What were the box office numbers for the prequels? Is The Last Jedi doing more damage than Clones?

It's not just about the movies. I MEAN it is about the movies, but it is more than that to Disney.

And about SW fatigue going away, not really. Spring/Summer 2019, STAR WARS Galaxy's Edge opens at the parks. There will obviously be a big ad build up towards that starting the end of this year. There will be a huge expected increase in park revenue when they open. Also expect something SW related to be packaged with Disney's TV service that hits in 2019 (live TV maybe?)

I can pretty much guarantee that the execs at Disney are taking the lower projected results very seriously. It's like what we say about A&M, the football team is the front door to the university. We all know that the football team isn't everything to the school, but it does drive perception. When the team is down it does have a drag on the university. The movies are the same way. If the movies aren't driving the DEMAND for the other stuff (shirts, park tickets, toys, etc.), then the whole corporate SW bottom line gets punished. All of the movies have made about $8-9 billion. All the other merchandising stuff has made $15-18 billion over the 40 years of SW.

Video games down, toys off projections, and then the films themselves earning less than expected. Disney has to, and will in my opinion, do something to stir up the demand. I think they tried that with TLJ a little bit, and it didn't work quite as planned. It will be interesting to see what their next move will be.

Watching the MI6 stuff today I found myself wondering how a Star Wars anthology film would do that was a full-bore adventure film with massive, MI level practical stunts.

I would murder another human being to see something like that.

redline248 said:

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What were the box office numbers for the prequels? Is The Last Jedi doing more damage than Clones?

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I posted all the BO numbers back 1 page but.....here you go:


Since BO is hard to compare 40 years apart I am listing original release numbers and tickets sold (by using the average ticket price for each year):


IV SW: $307M = 137.6M tickets
V ESB: $209M = 77.7M tickets
VI RotJ: $252M = 80M tickets

I TPM: $431M = 84.8M tickets
II AotC: $302 = 52M tickets
III RotS: $381M = 62M tickets

VII TFA: $936M = 111M tickets
VIII TLJ $610.8M = 68.1M tickets and counting
IX: TBD

and RO: $532M = 61.8M tickets


By BO draw yes it has more money and more tickets sold than Ep. II or III.

Note that the second movie has been the lowest in each of the other trilogies (including ESB widely considered the best)

Especially the same studio that mapped out the 20+ movies in the MCU years in advance.

MGS said:

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Especially the same studio that mapped out the 20+ movies in the MCU years in advance.

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Same studio? Lucasfilm and Marvel are the same studio?

To be fair, Marvel was at Paramount when the MCU began. I think they were at least a couple movies in before Disney acquired them, if not more.

They were also riffing on established characters and not building from scratch.

I think the real reason you haven't seen more structure and planning is Lucasfilm's desire to give directors freedom. But, from what we've seen with creative turnover, I think that must be something they misunderstood and would do over if they could. Worth noting that for the next trilogy it looks like it WILL have a master plan.

Toptierag2018 said:

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Can someone explain the logic behind creating a trilogy without having at least an outline of the entire story arc before hand? Is there any other examples of a trilogy where each movie was written individually without knowing where the story was headed?

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Isn't this overall lack of planning some of the major critiques of Lost (I've never seen on episode, just going by what I've heard) and Abrams' Star Trek Movies?

Can you imagine when TLOR was written if it was handled the same way? It would have been a disjointed mess.

Quad Dog said:

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Toptierag2018 said:

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Can someone explain the logic behind creating a trilogy without having at least an outline of the entire story arc before hand? Is there any other examples of a trilogy where each movie was written individually without knowing where the story was headed?

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Isn't this overall lack of planning some of the major critiques of Lost (I've never seen on episode, just going by what I've heard) and Abrams' Star Trek Movies?

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Having listened to some interviews about creating Lost, yes but that's not entirely fair. The timeline and number of eps/seasons changed a few times so they didn't ever know exactly what they were working with.

Lost was a freak situation that came together in unprecedented fashion. I give them a pass for literally not having the time to map it all out. That said, if you read the show's bible (industry term for what is essentially a pitch doc/outline/vision for the entire show), it's pretty amazing. They had A LOT figured out up front, at least in terms of episode ideas and character dynamics.

As for Star Trek, something like that can only be done a movie at a time, so I get it. That was a hugely risky venture (recasting the original characters as not just a reimagining, but the actual younger versions of those iconic actors) and no sane studio puts resources into developing anything other than a first movie in that instance. It's almost always a "let's see if the first one works" scenario.

Start Trek can't really be considered a trilogy, either, can it? Even with the semi reboot, they all still fall in the same umbrella of the original series, imo.

As for Star Wars, I don't know what's true anymore. In the 90s the story was that Lucas had the map for all 6 episodes, but upon realizing how long it would be started with the "best" part. Then in the last 6 years or so people think that's all bs.

redline248 said:

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Start Trek can't really be considered a trilogy, either, can it? Even with the semi reboot, they all still fall in the same umbrella of the original series, imo.

As for Star Wars, I don't know what's true anymore. In the 90s the story was that Lucas had the map for all 6 episodes, but upon realizing how long it would be started with the "best" part. Then in the last 6 years or so people think that's all bs.

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Lucas is a well documented liar when it comes to any plans about the franchise, from Day 1. His story on the matter changes virtually every time he tells it, but each time he acts like he's being consistent.

Disney does so mangy things right, how did they **** up a Star Wars trilogy...

Some fascinating tidbits on the ending of the show here, the full interview is great (think it's on Hulu).

...and for the record, I really liked TFA. Last Jedi just made it pointless, it feels like.

redline248 said:

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...and for the record, I really liked TFA. Last Jedi just made it pointless, it feels like.

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I think letting JJ finish it out will prove to be a good move and guarantee some closure.

Assuming Luke shows up as a force ghost to Rey, what will be her reaction to him? When she left him, she was pissed off and could have killed him.

Never seen that before. Super interesting.

AliasMan02 said:

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Watching the MI6 stuff today I found myself wondering how a Star Wars anthology film would do that was a full-bore adventure film with massive, MI level practical stunts.

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I like that idea.

My other thought has always been a "Saving Private Ryan" type of war movie set during the Clone Wars with a couple of previously unknown Jedi leading a platoon of Clones on a pretty much suicide mission. Obvious problem is the guy that played Jango is 16-17 years older now.

**** - saw all of the activity in this thread and assumed that we had a trailer release date.

TCTTS said:

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I can't think of any. For the life of me, I will never understand how/why they didn't just take six or so months and map this whole thing out beforehand. I can understand wanting to leave the opportunity for an incoming director to have certain freedoms, but even a loose plan would have still allowed for that.

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It's strange because I remember them referencing Marvel and Feige(so?) When they announced Kennedy as being in a similar role. Seems like they didn't completely understand what made the MCU work so well, or perhaps she just doesn't have the same level of vision as Marvel's guy?

CJS4715 said:

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It's pretty sad that I'm looking forward to a ****ing cartoon (Rebels) more than I am the next SW film.

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me too....

That cartoon had a framework in place and it shows... what a concept!

redline248 said:

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Start Trek can't really be considered a trilogy, either, can it? Even with the semi reboot, they all still fall in the same umbrella of the original series, imo.

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I would argue that the JJ-verse timeline is still a trilogy of movies, but differs in that instead of telling a story over three movies it's one story per movie but characters continue to develop throughout in both. Also, minus Into Darkness there's enough to probably say that the JJ-verse while similar is different enough to distinguish itself from the the prime timeline.

Generally in Star Trek's movies you have the TOS movies and TNG movies. Now the TOS crew had six movies under their belt, whereas the TNG crew had four iirc. Big difference in the franchises are that both crews had seasons of TV that established and developed the characters. We haven't had any characters crossover from the TV shows for Star Wars into the movies. Clone Wars and Rebels have pulled established characters from the movies though.