ST Episode VII Box Office Discussion

I know I said we'd see more and more $1.5 billion movies, but I also think 2015 is going to stand out relative to 2016, and whatever the final result, TFA's box office is going to add considerably to a banner year for megablockbusters.

2016 looks like a relative bust. Captain America is one of Marvel's weaker sub brands. Dr. Strange? Alice in Wonderland sequel?

Finding Dory and Rogue One may well end up being the highlights of Disney's 2016. Disney will be looking back on the results of TFA with plenty of nostalgia next year.

Finding Dory literally looks to me like the only movie of 2016 with serious $1 billion plus potential. You might be able to fuse Captain America 3 and X-Men Apocalypse into a single $1.5 billion movie.

You know as well as I do that all 250k of those will be snapped up by grizzled old fans tripping over their canes to get at the print run. When was the last time anyone under the age of 30 bought a comic book copy to read? 1989?

 

These are the numbers for the original releases of each film adjusted in today's dollars. As you can see AOTC's percentage drop is less than TESB's drop to ANH.

Star Wars (adjusted) $1.15 billion
TESB (adjusted) $640 million

Phantom Menace (adjusted) $688 million
Attack of the Clones (adjusted) $422 million

Again it's comparing apples to oranges. The state of film in the 70's/80's is vastly different than 99/02.

 

Well, I'm not even 20, yet I buy comics every once in a while. Your point is still pretty valid, though.

 

that's pretty typical for me.

 

You're completely entitled to your opinion of course but I find this perplexing.

Disney bought Lucasfilm so that Marvel films could be more successful?? Whaaaaat???

Star Wars is predominantly for over 40s males? Like somebody said doesn't that apply to Marvel which is even older??? You are seriously underestimating the lure of Star Wars. So the record number of You Tube hits for the teasers are due to predominantly over 40s males??


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I agree about the times being different, which is why i found Attack of the Clones's drop more disappointing.

Star Wars was an event film, there was nothing like it and people went to see it over and over again, while even those who didn't see it more than once, paid in least a ticket in order to see what the fuzz was all about. Empire Strikes Back was never going to make nearly as much, however, it came at a time when these sequels were very rare, sure, James Bond films were continuous and neverending, but that was not the norm, and no Bond film came close to what SW was doing. Up until that point, most sequels only made a franction of the originals, which is what happened with More American Graffiti, Jaws 2 and even with the likes of Godfather II. One of the reasons this happened was also due to films not being released in home media yet and people having to see them in the theaters in order to know the plot before watching the sequel.

In the 2000s however, you already have ways to watch films at home however you want, which is why many sequels now make more than thei predecessors.

I never argued the Prequels weren't successful, just that the franchise hasn't had nearly as much of a cultural impact in this generation than it did in the 80s, otherwise, it would have had the same kind of impact the likes of Harry Potter did with this generation.

 

The MCU is going into an uncertain time in the next few years though. Sure, the last 7 years have been crazy successful for them but they're going to lose their biggest stars soon and the new slate is unproven. Ant-man, their first new character solo movie in some time, is doing just okay at the box office (although that is certainly their most obscure/out there concept) and there's no of knowing if audiences will take to Dr. Strange, Black Panther and Captain Marvel. Buying Star Wars definitely fills the gap nicely and allows them to compete with another property while Marvel goes through a transition phase.

 

Even if the PT killed the franchise (it didn't), you've still got people born between 1970 and 1990 who lived through the release of the OT and its mid-to-late '90s resurgence and were the right age to experience the OT in their formative years. Most men aged between 25 and 45 will be seeing TFA at the movies--I damn near guarantee it. And that's exactly the demographic who have kids the right age to be going to see TFA with their dads. So even discounting the "PT generation", you've still got a really good spread for attendance, and this film will also draw out people who rarely go to the movies any more.

This idea that SW is exclusively for guys in the 40s just doesn't add up.

 

I was at my 4 year old's daughter's gymnastics lesson today. Between trying to make sure she paid attention to her teachers (instead of rolling on the ground and goofing around lol), I overheard a bunch of 7-9 year old boys behind me talking about Star Wars. Not sure what they were specifically talking about. My point is that there are kids who are into it.

I still think that for the post-PT generation that likes SW, they were probably prodded along by parents (mostly dads-yes), but it is kind of like a Skylanders thing to them. It is steeped in mystique and they will be excited that a new movie is coming out. One can almost equate it to the old Batman shows in the 60's followed by a resurgence of Batman in the 80's, but with less time between them. (btw I have always LOVED the old Batman show and watched them religiously as reruns in the mid-to-late 70's).

 

That's not a bad analogy, actually. I had fond memories of watching the West Batman with my dad in the early '80s, and when the Burton movie rolled around in '89, I couldn't have been more excited. Everything old was new again, and it was thrilling.

 

Overall, I feel that this film will be a huge success. Will it beat out Avatar and become the highest grossing film ever? Maybe, but only time will tell. I feel that, without a doubt, this film will make around 1 billion-1.5 billion with ease. You have around three or more generations of Star Wars fans, some of which have kids who will be introduced to Star Wars through TFA, and people who have never seen any of the films before and want to start here (I saw many people like this in the Youtube comments section for the second teaser). Star Wars is also huge all around the world. And, as far as I am concerned, the franchise is still very much in the public eye. I remember how much coverage the two teasers got, and how it seemed like you couldn't escape it. Beyond TFA, you also have Disney XD's constant airings of the Rebels series, a large amount of books, comics, and games, and the toys are some of the best selling year after year, despite the fact it's been a decade since the last film. For crying out loud, we celebrate an entire day to the franchise. How many franchises have an entire day dedicated to them? How many franchises can remain relevant 10 years after the last film?

 

You guys are way too conservative. You don't have to look far for predictions in the $700 million U.S., to $1.9 billion worldwide range. Some people seem convinced that TFA is fundamentally going to be bigger than the adjusted gross of the combined releases of The Phantom Menace. There doesn't seem to be anyone in this thread who trusts the franchise as much as some of these so called outside experts like the bozo at Morgan Stanley.

Those kind of predictions are basically saying: "TFA is going to be the biggest Star Wars movie since 1977 Star Wars." I'm gratified that most of you understand how absurd that is.

 

I don't think it's entirely absurd the huge 3 billion+ runaway blockbuster biggest movie ever predictions, I just think it's unlikely due to the release date / trying to predict much longevity the film will have at the box office. But not impossible, hell did anyone foresee how much cash Jurassic World was gonna rake in? Sure you can quarkerback it after the fact but beforehand, I'd say JW's total haul big unknown and certainly not what it did. But I'd honestly peg TFA vaguely somewhere in the Age of Ultron / Jurrassic World / Furious 7 area. Which is still, y'know, probably landing in one of the top 5 movies of all time, not bad.

to put it another way, by the end of TFA's theatrical run:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/

This list will no longer have Transformers Dark of the Moon in the top 10 movies of all time.

 

I think considering the release date it does have the potential to be a huge record breaker BUT it needs to be very high quality.

If it's well regarded it could sustain a really abnormally long stint in the cinema because of the lack of any real competition.

 

Gotta agree with that. I'm saying $500m domestically, but that's assuming fairly average conditions overall. If the movie really grabs audiences and gets great WOM, all bets are off. And I can definitely see that happening, though I'm not saying it necessarily will happen.

 

I still think $600m in the US alone.

Look at the competition in December -

• Krampus
• In the Heart of the Sea
• The Lady in the Van
• Star Wars The Force Awakens
• Sisters
• Alvin & the Chipmunks
• Joy
• Point Break
• Daddy's Home
• Snowden
• Concussion

January is even more sparse -

• The Hateful Eight
• KungFu Panda 3
• London Has Fallen
• The Finest Hours

Honestly think if TFA is any good at all it might just run and run and run....

 

It's a fair point. But just because something has a clear run doesn't guarantee that people will go to see it. I'll be surprised if it doesn't beat AOU, but beyond that I just can't say.

That said, the real battle will be between JW and TFA. $600m isn't out of the question at all. But for me, $500m is the floor.

 

I dunno, I really wanted to see Ex Machina only to realise it spent a whole 2 weeks or something at the cinema so I have to wait months now to get it on Bluray.

I seem to remember (back in the good old days) that films would stay in the cinema a bit longer than they do now, I'm a pretty busy guy and I travel a lot so I don't always get to the cinema as quickly as I'd like.

 

I know what you mean. Ghostbusters opened in Aus in mid-November and I'm pretty sure I saw it in January. But ROTK, which was anticipated as the final LOTR film, made $500m adjusted, released on the same weekend, and it didn't fall out of the top 10 until its 11th weekend and had four weekends straight at #1.

 

I would say that January has the only films that could slow Star Wars down a bit: Hateful Eight and KungFu Panda, since Tarantino and the KFP films usualy make great business.

But yeah, Star Wars doesn't have any major competition, if it's realy good and entertaining, it won't slow down for a long while.

 

The movie is NOT going to make $600 million domestically. It's just not going to happen. Likewise, it isn't going to make $2 billion worldwide. That's crazy for even SW due to it's restraint on fanbase. I am not saying it's a "crusty old 40year old's franchise" but unlike Titanic, Avatar, and even JW, it's a franchise where you have to be invested in the climate and culture of the mythos. Titanic, Avatar, and JW have all been open ended. Avengers was somewhat more constrained but the assembly of superheroes was a novelty. SW should be able to break $500 million if it's halfway good and I'd think it would have a great shot at $1.5 billion worldwise. But after the confines of the fanbase and their families (yes, including children) it will wear off within 4-5 weeks. It won't make over $20 million for 10 weeks straight like Avatar or Titanic did. It's unreasonable to think so. It's going to be a holiday smash hopefully getting at least very close to $400 million by January 3. That will be around 80% of it's box office total, MAYBE 75%.

 

Very true, films used to hang around in the cinemas a lot longer. But I suppose back then there weren't as many screens. For instance back in the 80's where I lived we had 2 cinemas within half a mile of each other - a 3 screen Odeon cinema and a 3 screen ABC cinema, neither showed the same films either, so SW was only on at the Odeon for example and it was only on 1 screen.

Nowadays in these huge cinemas with 10 or more screens the big films are running on more than 1 screen so its on virtually every hour of the day, so its no wonder films don't get as long a run time wise at a cinema.

Also there was no home release within 3 or months of the cinema run, it was years before they popped up on video to buy. That meant films could get another run in the cinema too.

Happy days though.

 

I think TFA has novelty within it's own franchise. First Star Wars movie without GL directly involved. First Star Wars with a female lead and black male (this is a big one). GL not being involved can go either way. I think having a female and a black man in the lead will be a positive. Star Wars probably won't catch Titanic unless they get a sexy male and female lead and pull off a great love story. Times are different than 1977 or 1999 for sure. Star Wars is still popular across the world but the biggest star is still Harrison Ford and he is not getting teenaged girls excited to see the film. Kylo could end up drawing a huge female following because teenaged girls love the dark mysterious bad boy. If Kylo is portrayed that way and Rey/Finn have great on screen chemistry TFA might beat JW. If the young audience connects with these three characters that will be the difference of $500 domestic vs $600+. I doubt we will see it top $700 but I could be and I hope I am wrong.

 

Empirically, of course, it doesn't matter what any of us believes. There's some intangible and virtually impossible to quantify combination of brand appeal, movie quality and marketing that will get some number of people of some age and gender mix into the theater, worldwide, for one or more viewings of the movie.

If Star Wars makes $1.5 billion worldwide, it will be because more people want to see it both in the U.S. and worldwide than wanted to see Revenge of the Sith, nearly doubling the revenue from that movie. Certainly inflation alone can't account for that. Ticket prices haven't doubled since 2005 worldwide, although the average price has increased significantly once premium 3D ticket prices are factored in.

If TFA makes Revenge of the Sith money in the U.S., adjusted for inflation, with a similar domestic/foreign box office split, it will make a bit less than $1.1 billion.
If TFA makes Revenge of the Sith money in the U.S., adjusted for inflation, with a domestic/foreign box office split similar to Jurassic World, it will make a bit less than $1.2 billion.

The question you need to ask yourself is how much bigger is Star Wars today than it was in 2005. How many more people are interested in seeing a new Star Wars movie now than they were in 2005?

 

Why be disappointed at all? I think you are just setting yourself up for some incredible disappointment in the future.

Box office is all well and nice to have talks about and try to figure out what it might mean market-wise afterwards but that is about all.

All we can say is that the audience enjoyed the movies and the word of mouth was good and people entertained.

Again then the hope would be that TFA DOESN'T do so well like ANH and TPM and that way it can "build up" over time like Fast and Furious or Austin Powers.

Going to your favoured worldwide stats HP was "all downhill" after 1 for the next 6 movies until HP8 which finally outgrossed it 10 years later. That 300M came from years of international theater growth and markets opening which really has nothing directly to do with the movie itself that is simply industry expansion.

On the domestic side which is a far better comparable in a relatively stable market HP8 was also the only movie to surpass HP1

Of course it didn't. It couldn't. That was impossible. It already happened for one and on top of that you did have Harry Potter which WAS the "Star Wars" of books and a generation of children plus simply the emergence through digital technology of being able to do movies that were impossible to do before like Harry Potter itself and LOTR and Spider-Man and continuing on now with all the SF, Fantasy and Superhero movies that exist now.

TFA will be an event in the mold of the previous six movies (possibly the entire sequel trilogy). After that I very much doubt that the Anthology series will be. Big movies? Sure. EVENTS? I doubt it and with the crowded marketplace.

You can't be something no one saw coming when people see you coming because it's happened already.

Yes so take that 1.1B or so and then add in the box office from Asia which could be a couple of hundred million or more and could be 1.3B or more or could be AOU type money.

No one should be disappointed with that anymore than AOU which is only now 130M overall behind Avengers.

Worldwide far more people can go now that couldn't before. In the US of course it costs more so likely not as many people will go as AOU domestically has sold less tickets than ROTS. 3 million tickets less sold but that much more expensive and with premium tickets hence making 76M more. Of course ROTS was also the number one movie of the year domestically by far some 90M over The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe while AOU is second so far well behind JW.

I would say that the chances of TFA being ahead of JW are fairly low.