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Post #1319518

Author
DrDre
Parent topic
The Rise of Skywalker box office results: predictions and expectations
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1319518/action/topic#1319518
Date created
13-Jan-2020, 1:52 PM

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.