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The I've Seen Solo Thread (spoilers OBV)


captainbleh
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Ok, Force Awakens was released in 2015 so we can start that year.

 

2015

Force Awakens 936 mil

Age of Ultron 459 mil

Ant Man 180 mil

 

2016

Rogue One 532 mil

Civil War 408 mil

Doctor Strange 232

 

2017

The Last Jedi 620 mil

Guardians 2 389 mil

Homecoming 334

Ragnorack 315 mil

 

2018

Black Panther 698 mil

Infinity War 635

Solo 127

 

Obviously Marvel releases more movies and 2018 has been easily their best year ever. Black Panther had some outside factors that helped it to that kind of total. Infinity War was always going to be huge. If you were to rank the movies based on their domestic box office it would go:

 

Force Awakens, Black Panther, Infinity War, Last Jedi, Rogue One...a bunch of Marvel movies and then Solo. I;d think Solo would pass Ant Man, although maybe not. To be fair Marvel fairs better internationally but Star Wars has always been far more popular in the US than worldwide. I don't think that really matters for this discussion though because it was more about Star Wars sort of wearing out its welcome and becoming disappointing a the Box Office.

 

This year Marvel has had their best year ever, by far. I don't think we would expect this kind of huge numbers to continue though. I wouldn't expect Ant Man and the Wasp to make 600 mil. Worldwide Marvel is bigger than Star Wars, they release more movies and are more popular around the globe. I don't think that is any evidence of Star Wars losing popularity though, something else becoming extremely popular doesn't mean Star Wars is less popular.

 

Fact is this in 2015 Star Wars doubled Marvels biggest movie, 2016 was higher by over 100 mil, 2017 was highest by about 230 mil. This year has belonged to Marvel,they've had 2 juggernauts while Star Wars has had their worst release ever. Next year will be interesting with Avengers vs Episode IX. My guess is both will just make a ton and probably be fairly close at the BO.

 

In reality Star Wars challenge isn't going to be competing with Marvel at the highest levels. A big Star Wars movie is going to make plenty of money. Their challenge is to do what Marvel did in 2017. Release 3 movies, none of them huge Avenger movies, that made between 315 and 389 at the box office. That was Solo's job to make 350 mil. It failed, no doubt about it. But I don't think one movie doing poorly has to be indicative of certain long term troubles.

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Well without too much research Box Office Mojo has

 

Star Wars original release 307 mil

Empire original release 209 mil

 

Which puts Empire at 68% of Star Wars box office. Which is slightly higher than their overall takes but still basically right in line with the drop off of TLJ and AOTC.

True, but like I said, the original release was 18 months long, and some consider the second release an extension of the first. https://www.starwars.com/news/the-star-wars-saga-us-release-and-re-release-history

 

Unfortunately, my initial search without digging further, doesn't show how many weeks TESB was in theaters. I'll do some more digging when I have more time. I just had only the time to reply here.

 

(Frame of reference for box office figures for the Star Wars movies: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=starwars.htm )

 

Star Wars was in theaters 18 months because it was just that damn popular. That's kind of the point. Box Office was much different then, movies weren't frontloaded like they are now. Star Wars initial run was it's initial run, no matter how long it was. I;m sure no matter how we break down the numbers Empire fell off from Star Wats, whether its 32% of 34% or 28% doesn't matter. The middle movies of Star Wars trilogies have all fallen off a good amount from the first movie. Did Empire hold a bit stronger than Last Jedi? Probably yes. But I don't think TLJ Box Office was any kind of disappointment or rejection of Star Wars as a franchise.

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Those look like domestic totals.

 

Regarding Solos failure overseas, Ive read that part of the problem is that their first box office SW experience was the prequels. There was something going on in China during the late 70s and early 80s that prevented the OT from playing in theaters (cant recall what it was. Something political). As a result, most Chinese viewers only know SW for telling them how coarse sand is and therefore have no investment in Han Solo.

 

Having said that there is definitely a downward trajectory for SW. I cant explain Marvels success, because logic would tell you that fatigue would eventually set in. Black Panther was a meh film at best, one that followed the established Marvel formula, but it killed at the box office. Make no mistake, though, I love the Marvel thing. As a kid I could only fantasize about movies featuring Spider-Man, let alone Iron Man, X Men, Thor, etc. Hell they even gave me a reason to care about Dr Strange and Ant Man.

 

Its going to be interesting to see how Ep 9 does and, more importantly, how the next movies perform. Im of the opinion that they will disappoint. I think that Disney gambled on SW picking up the slack from Marvel fatigue and will lose when it eventually happens.

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Their challenge is post IX for sure. And frankly having a Fett movie announced maybe shows they don't ahve the best handle on what to do going forward.

 

Your take is TFA to TLJ went down and Rogue One to Solo went down so its just a downward trend. Mine would be TLJ was always going to go down from TFA and its drop is what you'd expect and not indicative of any kind of problem. Whereas Solo was just a mistake from the start, eventhough it's actually a good movie.

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I actually look forward to seeing Solo when it comes out on video. I can’t help but believe that it’s failure at the box office is due to viewers feeling let down by TLJ.

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I think the May (instead of December) release might have more to do with it than that. None of my friends hated TLJ. Most of them liked it more than I did. But only one of them has seen Solo so far. It's just not a movie that enough people think they have to see.

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I don't think Disney bought Lucasfilm as some sort of replacement for Marvel. They bought it because they want complete year round box office domination. They released Black Panther in February, a normal dead time for blockbusters. They are trying to do away with the notion that only certain times of the year can be big box office. They want to have a movie every month that kills the box office.

 

They have: Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar, In House Animation, Live action remakes of classic animation

 

They can release 3 Marvel, 2 Star Wars and one each of the other 3 and be at 8 potentially huge movies a year. I think they want even more. I think they want to release 12 big movies a year.

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Really though none of this is worth worrying about. If after IX Star Wars falls apart and by 2024 they stop making movies who really cares? Star Wars was supposed to be done in 1983 and then again in 2005. All these movies are just gifts. If you don't like or any of them, then just stop watching. Who cares? What have you lost? There is only to gain. A movie you don't like is a movie you don't like, you watch it once, maybe give it a 2nd chance and then if you don't like it, just dont watch it. If they make one you love then it's something you can love forever. There is only upside.

 

That's just how I look at it. I like all 4 of the Disney era movies, so even if I dislike every movie Disney makes from now until the end of time I have 4 more movies I enjoy. That's all positive, any potential movies I don't like, who cares?

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Crimson Dawn sounds like an Islamic terrorist group from an 80s-90s Schwarzenegger or Stallone movie.

My mind immediately leaped to the other 80s staple, Red Dawn.

 

I was more reminded of Asian Dawn, that one terrorist group Hans Gruber read about in Time Magazine.

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Really though none of this is worth worrying about. If after IX Star Wars falls apart and by 2024 they stop making movies who really cares? Star Wars was supposed to be done in 1983 and then again in 2005. All these movies are just gifts. If you don't like or any of them, then just stop watching. Who cares? What have you lost? There is only to gain. A movie you don't like is a movie you don't like, you watch it once, maybe give it a 2nd chance and then if you don't like it, just dont watch it. If they make one you love then it's something you can love forever. There is only upside.

 

That's just how I look at it. I like all 4 of the Disney era movies, so even if I dislike every movie Disney makes from now until the end of time I have 4 more movies I enjoy. That's all positive, any potential movies I don't like, who cares?

I certainly agree with that, but you know that Disney does not. They will never go under, but they want a profit. I can only imagine how hard it will be to for a marketing guy to negotiate SW airtime versus a Marvel rep.

 

Then compare that to 1983. Those are the same dipshits that failed to buy Marvel when it was cheap. All they cared about was Spider-Man , falsely thinking that no one cared about any of the rest.

 

The losers are ultimately the fans, which of course is all part of consumerism.

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Ofcourse Disney wants the movies to be successful and make money. As a fan thats what I want too. I just get the feeling from alot of fans a sense of anger or like something was done to them or taken from them when a movie comes out they don't like. I just will never get that.

 

Like I said long term I don't think Star Wars problem with be having the "huge" movie once in a while. IX will do fine and if they take some time off before another trilogy I think that trilogy would do big business too. Their challenge is to churn out 350 mil domestic box office movies time after time like Marvel does.

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I also think we need to stop looking at every single Star Wars release as a referendum on the franchise. Solo is the first Star Wars movie out of 10 to be a box office failure. 8 of the 10 Star Wars movies released have been the #1 movie the year of their release. Marvel has only had 2 movies be the #1 movie of the year. The Avengers and then I'm guessing this year Black Panther will take it unless Infinity War passes it. Marvel's first release was in 2008, its 2018 now so thats 11 years of releasing movies. They've been #1 twice in those 11 years.

 

That's not to knock Marvel, but no one said they were in trouble cause Ant Man did mediocre.

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They . . . kind of did reboot about 96% of the franchise.

 

Never mind! Never mind! Never mind!

But not the 4% casuals give a **** about so it's cool.

Fixed.

That's fair. I was just teasing you, of course, but your answer made me realize something. I AM a casual these days if I'm being honest. That's kind of a shocking revelation because I was OBSESSED with these movies growing up. Obsessed. The action figures, the comics, the few novels they had out.

 

The turn came when the EU novels started coming out in earnest. I read the first 15 or so and they were just BAD so I eventually quit. That combined with the PT put a bad taste in my mouth and I just moved on to other things without even realizing it.

 

It took Solo coming out and not giving a shit to really bring it home.

 

I'm just a casual Star Wars fan. Holy shit. My childhood self would be disgusted

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I'm right there with you, ShadowDog. I just feel like I can't be bothered with it.

 

I'm definitely a casual MCU fan, and i have only seen about half of them in the theater, but right now I'm way more excited about Ant-Man than I am about Solo. And I probably will wait for streaming for Ant-Man. Definitely more excited for Avengers 4 than anything Star Wars.

 

There are a lot of people who seem upset about the path Star Wars is taking, but for me it feels more like watching an old friend make stupid choices, but we've already grown apart anyways.

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Oh, I know you were teasing. My post was a troll post.

No shame in being a casual fan, really. I'm a casual fan of a lot of things, myself.

Yeah, there were some EU stinkers out there, especially in the early days. But there's so many great things in it that the entire body is endearing to me, including the crappy stuff. It's a microcosm of life itself: a mesh of awesome, crap, and everything in between. I just love the way it organically grew and had to creatively correct itself when new things were introduced by George Lucas via the prequels.

While the movies were what made me a fan and will always be special to me (I just finished a marathon, by the way), the EU has my devotion, to the point where I hold no interest in following those films that deviate from the universe I've come to know and love.

But in the end we are all Star Wars fans. We've all got that original Trilogy in common, for which reason I think we can all play together, even if we do like to take friendly jabs at one another every once in a while. This is why I have always felt right at home here at Nightly. I was briefly worried we'd have nothing in common once the movies went in a different direction from the EU, but that is clearly not true, for which I am thankful.

You guys are great!

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Fandom is a tough thing. Even at my current level, where I don't know if I care to ever see Solo, I'm still enough of a fan to seek out discussion about Star Wars.

 

So maybe it's like watching an ex make bad choices, but you're still secretly hoping that someday you'll end up together again.

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They . . . kind of did reboot about 96% of the franchise.

 

Never mind! Never mind! Never mind!

But not the 4% casuals give a **** about so it's cool.

Fixed.

That's fair. I was just teasing you, of course, but your answer made me realize something. I AM a casual these days if I'm being honest. That's kind of a shocking revelation because I was OBSESSED with these movies growing up. Obsessed. The action figures, the comics, the few novels they had out.

 

The turn came when the EU novels started coming out in earnest. I read the first 15 or so and they were just BAD so I eventually quit. That combined with the PT put a bad taste in my mouth and I just moved on to other things without even realizing it.

 

It took Solo coming out and not giving a **** to really bring it home.

 

I'm just a casual Star Wars fan. Holy ****. My childhood self would be disgusted

 

Don't worry there is other stuff about you that your childhood self would be far more disgusted by.

 

To be honest I'd like to think your childhood self would be more disgusted if you were still obsessed with the movies in the same fashion you were as a kid.

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Even though I couldn't care less about what direction these movies go in, for good or for ill, if I could offer the powers that be one piece of advice it would be this: LucasFilm must take a hiatus from Star Wars after 2020 (if not sooner), for about five years. They are clearly burning themselves out.

Now, I know that if Mara were here she'd say, "No, give me more Star Wars all the time!" Well, as I predicted, that mentality is ruining the product. I think most fans would prefer quality over quantity. As an EU fan, I most certainly can empathize with that. There were many times that Dark Horse Comics--especially toward the end--were producing Star Wars comics just for the sake of producing them, without much thought. The end result was what you might expect.

When a giant, sparkly, golden dollar sign takes occupies the space where your heart used to be, things go down the tubes fast.

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