Star Wars The Last Jedi *SPOILERS*

[Sacred Knight]

Where is your source that families are walking out on the film? I'm finding nothing. In fact I'm finding more parental sources alleviating fears as opposed to warnings in regards to children. So I'm pretty comfortable calling B.S. on that. This film is no more dark than ESB was. You're acting like families went in and got something like Robocop.

[Carabas]

TLJ has underperformed domestically. However, there are far more reasons than the backlash for the lack of box office legs...

It's lack in box office legs does not seem to be based in a reality-based point of view.

[Serpico Jones]

TLJ has underperformed domestically. However, there are far more reasons than the backlash for the lack of box office legs:

1) Longer run time. Theaters can't show the movie as often and showings off of peak hours haven't done as well as TFA. Theaters with in-theater meal service were making a killing off of breakfast/brunch showings of TFA and Rogue One. Studio Movie Grill's breakfast/brunch menu is still Star Wars themed because this was huge for them.

2) Lack of family-friendliness. - Families wanting to take younger kids plus grandparents to movies over the holidays chose Jumanji over TFA. Demands for ticket refunds haven't been angry fanboys, it's been families walking out after about 20 minutes because they thought a 6 year old could see the movie and realized it's not a kids' movie.

3) Discounted Showings - Theaters have far more discounts for movies after their first 2 weeks of release. Frequently these deals are on Tuesdays, so people who want to see it again know they can just go on Tuesday and get a cheap tickets. Reserve seating makes it even easier and people are buying tickets weeks in advance to get a good seat for $5. Many of these discounts have only started in the last year.

Deadline's Friday preview of the weekend's box office (http://deadline.com/2018/01/the-comm...ce-1202241724/) has no mention of TLJ and Jumanji is expected to once again be the top movie. TLJ is a non-factor for this weekend's box office. It will likely be outside of the top 5.

Here's their Friday preview for MLK day weekend from last year: http://deadline.com/2017/01/patriots...ce-1201883066/ "Over four days, Fox’s Hidden Figures, Disney/Lucasfilm’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and CBS/Lionsgate’s wide break on Peter Berg’s Patriots Day are all in contention to gross between $20M-$22M to take the top three slots on the chart."

In terms of weekly box office, Rogue One and The Last Jedi will be about the same for week 4 (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdow...oguevforce.htm). Mojo hasn't updated yet today, but the last few days TLJ has been pulling in very similar numbers to Rogue One. It's only 30% above Rogue One because of the opening. The numbers now are exactly the same.

Scott's Mendelsohn's Forbes article about TLJ having more legs than Rogue One was completely off since it's not academy awards movies that TLJ has to deal with, it's far more competition which is taking screens. Disney required theaters showing TLJ to put the movie in their largest theater for 4 weeks and 65% of box office revenue went to Disney. If theaters broke Disney's rules, that went to 70% of revenue. Jumanji was doing better than Last Jedi and Last Jedi was longer, so some theaters decided that it was worth it to break Disney's rules.

The reason Disney could demand such terms was because TFA did so well and SW have such high multipliers. They're expected to keep bringing in ticket sales through January. When it comes to making demands to theaters about Episode IX, Disney is not going to be able to ask for that amount of the profits nor the same amount of demands. Disney will make far more money off TLJ because of the deal with theaters, but even if Episode IX makes more at the domestic box office, Disney will make less profits because they won't be able to make such ridiculous demands.

So, Bob Iger will not be happy because TLJ hurts Disney in the long term since they won't be able to make insanely ridiculous demands of theaters showing Star Wars movies in the
future. Ultimately, that's a good thing since it helps theaters be more profitable. But he's going to be upset that the movie wasn't more family friendly and shorter, and why Jumanji is taking that business away from SW.

I agree with most of this.

[Serpico Jones]

Where is your source that families are walking out on the film? I'm finding nothing. In fact I'm finding more parental sources alleviating fears as opposed to warnings in regards to children. So I'm pretty comfortable calling B.S. on that. This film is no more dark than ESB was. You're acting like families went in and got something like Robocop.

Yeah, I don’t understand his point on that either. I think kids will be bored by this movie because of the bloated runtime and useless characters but it’s not dark or violent at all.

[ClanAskani]

Yeah, I don’t understand his point on that either. I think kids will be bored by this movie because of the bloated runtime and useless characters but it’s not dark or violent at all.

Actual reports from theaters. Here's one report online: https://www.hsx.com/forum/forum.php?id=3&pid=439983

Fanboys might claim they're walking out and demanding refunds but at least information from theaters says it isn't happening. Fandango probably keeps track of cancelled ticket sales but that probably has more to do with weather than angry fanboys.

Common Sense (https://www.commonsensemedia.org/mov...-the-last-jedi) provides another prospective. They have 10+ recommendation on their review with parents saying 11+.

Families are the big reason Jumanji is outdoing TLJ right now. From personal experience, I know my cousin saw it opening night and then decided that he wasn't going to be able to take his almost 5 year old stepdaughter. He did see Jumanji around New Years with his whole family and his 90 year old grandmother (not sure the humor in that movie is right for either the 5 year old or the 90 year old).

The usual violence in Star Wars movies is ships blowing up or random red-shirts getting killed. Literally rooting for a character to essentially die in the beginning of the movie isn't the same as the OT or Prequels. It's something you might expect more in Dunkirk than Star Wars. Or Rogue One. I personally liked that part, but some families might not be all that happy with it. But then again, there's parents who look young children to Deadpool.

The average age of the audience for TFA actually kept increasing rather than decreasing, so the appeal of TFA wasn't just to families but that's the audience that Disney is losing to Jumanji and Paddington should do well. Disney doesn't have a movie in January and their next release is Black Panther so that's got to be annoying them when they could have a movie in the mix for MLK day.

There have been fewer Sensory Friendly screenings of TLJ than TFA. Wonder and strangely Greatest Showman were both getting more of those screenings. Shorter run-time might factor in, but the type of parents who take their kids to those screenings are more likely to complain about violence.

Edited to add: People really have walked out of Jumanji and demanded a refund. There's a hilarious negative audience review for Jumanji on RT that someone says they walked out because of one of the jokes. For any major release it's something that happens.

[ClanAskani]

BoxofficeMojo did update. This is an interesting way to look at the data: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdow...oguevforce.htm

Multiple days this week TLJ was slightly behind Rogue One's daily box office. From this point in their releases, Rogue One made $47 Million and TFA $111 Million. If TLJ stays slightly above Rogue One, it likely ends it domestic box office run at $630 Million.

This trend was happening two weeks ago, but now it's readily apparent that there's problems with the legs of TLJ. In a normal release, it's not a problem but the fees Disney is charging theaters for TLJ means it was expected to finally make theaters profits from more than just concession sales.

[Scott Taylor]

Maybe the actual lightsaber/force training actually doesn't take that long anyway, hence Luke and Rey's quick learning. In the prequels, it's strongly implied it takes the first twenty years or more for a Jedi to become a knight....

I'm guessing it that in addition to the force powers/lightsaber stuff, they'd probably also have other, more normal disciplines as well-remember they're basically a sort of peacekeeping/diplomatic force too rather than just good fighters with powers. Chronologically the first thing the Jedi do in the series is basically try to negoatiate a trade dispute!

The movies seem to all indicate that lightsaber training and force training aren't as much about the skills to wield them effectively so much as its about discipline and control. The Jedi Council didn't want to train Anakin because he would be too unpredictable (i.e., uncontrollable). And they were right!

In the prequels the Jedi were depicted as a bunch of people who had gotten too comfortable as the power brokers of the force.

[WebLurker]

TLJ has underperformed domestically. However, there are far more reasons than the backlash for the lack of box office legs...

2) Lack of family-friendliness. - Families wanting to take younger kids plus grandparents to movies over the holidays chose Jumanji over TFA. Demands for ticket refunds haven't been angry fanboys, it's been families walking out after about 20 minutes because they thought a 6 year old could see the movie and realized it's not a kids' movie.

Last Jedi was rated PG-13, something that was made very clear on all the posters and advertising. I don't know how much more clearer they could've made it that it's not a kids
movie.

So, Bob Iger will not be happy because TLJ hurts Disney in the long term since they won't be able to make insanely ridiculous demands of theaters showing Star Wars movies in the
future. Ultimately, that's a good thing since it helps theaters be more profitable. But he's going to be upset that the movie wasn't more family friendly and shorter, and why Jumanji is taking that business away from SW.

I don't really get this "it's a failure because it didn't outdo TFA" thing. TLJ's profits put it in the black and it's still bringing in revenue. There's also merchandise sales, future DVD/BluRay sales. etc. TLJ is not a failure by any means. Besides, going in, no one was thinking that it would outdo TFA in box office sales. We always knew that it would be a relatively modest seller in comparison.

[Soubhagya]

It will most likely end up between 630 million to 650 million domestic. Perhaps less but hardly greater. That would make its weekend multiplier less then 3. Worldwide it would cross 1.3 billion. But it may not cross 1.4 billion.

In a way those numbers can be looked as a disappointment. But the numbers are such that calling it under performance is tricky. It would probably end as 5th highest of all time domestic. And 1.3+ billion is still a gigantic number. Its unfair to call it a disappointment. No film series shall be expected to earn 1.5 billion per film. Such films can be counted in one's hand.

The multiplier looks bad in comparison. (Rogue One had 3.43X, TFA had 3.77X). But then the film opened to such numbers that even if it earns more then Rogue One it still ends up being lesser. Multipliers are important to gauge audience interest in the franchise. But Star Wars is something which hardly needs to prove itself that audience aren't interested. Had the multiplier been less then 2 then it would have been a cause of concern. Batman V Superman was that. Followed by SS, its result finally showed in Justice League.

The next film does not have Rian Johnson. And its the final film of the trilogy. Those things probably would help it even if a number of fans are burnt by TLJ. Time will tell.

We don't know what the execs were expecting. That is where one can actually see whether they were disappointed or not. Are they not happy with the BO of TLJ? Probably. But its not a cause for alarm whatsoever. One shall not expect that each film of a series would earn 1.5 billion+, even if it is something like Avengers or Star Wars. These films have the 'possibility' of reaching such numbers. But its not something like a birthright for them.

[abulafia]

gawd, i don´t get this obsession with numbers.
it is a cheap copy of ESB. latest analogy i found was luke saving himself while frozen via force pull, leia saves herself while being frozen via force pull.
luke is in a coma, leia is in a coma.
endless list

so now fuel is an issue? what is next? we never saw someone using a toilet in star wars.

you can have it. i just don´t enjoy it anymore

[ClanAskani]

Last Jedi was rated PG-13, something that was made very clear on all the posters and advertising. I don't know how much more clearer they could've made it that it's not a kids movie.

Trailers and TV spots are required to have a spoken and visual PG-13 and the MPAA is cracking down on spots that say it too quickly. But still parents don't get it. There were far too many kids going to Deadpool. Studios see PG-13 the sweet spot that has the widest possible audience - adults and kids. Parents see PG-13 as not a violent as R but still for kids.

Unfortunately the PG rated Paddington sequel opened very poorly despite 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. The first movie was very sweet but certain parents think PG movies are for kids under 5.

I don't understand it either. But probably parents take kids who have seen the previous movies and Avengers and then realize that there's elements their kids are upset by.

I don't really get this "it's a failure because it didn't outdo TFA" thing. TLJ's profits put it in the black and it's still bringing in revenue. There's also merchandise sales, future DVD/BluRay sales. etc. TLJ is not a failure by any means. Besides, going in, no one was thinking that it would outdo TFA in box office sales. We always knew that it would be a relatively modest seller in comparison.

I don't think the expectation was to out do TFA, but not do this much lower. If you were a theater owner, would you let Disney back you into a corner with the worse deal theaters have gotten for a movie that only made $630 Million? If the projections were $770 Million to $850 Million then that makes far more sense.

Friday's estimates have TLJ at $2.72 Million. At the same time of their release, Rogue One made $3.2 Million. TFA made $6.38 Million. Deadline's projections are for TLJ to make $14 Million over the 4-day holiday weekend where Rogue One made $16.8 and TFA made $33 Million.

It was expected that the regular episode movies would made far more than the standalone spinoffs like Rogue One. But what's happening is that the difference is the opening. After the opening weekend, Star Wars movies have their set group of fans. Maybe some fans turned off by Luke's portrayal have been replaced by Reylo fans. But Rogue One and TLJ are doing essentially the same after that initial huge opening for TLJ which was only off of TFA's opening by 11%. The difference in that decrease can be explained by the longer run time causing fewer screenings in peak hours.

With the deal Disney is getting with the amount of box office revenue, they're making more money off of TLJ. It's just their next deal they negotiate with theaters for Episode IX will put Disney in a much weaker position and maybe it does do as well as TFA.

Merchandise, home video and digital will probably be down compared to TFA since Star Wars was everywhere there. The question is if there's a plateau and they've found their audience or a decline. With so much hype over the deleted scenes in TLJ, I wonder how many people are saving up for the Blu-Ray rather than going to see it in the theater multiple times.

Edited to add: The theater count for TLJ dropped 1,142 this week (theaters were required to run it for 4 weeks). Disney's execs will see this as indicative of a larger problem than the 2nd week drop. Rogue One dropped 995 after 4 weeks and TFA only dropped 312. Jumanji picked up an additional 48 theaters this week (it's 3rd week of release).

[ChrisIII]

gawd, i don´t get this obsession with numbers.
it is a cheap copy of ESB. latest analogy i found was luke saving himself while frozen via force pull, leia saves herself while being frozen via force pull.
luke is in a coma, leia is in a coma.
endless list

so now fuel is an issue? what is next? we never saw someone using a toilet in star wars.

you can have it. i just don´t enjoy it anymore

Fuel more or less got the saga's main arc rolling in the prequels....

RIC OLIE : There's not enough power to get us to Coruscant...the hyperdrive
is leaking.
QUI-GON : We'll have to land somewhere to refuel and repair the ship.

QUI-GON studies a star chart on a monitor.

OBI-WAN : Here, Master. Tatooine... It's small, out of the way, poor... The
Trade Federation has no presence there.

[WebLurker]

Trailers and TV spots are required to have a spoken and visual PG-13 and the MPAA is cracking down on spots that say it too quickly. But still parents don't get it. There were far too many kids going to Deadpool. Studios see PG-13 the sweet spot that has the widest possible audience - adults and kids. Parents see PG-13 as not a violent as R but still for kids.

Unfortunately the PG rated Paddington sequel opened very poorly despite 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. The first movie was very sweet but certain parents think PG movies are for kids under 5.

I don't understand it either. But probably parents take kids who have seen the previous movies and Avengers and then realize that there's elements their kids are upset by.

PG-13 means recommended for thirteen on up. The rating itself means: "not for kids, but not R" (think teen on up). Of course, it's up to parents to know and decide what they're kids are ready to see and what they're not. It's also the parent's responsibility to know what they're taking their kids to beforehand.

I don't think the expectation was to out do TFA, but not do this much lower. If you were a theater owner, would you let Disney back you into a corner with the worse deal theaters have gotten for a movie that only made $630 Million? If the projections were $770 Million to $850 Million then that makes far more sense.

Friday's estimates have TLJ at $2.72 Million. At the same time of their release, Rogue One made $3.2 Million. TFA made $6.38 Million. Deadline's projections are for TLJ to make $14 Million over the 4-day holiday weekend where Rogue One made $16.8 and TFA made $33 Million.

It was expected that the regular episode movies would made far more than the standalone spinoffs like Rogue One. But what's happening is that the difference is the opening. After the opening weekend, Star Wars movies have their set group of fans. Maybe some fans turned off by Luke's portrayal have been replaced by Reylo fans. But Rogue One and TLJ are doing essentially the same after that initial huge opening for TLJ which was only off of TFA's opening by 11%. The difference in that decrease can be explained by the longer run time causing fewer screenings in peak hours.

With the deal Disney is getting with the amount of box office revenue, they're making more money off of TLJ. It's just their next deal they negotiate with theaters for Episode IX will put Disney in a much weaker position and maybe it does do as well as TFA.

Merchandise, home video and digital will probably be down compared to TFA since Star Wars was everywhere there. The question is if there's a plateau and they've found their audience or a decline. With so much hype over the deleted scenes in TLJ, I wonder how many people are saving up for the Blu-Ray rather than going to see it in the theater multiple times.

Edited to add: The theater count for TLJ dropped 1,142 this week (theaters were required to run it for 4 weeks). Disney's execs will see this as indicative of a larger problem than the 2nd week drop. Rogue One dropped 995 after 4 weeks and TFA only dropped 312. Jumanji picked up an additional 48 theaters this week (it's 3rd week of release).

Maybe. I find that trying to read the numbers gets really hard to decipher (esp. given that we all come to it with different perspectives and look for patterns that fit our biases). However, if TLJ is failing, I'm very sure that most studios would kill for a failure of a movie like this.

[abulafia]

Fuel more or less got the saga's main arc rolling in the prequels....

RIC OLIE : There's not enough power to get us to Coruscant...the hyperdrive
is leaking.
QUI-GON : We'll have to land somewhere to refuel and repair the ship.

QUI-GON studies a star chart on a monitor.

OBI-WAN : Here, Master. Tatooine... It's small, out of the way, poor... The
Trade Federation has no presence there.

lol? i respect you as a SW fan and you cite the phantom menace?
where the shield generator was disabled while the shields were online?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOlG4T1S2lU&t=4m8s

leaking implies that the "hyperdrive" is selfsustaining and just needs to be fixed. refuel and repair sounds like a general statement.

fuel is an issue. but what kind of?

x-wing with their hyperdrive capabilty always gave the rebellion an edge. operating/raiding freely. luke flies around the galaxy without refueling. my impression has always been that fuel wasn´t that much of an issue in star wars because energy is not that much of a problem?
if you fit an expansive hyperdrive on a starfighter initial cost maybe high, but got a highly flexible response unit. while the empire focused on domination with star destroyer presence

and you compare different scenarios. in TPM they wanted to go from the outer edge of the galaxy to its core. outer rim to center. while TLJ has a sublight chase. 2 different things

[Buried Alien]

lol? i respect you as a SW fan and you cite the phantom menace?
where the shield generator was disabled while the shields were online?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOlG4T1S2lU&t=4m8s

leaking implies that the "hyperdrive" is selfsustaining. refuel and repair sounds like standard procedure.

fuel is an issue.

x-wing with their hyperdrive capabilty always gave the rebellion an edge. operating/raiding freely. luke flies around the galaxy without refueling. my impression has always been that fuel wasn´t that much of an issue in star wars because energy is not that much of a problem?
if you fit an expansive hyperdrive on a starfighter initial cost maybe high, but got a highly flexible response unit. while the empire focused on domination with star destroyer presence

In the original STAR WARS (doesn't get purer than that, does it), X-Wing and Y-Wing fighters were shown being refueled on Yavin 4 prior to the attack on the Death Star.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)