Why did ESB do so badly at the Box Office

Here is a graph comparing the number of TICKETS SOLD for each star wars movie. I was shocked that ESB sold so few tickets in the first 50 days. ANH was the biggest movie hit the world had ever seen. You would think people would be rushing to see the sequel.


http://www.the-numbers.com/features/starwarst.gif

 

Good question, that. Yes, I think everyone who loved ANH was rushing to see ESB, but because ESB was darker and had no ending there were less people who went back to see the film time and time again. Or that's as far as I can remember hearing, anyway. You see, the gross box office takings aren't based on the amount of people who saw it, but rather the amount of people who went back to see the film time and time again. In ESB's case, less people went back to see it time and time again than they did the other two movies. Ironic really, considering how ESB has become known as the best movie in the saga. I myself, though, always preferred ESB to ANH, 'cause even as a kid I preferred the mature drama of ESB to the uplifting atmosphere of ANH.

 

Where is that graph from?

EDIT: Oh, good site.

Anyway, if you look closer at the stats:

AOTC:
Number of theatres opening: 3161
TESB:
No. of theatres opening: 126

When you have 25 times the number of theatres on opening, that tends to help.

After 50 days in release, AOTC had a 47% drop in money while TESB had a 1% increase. Thats about 48% difference in change.

THe majority of TESB's profits occurred after day 54. It is the first time it hits $100 million. It also coincides with 10 time the theatres (1089). So, when you look at ticket sales up to 50 days, it doesn't do the film justice. If the graph continued, you would see a sharp drop for AOTC and a consistent effort from TESB.

This relationship highlights a very imporant point: when you don't have the theatres you don't make the profits. Back in the 80s, opening weeks and weekends were not as big a deal as they are now. Most films make the majority of their profits in the first week. Back when the first films were released, they CONSISTENTLY performed and often improved from word of mouth.

Another point is to look at how much each film makes per theatre.

Week 54:

ANH: $8992
TESB: $7754
ROTJ: $5031
TPM: $918
AOTC: $2109

Had the OT had access to more theatres, imagine the difference!

 

I've just looked at it and I've got no idea. But it doesn't say what the gross takings were of each movie, 'cause I've got the gross takings of each movie (minus ROTS, of course) in a new SFX mag, and it's nowhere near accurate to their gross takings.

 

Another very odd thing. Look at the takings for AOTC, for example:

Day 1-4: $25, 317 per theatre
Day 5-11: $15, 147 per theatre

Tickets sold:

Look at the graph. Tickets sold are on the rise until day 50!

They say that's a %40 drop. Now I've studied stats for many years now and this doesn't make sense! How can ticket sales increase over the 50 days while the number of takings per theatre decrease?


For TESB, at day 33, there is a 200% climb in takings. Yet, look at the graph. It doesn't shoot up at all.

So, can someone explain to me how tickets don't equal ticket sales?


Whoops, it's cumulative. That's why it keeps going up.

 

Sorry, but maths was never my strong point. All those numbers and symbols just did my head in! I just scraped by with a C+.

 

It's clearly a conspiracy by the anti-Lucas media bias!!11!!1!!

 

ESB played exclusively in only 126 theatres in the first 28 days. If I remember correctly it was some kind of present from Lucas to the theatres which supported ANH early on.
After the four weeks were over, other theatres were allowed to show the movie as well.

It is quite logical that ANH and ESB would start way slower than the other four movies, because they weren't playing in such a huge amounts of cinemas.

 

I've just looked in the magazine in question and I was wrong, ROTJ came bottom with ESB coming second from bottom. I think TPM came tops because everyone was hyped about a new SW film being released after so long. Strange though, seeing that TPM was the weakest SW film of the lot! I mean, couldn't people tell after the first viewing that the film was cack?!

Worldwide box office takings for each film were as follows:

1st. TPM: $924.5 million

2nd. ANH: $775.4 million

3rd. AOTC: $649.5 million

4th. ESB: $538.4 million

5th. ROTJ $475.1 million

 

Sorry, but maths was never my strong point. All those numbers and symbols just did my head in! I just scraped by with a C+.

It does make sense. Didn't realise it was cumulative. Still, it would be interesting to see no. of ticket sales per day to see the trends. For instance, for AOTC and TPM, we'd see a sharp drop after a couple of weeks while with the OT, there would be a steady gain and small drop indicating good word of mouth.

Good site though. Thanks for linking it.

 

TPM wasn't seen as a bad movie, that only started some weeks later, when the media backlash began.

If you go by admissions it isn't even close. Star Wars has around 440million admissions worldwide, ESB 282 and Jedi 228, TPM "only" 168 and AOTC isn't even close to that.

Today's worldwide numbers for ESB and ROTJ look pretty low, but these numbers aren't telling you everything.
Both movies combined had more admissions than all three Lord of the Rings movies together, and those are no. 2, 4 and 9 in todays all time-charts.

 

Today's worldwide numbers for ESB and ROTJ look pretty low, but these numbers aren't telling you everything.
Both movies combined had more admissions than all three Lord of the Rings movies together, and those are no. 2, 4 and 9 in todays all time-charts.

Let me guess, inflation, right? The mag doesn't say if it took inflation into account, but I guess it does.

 

that graph is meaningless.

release patterns for films are so different now.

TPM made most of its money in its first month of release.

ANH was rolled out slowly across the country as most movies were at the time and made most of it's money during a nearly YEAR LONG RUN at the movie theatres

 

I would say that ESB has definitely gained steam as the best of the Star Wars saga through the years. I was 8 when ESB came out, and I remember it was too dark for me when I saw it at the movies. When I saw ROTJ, I loved it.

But as the years have gone on, ESB is my favorite, even better than ANH. I love this movie, I can't see a flaw in it. Now, I don't like ROTJ as much as I used to. Maybe it was so dark, it took people by suprise, but as time went by, it slowly became a classic.

 

ESB did fantastically at the time for being a movie released in 1980! Adjusted for inflation figures suggest ESB would have made: $628,356,100

 

I've wondered that too, seeing as it is my favorite(Yes, more than ROTS). The other day on the Discovery Channel or something along those lines they had a documentary about Mt. St. Helens blowing up and its 25 year anniversary this year.

So perhaps the May 1980 eruption of a volcano had something to do with poor ticket sales.

 

They weren't poor ticket sales. TESB made Lucas financially stable to do anything he wanted for the rest of his life. It was a hit. There are many reasons why it didn't have high ticket sales in the first 50 days. After 50 days, its sales went up and were consistent. The same thing didn't happen for TPM and AOTC. Films ticket sales are different these days.

 

Thanks for all the replies.

The answer to the question seems to be because it was only released to a limited number of theatres. The industry must have changed rapidly between 1980 and 1983 because ROTJ did very well in its first 50 days. I do remember as a kid that films would take a few months to hit Australia after premiering in the US.

 

I am guessing because the Empire wins sort of. Its a much darker story and the hero is beaten in the end. People dont like depressing stories. At least not until ROTS came out.

 

Tickets don't always equal ticket sales because many tickets are promotional.

As others mentioned, there were far fewer theatres in 1980 than now, theatres were smaller. Might sound crazy now but going to see a movie was a BIG deal back then. You could not order your tickets online or buy in advance.

I remember waiting until ESB came to my town to watch the thing.

 

290 million in 1980 is huge, a movie today doing 290 million is considered quite the success. And anyone walking out of ESB with thoughts of it being a rehash of ANH would be throughly dissapointed, I remember bad word of mouth on it. TPM is a pile of crap, and it did 431 million. Titanic did 600, shrek 2 440, I wouldn't put them anyway near ESB in terms of a good movie. Downers don't sell. RoTS is a downer, but its the last one and its a downer with a ****load of action, plus it costs 9$ a ticket as oppossed to 2$ 20 years ago.

 

I agree with the other posters stating that the film/theater industry was quite different then. I saw ESB in 1980 when I was 10. It was an event. Most theaters were single screen back then and there weren't many of them. I'm sure many people in smaller towns had to wait to see it. There also wasn't the same opening weekend hype back then that we have now.

 

I don't know why everyone thinks ESB is the best star wars movie. Nothing really happens except for "I am your father." I think it is the worst of the OT. It also didn't have an ending, it left you hanging at the end. You had to wait three years to know what happens to Han.

 

If you think "I am your father" was the only thing that happened in ESB, I have to wonder what version of the movie you've been watching.

And Kershner was going for an uncertian ending, it being the middle of the trilogy. Sure we don't figure out what happens to Han for three years, but it's a hell of a way to enter into ROTJ.

As for the box office numbers, one of the things I remember the most about "Empire of Dreams" is when they say "Empire Strikes Back didn't meet expectations. It exceeded them." I would say that some factors probably played into the money ESB earned, but going by what the documentary said, ESB must have done great.

 

-Yoda is introduced
-Obi-wan returns as a force ghost
-We see the Emperor for the 1st time
-Luke vs. Vader
-Boba Fett
-A hint of what Darth Vader looks like under the helmet
-Ends with the best cliffhanger in modern cinema
-Our Heroes LOSE!

Yeah, "nothing really happens"