How The Phantom Menace Killed the Star Wars Franchise

I went to Yahoo.com. AOTC has made 202 million dollars domestically in only two weeks. It's doing fine.



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I don't care how much money the movies make. If you go by money, TPM is a better movie than ANH, ESB, and ROTJ. Uhhhh, right.

 

Read My Sig






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Wouldn't a more accurate topic be "How the critics and disgruntled fans tried to kill the Star Wars franchise"?

 

How about "Critics whine, while most fans love Star wars....again."

 

Oh dear.

 

It's funny that despite all the money that AOTC is making, all the people I talk to who are NOT huge Star Wars fans that all seem to like this film a lot and the substancially better reviews overall... it's funny that Jabbadabbado is thinking the Star Wars franchise is dead. Some people really are not very attached to reality and it's rather sad I think.

Let's all remember however, that negative opinions are welcome here. So long as they are presently civilly, and we must ALL remain civil as well.

 

ShaneP, if you're going for accuracy, you have to say:

"Many critics pan AOTC, and more of the public stays away than ever before, but most fans remain loyal to their favorite movie saga."

There is no getting around the fact that, for whatever the reason, AOTC is going to have trouble making $300 million U.S., meaning that fewer Americans, by a huge margin, will see AOTC than any other Star Wars movie.

The notion that TPM created legions of fans, young fans in particular, just cannot be substantiated by the box office numbers. If those fans are there, why aren't they going to AOTC?

 

There is no getting around the fact that, for whatever the reason, AOTC is going to have trouble making $300 million U.S.
-- Jabbadabbado

Just because you like to announce your opinion as FACT I have taken this quote and put it in my sig to remind me to rub your nose in this bantha poo doo when AOTC makes more than $300 million.

 

AOTC is going to have trouble making $300 million U.S.,

Its at 200 after only 12 days, how can you possibly believe it will struggle to get to 300?

 

That next $100 million is going to take a long, long time.

 

Quite why people are so obsessed with box office returns baffles me, which is probably down to the fact that I failed Maths at school, but I think the only people who should care how much money a film makes at the cinema are the producers and directors of it.

Yes, The Phantom Menace may have killed the Star Wars franchise, but based on my own experience, Attack of the Clones has brought it back to life again. And could people please be polite to each other, even though you disagree? It would make eveything a lot nicer.

 

That next $100 million is going to take a long, long time.

Dont be so sure, your over confidence is your weakness

 

I am going to laugh so hard at this pathetic trolling attempt when AOTC becomes the 2nd fastest film to make $300 million. You just wait.

 

Oakessteve makes a valid point. He says AOTC has reinvigorated Star Wars fandom for him. That may actually be true for the vast majority of current, preexisting fans.

I see myself as a very small minority in my overall dislike for the movie...among fans.

A 41% drop from week to week in the box office numbers indicates that the public at large, however, sees AOTC as just another crappy megahyped blockbuster that gets a huge opening weekend and quickly slides into oblivion.

When AOTC failed to beat Spider-Man's opening weekend, everyone made excuses, including Lucasfilm which declared that AOTC would be a "marathon runner." Well, it's less of a marathon runner than Spider-Man. It's less of a marathon runner, certainly, than any other Star Wars movie.

 

Hey Jabba....

*waves arms*

Hi yeah... it's now Tuesday. Why don't you use the numbers for the whole weekend now instead of just Friday?

For the normal weekend period -- Friday to Sunday -- George Lucas' $115 million digital epic took in $47,480,000, down 41% from its $80,027,814 opening and ranking as the fifth biggest second weekend ever.

-Box Office Mojo.

Let me repeat that last part:

FIFTH BIGGEST SECOND WEEKEND EVER

Yes, thank you.

 

Because of the holiday Monday, Sunday did better than usual. Without the holiday Monday, the weekend drop would have been about 45-46%. You'll see a drop even higher than that next weekend for the same reason, because the Sunday will be compared against an inflated holiday Sunday.

So I'm guessing that AOTC will stabilize at around a 43-44% week to week drop. Conservatively, however, I modeled AOTC at only a 41% drop.

 

Hey you have made your statements of opinion. Let's just sit back and watch how AOTC does.

 

Jabba has his own opinions. Only time will tell whether he is right or not. Just do not modify your point just so you can prove yourself right. In other words, do not change your statement of opinion as fact from "tough making 300 million" to "will not make 350 million" and so on.

One of the more ludricis statements made on this thread was made not by Jabba but by Jar Jar. He/She (not insulting you, just don't know your gender) said MIB2 and Austin 3 were just if not more anticipated. They may be anticipated but if they just produce the same old formula, then their first week end may do well but subsequent weekends they will drop considerably, witness: last summer.

 

Ironically this whole thread shows how much bashers despise TPM box office take of 430 mil. Bashers always say TPM is the worst movie ever yet that BO take seems to keep hitting them in the face so they write it off as a fluke, saying people are sheep, they went to see it because it was SW, blah blah blah. Fact is if TPM was such a bad movie it would have tailed off but instead it got repeat viewings for the summer, doesnt happen for bad movies really, SW or not.

Now bashers are going to use a weak argument that TPM was a bad movie based on AotC domestic gross, yeah right, sure. First, AotC is going up against much stronger competition this summer, particularly Spider-Man which is doing very well. Second of all TPM had 16 years of hype going for it, AotC doesnt have that same hype so it's only common logic that AotC make's less than TPM, everyone already knew that going into the summer, has nothing to do with jaded fans. Third of all AotC stands at 201 mil domestcally after 2 weeks and your claiming the next 300 mil will be hard to reach. AotC made 200 mil in 12 days TPM made 200 mil in 13 days. For 300 TPM made it in 28 days so will wait and see how AotC does, it has 16 days to keep pace. Also you forget that AotC is doing exceptionally well overseas and could beat TPM worldwide.

Most analysts are predicting a take of around 325-350 mil for AotC, this would put AotC in the top 10, this by no means is an indication that either TPM or AotC are bad movies but quite the opposite really. AotC would have done much worse if it was such a bad movie or if fans were jaded over TPM, ths is not the case.

 

Notice how they would blame TPM for AOTC's supposed "low" performance.

 

No it didn't. You just want to think it did.

 

Actually, I am noticeing some people are aping what the critics are saying. "bad plot, bad direction, bad this..."

I don't know...a lot of people have said that they were "boared the first half of it" Which means the polotics/Romance did not intrest people...just Star Wars Fans. Obi-wan-Detective, I thought was pretty cool...but apparently that didn't do it for them.

Some people actually liked Spiderman better. The reasons being is that Spiderman is new. That Peter Parker and Mary Jane were people they could relate to.


But out of 20 people I know, only three didn't like it. And I am not sure about the drop off....One Sunday Show I went to was sold out. Wonder where the drop of is occuring?

Look, all I know is that while it is painful that ATOC isn't top dog, it is still doing remarkably well. If it makes 350 million dollars- I will be a happy camper.

If it doesn't....I still love the movie.

 

I wanna see if the new Spiderman franchise makes as much money as Star Wars. My hunch is that it will end up like Batman, falling on it's face when it starts to run out of bad guys to feature.

All in all, who cares how much money AOTC makes? All I care about is how much I enjoyed it and that there's another episode in the pipeline.

 

I have a lot of unprovable theories, but I am the first to admit it. I cannot prove that the public didn't like TPM. The box office evidence that people went to see TPM is irrefutable. And I have also said that no one has ever offered real evidence that the public didn't like TPM.

However, I believe that AOTC's box office reveal that Star Wars has lost 30-40% of its audience. Whether that is because the public thinks AOTC is a worse movie than TPM, or because TPM drove away 40% of Star Wars' built-in audience in the U.S. may never be known.

I tend to agree, in part, that TPM is a better movie than AOTC. AOTC is far more shallow in its entertainment goals. TPM, at least, set high narrative goals for itself even though it was unable to fully achieve them, whereas AOTC went straight for the lowest common denominator without any apologies.