Prequel trilogy more profitable than sequel trilogy

[Anthony W]

I always thought the prequel trilogy was better but I'm shocked to find out that it was more profitable as well. Link is below. Here is a taste...
"The Disney trilogy ($720 million) cost more than double the Prequel trilogy ($345 million). The Hobbit trilogy cost around $650-700 million while Lord of the Rings cost around $300-$350 million, and they both earned almost identical cumulative global grosses ($2.931 billion in 2012, 2013 and 2014 versus $2.96 billion in 2001, 2002 and 2003). The Disney Star Wars trilogy earned $4.475 billion on a combined budget of around $720 million while the Prequel Star Wars trilogy earned (not counting reissues) $2.437 billion on a combined $345 million budget. That Disney’s sequel trilogy was almost as profitable as the prequel trilogy, despite ballooning budgets and a massive increase in tentpole competition, makes Disney’s first batch of Star Wars movies an unmitigated commercial success."
Sounds like a four billion dollars well spent...when you factor in merch with the original and prequel characters that sell better

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottme.../#39eac40c6276

[Starter Set]

That's kinda heartwarming.

[Anthony W]

That's kinda heartwarming.

Brings a tear to your eye.

[godisawesome]

I think it’s also a bit fascinating because it kind of shows that for all the fear that Lucas had of Disney being the slave-driver motivated purely by profit, it might arguably have been *doubly* justified from the perspective that he’s better at making a profit than they are.

Of course, in hindsight, a lot of this is predictable as a result of some of the over-reaction people had against the prequels: Lucas's desire to have as many new designs, new worlds, new lore, and even to an extent the much lamented politics and kid-appeal characters were wrongly identified as problem by Generation X geeks, instead of the simpler answer that his execution wasn’t quite as good as it could have been.

I mean, all that stuff, plus his pushing LFL to be revolutionary in tech again, are all actually pretty ingenious profit-making and franchise cultivating decisions. He sometimes gets mocked for trying to make films for kids or for trying to make audience-pleasing films... but he’s the guy who made Star Wars a mega-franchise, rebuilt the merchandising game in his own image, and I’d say he’d a prime example of how understanding audience expectations is a *good thing.*

[Anthony W]

I think it’s also a bit fascinating because it kind of shows that for all the fear that Lucas had of Disney being the slave-driver motivated purely by profit, it might arguably have been *doubly* justified from the perspective that he’s better at making a profit than they are.

Of course, in hindsight, a lot of this is predictable as a result of some of the over-reaction people had against the prequels: Lucas's desire to have as many new designs, new worlds, new lore, and even to an extent the much lamented politics and kid-appeal characters were wrongly identified as problem by Generation X geeks, instead of the simpler answer that his execution wasn’t quite as good as it could have been.

I mean, all that stuff, plus his pushing LFL to be revolutionary in tech again, are all actually pretty ingenious profit-making and franchise cultivating decisions. He sometimes gets mocked for trying to make films for kids or for trying to make audience-pleasing films... but he’s the guy who made Star Wars a mega-franchise, rebuilt the merchandising game in his own image, and I’d say he’d a prime example of how understanding audience expectations is a *good thing.*

Wait a second....Disney paid 4 billion for Star Wars. The movies made 4.475 billion but Disney doesn't get to keep that all to themselves. The theaters and other folks still have to get their cut from that as well. So....did Disney lose money on Star Wars? Usually the merch would fill in the gap but the Disney Trilogy had a lot of trouble in that area.

[godisawesome]

Wait a second....Disney paid 4 billion for Star Wars. The movies made 4.475 billion but Disney doesn't get to keep that all to themselves. The theaters and other folks still have to get their cut from that as well. So....did Disney lose money on Star Wars? Usually the merch would fill in the gap but the Disney Trilogy had a lot of trouble in that area.

Since they still own the IP and are still collecting money on it and *did* use The Mandalorian to successfully sell Disney + and we’re seeing Galaxy’s Edge get overall good buzz and visiting, I think the question is a bit too simple to say for certain right now.

They were in effect making a $4 Billion investment, with the outright profit from the purchase being some years in the future regardless. They also did see an increase in investment from stock owners from this and similar moves like with the MCU.

I think thye’d still argue the move was correct and has made their company healthier and more profitable on the long run... but there’s certainly some question as to whether or not they reached/will reach the profitability-point they expected, or that they were on track for before TLJ’s release.

On a holistic level, I think that the biggest issues they had were not managing to maintain merchandising strength due to a creatively conservative approach in terms of iconography and merchandise produced... and managing to fumble the films a bit in the back half, through a weird combination of wanting to be artistic and cut-throat profitable at the same time, and just being overwhelmed in their goals and tasks.

I mean, I can see why marketing groups would firmly believe that cookie-cutter and copy-cat iconography and toy designs from the Original Trilogy would be “safer,” as would trying to treat the Expanded Universe as more restricted and limited than it was under Lucas for “quality control purposes.” On the surface of it, there’s limited risk to just producing TIE fighter and X-Wing toys that are only marginally different from the original versions, or telling cartoon makers and book writers they can’t be too ambitious, lest they step on the films’ toes, or to license the IP to a video game company that was ostensibly guaranteed to make profitable games in EA...

But that also means they ignored how much Lucas had embraced Star Wars as a “toyetic” franchise during the Prequel Trilogy that flooded the marketplace with so many fun and unique new toy designs that kids *had* to snap them up, how much LucasArts managed to produce wide-ranging and successful games, and how much ambitious and out-there EU material helped as well. And of course, it didn’t help that they trusted the more banal leadership of EA for a bit too long in the early days, or that they ultimately embraced a more stagnant, unexciting and somewhat regressive Philosophy for the Sequel Trilogy... even when trying to be bold.

I really do think that TLJ does play a part in the stagnation of the brand, even though it was trying to be bold and new. At the same time it was ostensibly being crazy and unconventional with Luke and other elements, it was also reorienting the ST around Kylo Ren instead fo Finn as a male lead, and arguably even instead of Rey... while also reorienting Kylo so that he wasn’t a merch-machine villain with a cool design but instead a brooding pseudo-Byronic Hero in a bland suit reeling of white male privilige at the worst possible time.

I mean, we all know that The Rise of Skywalker is basically just a remake of ROTJ that’s sloppy and trying to ape Avengers: Endgame... but TLJ isn’t any less of a remake of ESB and ROTJ that’s trying to be hipster cool and having a Vince Russo-esque belief that a “Shocking swerve” alone is substantial enough to grow the story - it’s basically ESB with ROTJ’s throne room scene, but a cancerously bland yet toxic “romance” in place of Han and Leia’s romance, a less interesting and more condescending story for its diverse cast-members, and a weird belief that declaring the Sequel Trilogy’s main character unaffiliated with the main family story is supposed to excite people.

Solo was a mess of BTS issues with a dubious main appeal based on a character who’s actor was probably more popular than he was.

But I think I could quantify that interest, investment, and fanbase sizes for Kylo, Finn, and Rey all decreased substantially after TLJ’s take on them - and in that order too, since I think that Kylo only lost fans of him as a great villain, while Finn fans mostly got insulted and repelled and Rey fans were forced to accept weak writing for her and an abusive relationship in order to support the TLJ trajectory for her. And all of that happened in exchange for trying to make a two-dimensional character in Kylo stand at the heart of the story and to try and give Luke a “more mature”/pretentious ending to his story than ROTJ did, and to no benefit for Rey.

Like, to be blunt, as bad as AOTC was and as uneven as the PT was overall for Anakin and co., no one ever had a problem selling Post-PT material focused on Anakin, the Clone Wars, and the entire setting.

Good luck trying to sell new stories with a Rey who pines after her abusive boyfriend in Kylo, in a Galaxy that’s just retreading the Original Trilogy with not much else on top of it. Finn’s now got the Force, but was rather sternly banished from both the character he was designed to complement in Rey, and from the central spotlight as well. Ben/Kylo’s got a hatedom as large as his fanbase because hers a love him or hate him Diet Anakin. And Poe’s story was so schizophrenic the films the lives couldn’t decide whether he was a mature Wedge Antilles-type of character or a Han Solo rip-off.

...And all this while Palpatine wins and effectively makes the OT heroes his suckers.