and Abrams’ reputation, I don’t think many people expected a masterpiece. Hence, this outcome was not all that suprising to some of us.

If you look at the Tomatoemeter (i.e. the only “review” that matters for the vast majority of the audience), TROS has 53%, which is a massive drop off from the next lowest rated Abrams film (Mission: Impossible III, which also disappointed). Regardless of your personal feelings on TFA, that film was a mostly unanimous success, with a 93% rating. That’s a very significant difference from TROS. Even the flop Solo had a 70%.

There’s a difference between not getting overwhelmingly positive reviews and getting bad reviews. 53% is far outside the realm of what people have come to expect from things like Star Wars and Marvel.

Like I said, I think the film was better recieved by fans, and the general audience, than critics, many of whom viewed it as a capitulation to TLJ’s critics. In any case, I expected mixed reviews from critics, though perhaps a bit more positive than they were in the end. I didn’t believe anything other than it being a truly great film could push it beyond TLJ’s numbers. This coupled with waning interest in the brand led to my own predictions for this film.

If you look at audience ratings metrics, there’s only one where it surpasses TLJ (RT, where there was infamously a review bombing campaign). The most unbiased appraisal of audience reception is Cinemascore, where TROS got a B+ vs. TLJ’s A. That’s a significant drop off. I don’t doubt that general audiences aren’t as mad as people on the internet about this movie and think it’s better than critics do, but they also just generally don’t like it as much as the last two.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I don’t know how you can disagree that people feel it’s bad. People obviously feel that it’s bad. Bad movies still make money (Michael Bay’s very existence is proof of this phenomenon) - but that’s a different argument than the one I’m making, which is that this movie would have made MORE money had it not been bad. TFA was well-regarded! But it was well-regarded because of it’s safeness. That reputation came immediately, and further, was considered a very smart move. The studio CEO basically admitted as much in his recent biography. Had this movie been “safe” along the same lines, it likely would have gotten a better reception and avoided the word of mouth that is obviously hurting it at the box-office. Movies with good word of mouth don’t have the Friday-to-Saturday drops this film had early in its run. Movies with good word of mouth don’t get those drops AT ALL, really.

The general audience can like it more than the critical reception and the movie can still be overall poorly recieved if the critical reception is low enough. Batman v. Superman (or similarly, Suicide Squad) is the example I keep coming back to here, and I think it’s very much applicable.

Again, this isn’t to say that had the movie been good that the predictions around 700mil DOM and 1.5bil WW would have won out. Its ceiling probably would have been +/- 20mil of The Last Jedi’s numbers. But I don’t think the numbers we’re seeing now could have happened without the film coming in THIS far under anyone’s expectations, quality-wise.

Author
Time

Star Wars adjusted for inflation:

Star Wars - $1,497,057,186
The Force Awakens - $1,006,872,847
The Empire Strikes Back - $880,005,730
Return of the Jedi - $847,248,129
The Phantom Menace - $822,741,783
The Last Jedi - $628,253,896
Rogue One - $556,450,789
Revenge of the Sith - $540,446,942
Attack of the Clones - $487,136,844
The Rise of Skywalker - $478,169,690 (still in theaters)
Solo - $213,767,512

Doesn’t seem like the sequels are any more cause for alarm than the prequels. TRoS should pass AotC soon. The prequel and sequel trilogies seem to each have an entry that exceeds expectations and another that falls below expectations. The first movies appear to perform the best. Solo seems to be the only real outlier and I liked Solo very much.

Author
Time

Sidebar: Adjusting for Inflation is a pretty terrible metric, not only because the math is pretty clunky and imprecise, but because it also doesn’t account for a large number of competitive factors that contribute to attendance levels fluctuating yearly. It’s a big problem with box-office analysis/discussion in general - the decision to not measure by tickets sold is a built-in failing, but also completely unavoidable at this point due to how marketing-friendly the dollars-earned number was and still is.

Adjusting for Inflation doesn’t level a playing field so much as it just redistributes the lumps according to an overly simplistic formula.

A more accurate way to acknowledge historical context would probably be to measure the distance between how much each movie made compared to how much the average film in its release year made. That way you’re effectively comparing how much more popular each Star Wars film was than the other films that came out in that release year.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Broom Kid said:

I don’t know how you can disagree that people feel it’s bad. People obviously feel that it’s bad. Bad movies still make money (Michael Bay’s very existence is proof of this phenomenon) - but that’s a different argument than the one I’m making, which is that this movie would have made MORE money had it not been bad. TFA was well-regarded! But it was well-regarded because of it’s safeness. That reputation came immediately, and further, was considered a very smart move. The studio CEO basically admitted as much in his recent biography. Had this movie been “safe” along the same lines, it likely would have gotten a better reception and avoided the word of mouth that is obviously hurting it at the box-office. Movies with good word of mouth don’t have the Friday-to-Saturday drops this film had early in its run. Movies with good word of mouth don’t get those drops AT ALL, really.

The general audience can like it more than the critical reception and the movie can still be overall poorly recieved if the critical reception is low enough. Batman v. Superman (or similarly, Suicide Squad) is the example I keep coming back to here, and I think it’s very much applicable.

Again, this isn’t to say that had the movie been good that the predictions around 700mil DOM and 1.5bil WW would have won out. Its ceiling probably would have been +/- 20mil of The Last Jedi’s numbers. But I don’t think the numbers we’re seeing now could have happened without the film coming in THIS far under anyone’s expectations, quality-wise.

Because it has mixed reviews, meaning a slight majority of critics liked the film. Bad movies get RT scores of <40%, implying that a vast majority of critics dislike the film. Additionally, not everyone’s expectations for this film’s quality, or its reception were very high. Mine weren’t. I didn’t expect it to be the worst movie ever, nor do I think it is a truly bad movie. I think it has a weak story, and a weak script, but I also believe JJ has a talent to make even the worst screenplay come to life. So, as pure popcorn entertainment, I think the movie works. However, like I said, I feel the numbers indicated interest in the franchise was waning, and TLJ didn’t really leave TROS with story threads to get people pumped for this film, and so I didn’t think it was likely, it would come close to TLJ’s total BO.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

DrDre said:
Additionally, not everyone’s expectations for this film’s quality, or its reception were very high.

Again, I’m not saying expectations for quality needed to be “very high.” High 70’s/low 80’s isn’t “very high.” But there’s a big gulf between even low 70s and where it is (53)

That gulf is a big reason why it’s earnings are where they are. Expectations didn’t need to be “very high” for the reality to be jarring, and for that jarring reality to negatively affect the box-office somewhat significantly.

Author
Time

Probably worth mentioning as well that even if you’re not a fan of the ST, the last two movies got 93% and 91%. So even if you weren’t personally expecting it to be good, it wasn’t unreasonable that most would suspect it’d be in the same ballpark as the last two.

Author
Time

DominicCobb said:

Probably worth mentioning as well that even if you’re not a fan of the ST, the last two movies got 93% and 91%. So even if you weren’t personally expecting it to be good, it wasn’t unreasonable that most would suspect it’d be in the same ballpark as the last two.

It wasn’t unreasonable, but at least to some of us, the critics ratings didn’t tell the whole story.

Author
Time

Broom Kid said:

DrDre said:
Additionally, not everyone’s expectations for this film’s quality, or its reception were very high.

Again, I’m not saying expectations for quality needed to be “very high.” High 70’s/low 80’s isn’t “very high.” But there’s a big gulf between even low 70s and where it is (53)

That gulf is a big reason why it’s earnings are where they are. Expectations didn’t need to be “very high” for the reality to be jarring, and for that jarring reality to negatively affect the box-office somewhat significantly.

I didn’t expect it to get into the high 70s, low 80s. I expected it to be in the low to mid 60s. While it came out a bit worse than that, I would not have expected the film to have done much better, if it had a 65% RT score.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

Probably worth mentioning as well that even if you’re not a fan of the ST, the last two movies got 93% and 91%. So even if you weren’t personally expecting it to be good, it wasn’t unreasonable that most would suspect it’d be in the same ballpark as the last two.

It wasn’t unreasonable, but at least to some of us, the critics ratings didn’t tell the whole story.

My point is that regardless of how you think you’ll feel about it and how you think non-critics will receive it, it wasn’t unreasonable to suspect that it would get a high RT score, because the last two films did.

DrDre said:

Broom Kid said:

DrDre said:
Additionally, not everyone’s expectations for this film’s quality, or its reception were very high.

Again, I’m not saying expectations for quality needed to be “very high.” High 70’s/low 80’s isn’t “very high.” But there’s a big gulf between even low 70s and where it is (53)

That gulf is a big reason why it’s earnings are where they are. Expectations didn’t need to be “very high” for the reality to be jarring, and for that jarring reality to negatively affect the box-office somewhat significantly.

I didn’t expect it to get into the high 70s, low 80s. I expected it to be in the low to mid 60s. While it came out a bit worse than that, I would not have expected the film to have done much better, if it had a 65% RT score.

To my point, unless you predicted the film would be significantly worse than TFA and TLJ, I’m not sure why you would think it would score that much lower than those two, which you already don’t think are good.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

DominicCobb said:

DrDre said:

DominicCobb said:

Probably worth mentioning as well that even if you’re not a fan of the ST, the last two movies got 93% and 91%. So even if you weren’t personally expecting it to be good, it wasn’t unreasonable that most would suspect it’d be in the same ballpark as the last two.

It wasn’t unreasonable, but at least to some of us, the critics ratings didn’t tell the whole story.

My point is that regardless of how you think you’ll feel about it and how you think non-critics will receive it, it wasn’t unreasonable to suspect that it would get a high RT score, because the last two films did.

DrDre said:

Broom Kid said:

DrDre said:
Additionally, not everyone’s expectations for this film’s quality, or its reception were very high.

Again, I’m not saying expectations for quality needed to be “very high.” High 70’s/low 80’s isn’t “very high.” But there’s a big gulf between even low 70s and where it is (53)

That gulf is a big reason why it’s earnings are where they are. Expectations didn’t need to be “very high” for the reality to be jarring, and for that jarring reality to negatively affect the box-office somewhat significantly.

I didn’t expect it to get into the high 70s, low 80s. I expected it to be in the low to mid 60s. While it came out a bit worse than that, I would not have expected the film to have done much better, if it had a 65% RT score.

To my point, unless you predicted the film would be significantly worse than TFA and TLJ, I’m not sure why you would think it would score that much lower than those two, which you already don’t think are good.

Because I felt there was a danger, JJ and Disney in general would want to please everyone. Like they say, if you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. After Palpatine was introduced as the big bad, I also expected the film to be rather heavy on fan service, and Star Wars tropes, and to thus be more in line with TFA, backtracking somewhat from the direction TLJ took the story, which I felt would not go over well with many critics.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Broom Kid said:

Sidebar: Adjusting for Inflation is a pretty terrible metric, not only because the math is pretty clunky and imprecise, but because it also doesn’t account for a large number of competitive factors that contribute to attendance levels fluctuating yearly. It’s a big problem with box-office analysis/discussion in general - the decision to not measure by tickets sold is a built-in failing, but also completely unavoidable at this point due to how marketing-friendly the dollars-earned number was and still is.

Adjusting for Inflation doesn’t level a playing field so much as it just redistributes the lumps according to an overly simplistic formula.

A more accurate way to acknowledge historical context would probably be to measure the distance between how much each movie made compared to how much the average film in its release year made. That way you’re effectively comparing how much more popular each Star Wars film was than the other films that came out in that release year.

Yes, adjusted for inflation has a lot of flaws. It gets worse the farther apart the eras you are comparing are. I still thought it was interesting, so I posted it.

I think it’s also interesting to compare Star Wars and the MCU.

Domestic Box Office Totals Star Wars + MCU

The Force Awakens - $936,662,225
Avengers: Endgame - $858,373,000
Black Panther - $700,059,566
Avengers: Infinity War - $678,815,482
The Avengers - $623,357,910
The Last Jedi - 620,181,382
Rogue One - $532,177,324
The Rise of Skywalker - $478,169,690 (still in theaters)
Avengers: Age of Ultron - $459,005,868
Captain Marvel - $426,829,839
Iron Man 3 - $408,992,272
Captain America: Civil War - $408,084,349
Spider-Man: Far From Home - $390,532,085
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 - $389,813,101
Spider-Man: Homecoming - $334,201,140
Guardians of the Galaxy - $333,172,112
Iron Man - $318,604,126
Thor: Ragnarok - $315,058,289
Iron Man 2 - $312,433,331
Captain America: The Winter Soldier - $259,746,958
Doctor Strange - $232,641,920
Ant-Man and the Wasp - $216,648,740
Solo - $213,767,512
Thor: The Dark World - $206,362,140
Thor - $181,030,624
Ant-Man - $180,202,163
Captain America: The First Avenger - $176,654,505
The Incredible Hulk - $134,806,913

I find reviews and box office numbers fascinating. It’s like a sports fan following scores and statistics. In the end, I still like what I like regardless.

Author
Time

Rodney-2187 said:

I find reviews and box office numbers fascinating. It’s like a sports fan following scores and statistics. In the end, I still like what I like regardless.

This is 100-percent the best way to look at it, I agree. Numbers are fun and it’s the closest thing to the feeling I used to get back when I was a kid collecting baseball cards and comparing the stats. Box-Office is basically fantasy sports for people who aren’t into actual sports that much, haha.

Author
Time

I think expectation plays a lot into it. I think that after the controversy of TLJ and the failure of Solo, no one was expecting an Oscar quality film. I think the direction they took was not unlike TFA and the critics wanted something else. I think most people who didn’t like it were expecting something else (or expecting what we got but no liking that). I read a lot of the RT critic reviews and it seems unreasonable that the final installment of a trilogy, much less a 9 movie saga, is not going to have some story call back to the past. To some that is critically called fan service where I see a lot of that as just being inherent to a movie being part of a series. I don’t think Abrams played it as safe as he did with TFA. I think he took risks because this is the best work I have seen from him.

I find it odd with as good as I think the film is for the critics to blast it too harshly for being just what it is - the end of a trilogy and the end of a trilogy of trilogies. But I think that the critic response plus the lower audience reaction fits in with that. While the PT ended with a better movie, a lot of people find ROTJ to be the weakest film of the OT. I see several trends that indicate that this film was never going to make as much as TFA. That film was the start, something new. It had Star Wars starved fans and more casual viewers interested and entering it with an open mind. TLJ and Solo both disrupted part of that interest. So I don’t think the results are at all surprising. It was hard to know if it would do better or worse than TLJ, but my guess was (and where I got my number guesses from) it would do something close to TLJ and it seems to be on course to do that. Not as good, but still the numbers indicate a profitable film.

Author
Time

I agree the expectations going in were what led to the weak opening, the word of mouth is what’s inspired more recent talk of possibly not making a billion.

“The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.” - DV

Author
Time

act on instinct said:

I agree the expectations going in were what led to the weak opening, the word of mouth is what’s inspired more recent talk of possibly not making a billion.

It would be almost impossible for it not to break a billion at this point. It will take months to get the final numbers as it goes to second run theaters.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

It is worth taking into consideration that there were 2/3 good quality cam versions of TROS that leaked online within the first few days of the film release. It is also on many dodgy streaming websites, and available on nearly all IPTV and firestick type services (which are apparently becoming more popular & accessible - and easier to use - with each passing year).

Whilst many may want to watch the final installment of the main saga on the big screen for their first viewing of the film… having such options to watch the film from the comfort of your armchair for second or third viewings etc may well have affected cinema takings.

The average film fan may opted also to watch the film online given the quality of cams available - and families struggling for money - especially around this time of year… may have opted for that option rather than spend $40-60 etc at the cinema on tickets alone; with the release of the film on dvd, blu ray and 4k UHD come March…
 

That’s not just an issue for TROS - it is the same for many films released in cinemas this time of year that have decent quality leaks quickly appearing online.
 

A little patience goes a long way on this old-school Rebel base. If you are having issues finding what you are looking for, these will be of some help…

Welcome to the OriginalTrilogy.com | Introduce yourself in here | Useful info within : About : Help : Site Rules : Fan Project Rules : Announcements
How do I do this?’ on the OriginalTrilogy.com; some info & answers + FAQs - includes info on how to search for projects and threads on the OT•com

A Project Index for Star Wars Preservations (Harmy’s Despecialized & 4K77/80/83 etc) : A Project Index for Star Wars Fan Edits (adywan & Hal 9000 etc)

… and take your time to look around this site before posting - to get a feel for this place. Don’t just lazily make yet another thread asking for projects.

Author
Time

I don’t think that’s a valid explanation. Cam rips have been available for almost every big blockbuster in recent years. A relatively high quality cam rip of Endgame was released just a few days after the film released, and it still became the highest grossing movie of all time. I think the biggest factor in declining numbers for TROS is the mixed to negative word of mouth, from both critics and fans.

My preferred Skywalker Saga experience:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

Author
Time
 (Edited)

StarkillerAG said:

I don’t think that’s a valid explanation. Cam rips have been available for almost every big blockbuster in recent years. A relatively high quality cam rip of Endgame was released just a few days after the film released, and it still became the highest grossing movie of all time. I think the biggest factor in declining numbers for TROS is the mixed to negative word of mouth, from both critics and fans.

A quick example… around one third of IPTV services went off-line for a short while earlier this year due to incidental police raids. That was 50-60 million accounts for IPTV affected alone - not firesticks, not streaming sites, not downloads, nor torrents (all of which are more prevalent and easier to use and find with each passing year).

Plus, like I said, it is not just a problem for TROS - it is for many films released at this time of year.

Endgame was released in April - not around Christmas where money can be tight(er) for many families. If Endgame hadn’t had a quality cam released within days it too, like many other films, would have likely made even more money at the box office.
 

If you disagree, then fair enough 😃
 

A little patience goes a long way on this old-school Rebel base. If you are having issues finding what you are looking for, these will be of some help…

Welcome to the OriginalTrilogy.com | Introduce yourself in here | Useful info within : About : Help : Site Rules : Fan Project Rules : Announcements
How do I do this?’ on the OriginalTrilogy.com; some info & answers + FAQs - includes info on how to search for projects and threads on the OT•com

A Project Index for Star Wars Preservations (Harmy’s Despecialized & 4K77/80/83 etc) : A Project Index for Star Wars Fan Edits (adywan & Hal 9000 etc)

… and take your time to look around this site before posting - to get a feel for this place. Don’t just lazily make yet another thread asking for projects.

Author
Time

I don’t think the cam versions had any impact. They have been around since TPM and so have easy distribution of them. And it isn’t like ROTS where an actual lower quality digital copy of the movie leaked the week before the film came out. And it went on to do better than AOTC. I collect cam prints so we know what the original theatrical version really were. That is the only way we have the original AOTC.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

The Rise Of Skywalker crosses the $1 billion mark - in less than a month since release…

https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Star-Wars-The-Rise-of-Skywalker-(2019)#tab=box-office

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3305145857

&

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker ascends to $1 billion at worldwide box office’:-

https://ew.com/movies/2020/01/15/star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-1-billion-box-office
 

A little patience goes a long way on this old-school Rebel base. If you are having issues finding what you are looking for, these will be of some help…

Welcome to the OriginalTrilogy.com | Introduce yourself in here | Useful info within : About : Help : Site Rules : Fan Project Rules : Announcements
How do I do this?’ on the OriginalTrilogy.com; some info & answers + FAQs - includes info on how to search for projects and threads on the OT•com

A Project Index for Star Wars Preservations (Harmy’s Despecialized & 4K77/80/83 etc) : A Project Index for Star Wars Fan Edits (adywan & Hal 9000 etc)

… and take your time to look around this site before posting - to get a feel for this place. Don’t just lazily make yet another thread asking for projects.

Author
Time

rocknroll41 said:

So is the expectation still that it’ll settle around $500 million domestically?

It is almost there.

Author
Time

Han: Hey Lando! You kept your promise, right? Not a scratch?
Lando: Well, what’s left of her isn’t scratched. All the scratched parts got knocked off along the way.
Han (exasperated): Knocked off?!

Author
Time
 (Edited)

$501,583,140 domestic
$544,600,000 international
$1,046,183,140 total

^ according to https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3305145857
 

TROS surpassed Rogue One’s total of $1,056,057,273 after 42 days in the cinemas (Rogue One was in cinemas for 140 days):-

https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Star-Wars-The-Rise-of-Skywalker-(2019)#tab=box-office

The FE Renegades thread; from the people who post ‘go kill yourself’, ‘fuck you’, ‘let’s throw abuse’, and more at OT staff & members. Four years on and still throwing accusations, slurs and abuse at the OT & anyone outside their Salacious Crumb filled clique. + FE Discord “to vent” more at the OT. Wook’s take.