Rogue One: A Star Wars Story | 1B WW

[James]

As a little analysis: looking at OS run for this and TFA, not much has changed for SW since the prequels. Yeah, the LA and Asian BO expanded, naturally, but SW still makes most of it's money from the same markets: UK, Germany, France, Australia and Japan (plus a few other big European markets). And that's where the difference between SW and The Wizarding World is. The WW brand is pretty much established everywhere in the world. Yeah, in the markets where SW is HUGE, the WW may not reach those levels, but it more than compensates with big numbers all over Asia an Latin America.

I am interested though in what is the reason for this cultural discrepancy.  

[James]

5 minutes ago, Giesi said:

Why do you think is nostalgia gone? As soon as people see Luke wielding a lightsaber, people will go crazy again. I don't think $1bn+ OS is a likely total this time, but $800M should be possible! 

I know. But this will be the 3rd SW movie in as many years. Now, I always see people comparing it to Marvel, but Marvel is not a franchise per se. It is a bunch of franchises with different names united under one banner. TFA brought in people who haven't seen a movie in theaters in years. The craziness in the US will be huge again, but OS will drop. I also have 800m, but as the very high end. I think 700m-ish is where it will land. Way bigger than RO, but with a considerable drop from TFA. 

Let's take for example the range Heretic gave for the UK: 100-120M. That is a 60-80m drop from TFA from a single territory. With a seemingly lukewarm reception in China for RO too, coming after the lukewarm reception of TFA, I don;t see anywhere near 100m. Maybe 80m. Which would be almost double what RO is predicted to make. But that would still be a 40m+ drop from TFA. So 100-120m drop from China and UK alone. Of course, it's a simple prediction, but that's all we can do right now. 

However, of it will end up in my 700m range, I will have a little laugh because I remember how much of a crap The Hobbit received for "only" making that. Let's not forget that the ER for the last movie was pretty much just as bad as it is now.

[Giesi]

6 minutes ago, James said:

I know. But this will be the 3rd SW movie in as many years. Now, I always see people comparing it to Marvel, but Marvel is not a franchise per se. It is a bunch of franchises with different names united under one banner. TFA brought in people who haven't seen a movie in theaters in years. The craziness in the US will be huge again, but OS will drop. I also have 800m, but as the very high end. I think 700m-ish is where it will land. Way bigger than RO, but with a considerable drop from TFA. 

Let's take for example the range Heretic gave for the UK: 100-120M. That is a 60-80m drop from TFA from a single territory. With a seemingly lukewarm reception in China for RO too, coming after the lukewarm reception of TFA, I don;t see anywhere near 100m. Maybe 80m. Which would be almost double what RO is predicted to make. But that would still be a 40m+ drop from TFA. So 100-120m drop from China and UK alone. Of course, it's a simple prediction, but that's all we can do right now. 

However, of it will end up in my 700m range, I will have a little laugh because I remember how much of a crap The Hobbit received for "only" making that. Let's not forget that the ER for the last movie was pretty much just as bad as it is now.

Maybe the ER is going to recover a bit in the next month, who knows? And perhaps Star Wars big time in Asia is still ahead, or this is all wishful thinking. Ep8's overseas performance will be very interesting to follow, that's for sure!

[Heretic]

11 minutes ago, James said:

Let's not forget that the ER for the last movie was pretty much just as bad as it is now.

True, but in the UK, by FAR SW's biggest OS territory, it has dropped massively, which is obviously very significant for its OS gross. 

[John Marston]

1 hour ago, James said:

I know. But this will be the 3rd SW movie in as many years. Now, I always see people comparing it to Marvel, but Marvel is not a franchise per se. It is a bunch of franchises with different names united under one banner. TFA brought in people who haven't seen a movie in theaters in years. The craziness in the US will be huge again, but OS will drop. I also have 800m, but as the very high end. I think 700m-ish is where it will land. Way bigger than RO, but with a considerable drop from TFA. 

Let's take for example the range Heretic gave for the UK: 100-120M. That is a 60-80m drop from TFA from a single territory. With a seemingly lukewarm reception in China for RO too, coming after the lukewarm reception of TFA, I don;t see anywhere near 100m. Maybe 80m. Which would be almost double what RO is predicted to make. But that would still be a 40m+ drop from TFA. So 100-120m drop from China and UK alone. Of course, it's a simple prediction, but that's all we can do right now. 

However, of it will end up in my 700m range, I will have a little laugh because I remember how much of a crap The Hobbit received for "only" making that. Let's not forget that the ER for the last movie was pretty much just as bad as it is now.

 

 

Uh. This movie is not making 700m

[TLK]

Disney can't be happy with Star Wars under-performing big time in China so far. They will need China, other Asian and LA countries to increase when future SW movies inevitably start dropping in US and Europe. I know it isn't politically correct to say this but they dropped the ball big time by having both Star Wars movies centered around female characters. Most of the Hollywood blockbuster movie audience in Asian/LA countries is young and male. They just don't identify with female leads.

[Porthos]

21 minutes ago, TLK said:

Disney can't be happy with Star Wars under-performing big time in China so far. They will need China, other Asian and LA countries to increase when future SW movies inevitably start dropping in US and Europe. I know it isn't politically correct to say this but they dropped the ball big time by having both Star Wars movies centered around female characters. Most of the Hollywood blockbuster movie audience in Asian/LA countries is young and male. They just don't identify with female leads.

 

How to respond, how to respond.

 

Hmmm.

 

I suspect that Kathleen Kennedy, head of Lucasfilm, and Kari Hart, head of the Lucasfilm Story Group which oversees and coordinates which stories they greenlight, are quite pleased with how both TFA and R1 did in the money and reception department.

 

I also suspect that they will continue to push for 'female centered' stories, even though the next two ones is the pipeline (Han Solo and possibly Boba Fett) won't be as 'centered around female characters' as R1 and TFA/Ep 8/Ep 9 are.

 

Edited January 5, 2017 by Porthos

[John Marston]

 

3 hours ago, FantasticBeasts said:

POTUS' last post on Chinese presales thread;

Its going to be low 300s, good Wom could get it close 400m if OD scores 55m.  with Taiwan and SK being down 65% from SW7(8.2) its doubtful it will gain any traction. 310-300m/$45m is where it will likely land

  

 

 

Is this 45m opening weekend or total?

[TommyA10]

2 minutes ago, John Marston said:

 

  

 

 

Is this 45m opening weekend or total?

total...

[KP1025]

2 minutes ago, John Marston said:

 

  

 

 

Is this 45m opening weekend or total?

 

 

Total of $45 million. 

[John Marston]

1 minute ago, KP1025 said:

 

Total of $45 million. 

 

Whoa that's horrendous! 

[TLK]

4 minutes ago, Porthos said:

 

How to respond, how to respond.

 

Hmmm.

 

I suspect that Kathleen Kennedy, head of Lucasfilm, and Kari Hart, head of the Lucasfilm Story Group which oversees and coordinates which stories they greenlight, are quite pleased with how both TFA and R1 did in the money and reception department.

 

I also suspect that they will continue to push for 'female centered' stories, even though the next two ones is the pipeline (Han Solo and possibly Boba Fett) won't be as 'centered around female characters' as R1 and TFA/Ep 8/Ep 9 are.

 

 

 

They should be pleased with the first movie but it was always going to be a long game considering they paid $4 billion + for Lucas Films and each film costs $400 million or so in production and Worldwide marketing. I'm not sure if Rogue One dropping 50% Worldwide and unable to take off in Asian/LA markets will make anyone happy. Remember that long-running action franchises make their profits from Asia and Latin America.

[Porthos]

30 minutes ago, TLK said:

 

 

They should be pleased with the first movie but it was always going to be a long game considering they paid $4 billion + for Lucas Films and each film costs $400 million or so in production and Worldwide marketing. I'm not sure if Rogue One dropping 50% Worldwide and unable to take off in Asian/LA markets will make anyone happy. Remember that long-running action franchises make their profits from Asia and Latin America.

 

The real killing for SW has always been, and probably always will be, merchandizing.  According to one person's crack at trying to look at things, TFA made Walt Disney Studios 1.3 billion dollars even with much of the merchandizing going to other divisions of Disney.

[FantasticBeasts]

Well in my opinion, TFA was something far bigger than Star Wars (as a franchise) honestly. The whole marketing campaign and the craze from USA draw a big amount of people in cinemas who weren't big SW fans. Actually, it may sound crazy but I am confident that a coniderable amount of people paid 8 bucks to watch for 2 hours a movie that they understanded nothing about. It is not uncommon of people in a lot of countries to follow everything that is popular in USA. In other words, a big proportion of TFA's gross was due to it being considered "An event". Seeing RO number's apart from USA which alone can guarrantee that no SW movie can possibly flop, the countries that are really all-in for SW aren't that many. Obviously it's UK and a bunch some other european countries but in LA and Asia SW can be considered a B-list franchise. Will SW8 drop considerably OS from TFA? I think it will drop but how much will be affected by how much SW8 will be considered "an event". It will be an event but I don't think that the buzz will reach the one of TFA which was unprecedentent.

Edited January 6, 2017 by FantasticBeasts

[James]

8 hours ago, John Marston said:

 

 

Uh. This movie is not making 700m

I was talking about SW VIII.

[terrestrial]

8 hours ago, TLK said:

I know it isn't politically correct to say this but they dropped the ball big time by having both Star Wars movies centered around female characters. Most of the Hollywood blockbuster movie audience in Asian/LA countries is young and male. They just don't identify with female leads.

The strange thing about posts like this is:

I not once read a complain like that in a post actually summarising the GA's reaction by the people running the per country threads or sub-forums.

[Fullbuster]

3 minutes ago, terrestrial said:

The strange thing about posts like this is:

I not once read a complain like that in a post actually summarising the GA's reaction by the people running the per country threads or sub-forums.

 

It's a good thing anyway, it's opening up their minds : it's helping women in these countries in several ways, and in Latin America women are an important target : in Brazil Twilight was a huge success for example, The Fault in Our Stars as well.

[terrestrial]

12 minutes ago, FantasticBeasts said:

Well in my opinion, TFA was something far bigger than Star Wars (as a franchise) honestly. The whole marketing campaign and the craze from USA draw a big amount of people in cinemas who weren't big SW fans. Actually, it may sound crazy but I am confident that a coniderable amount of people paid 8 bucks to watch for 2 hours a movie that they understanded nothing about. It is not uncommon of people in a lot of countries to follow everything that is popular in USA. In other words, a big proportion of TFA's gross was due to it being considered "An event". Seeing RO number's apart from USA which alone can guarrantee that no SW movie can possibly flop, the countries that are really all-in for SW aren't that many. Obviously it's UK and a bunch some other european countries but in LA and Asia SW can be considered a B-list franchise. Will SW8 drop considerably OS from TFA? I think it will drop but how much will be affected by how much SW8 will be considered "an event". It will be an event but I don't think that the buzz will reach the one of TFA which was unprecedentent.

In my POV that has less to do with how to rate a franchise (I dont hold much on the idea to give any franchise a rating-formulation like you used), but more about part 2 and part 3 can drop a lot often in general.

I think some missed this detail based on the growing market we saw for a time, but I do not hink the growing numbers in OS are 1:1 a thing to see if a franchise drops or not in the same GA group that saw e.g. part 1.

Too much changed in the recent years in general to only use totals to get a feel for e.g. franchises.

 

Plus in general:

the usual problems a film can have in OS, see translation problems and so on. I am every time very wary when e.g. like with SW R1 seeing Spanish based reviews criticizing details not being part of e.g. the German or English version or ....

I wrote a few weeks back here about Spanish language based reviews giving other kind of reviews then e.g. English based reviews.

To me that means there is based on that alone (no matter the BO) reason enough to look into that and tons of other details before starting to do conclusions.

 

Conclusions... absolute formulations,... to me that makes only sense if done a long time afterwards, when not only the real totals are in, but enough additional data to get an unbiased or balanced or... impression of a film or franchise or... impact in which region.

 

To compare the franchises per BO... and using that to 'judge' them... in my POV = not sound (and some of the wordings bordering to something not nice as best in this thread, but that is also happening through the year in connection with other franchises = in my POV not o.K. in every case)

 

[terrestrial]

12 hours ago, James said:

This. I said that before RO's run even started, based on various presales. Still, it was more wishful thinking than an actual prediction. I don't think anybody predicted RO doing quite so badly. Ofc, that is if 470-480m OS can be considered bad (it's still mind blowing though that a spin-off with Vader and recognizable story, coming after a movie that made more OS than any of the Potters, will finish so much behind a HP spin-off that has no connection to the original series - part of it is WOM, which for FB was out of this world, but one must wonder how much of TFA's gross was nostalgia). Still, this should put expectations in check for SW8, especially with the ER in UK and Asia seemingly rejecting this franchise (plus nostalgia being gone). But, I'm pretty sure we will see 1b OS predictions soon enough. It's BOT after all

If you re-read the thread you might see that I pointed out rather early about my lower exceptions expectations (I still do not like the word, as I do not have exceptions expectations in the way is is used here but I do not another word), and especially about those being rather differing per region, based on different reasons.

 

The only detail I do not see as correct in a way I again feel the need to point that out:

it might be a language thing, but to me that sounds like it is about a spin-of centred about Darth Vader - him being in it for some minutes make his part to me not more than - other extreme - a bit bigger cameo - I'd describe it as a small supporting role.

The recognizable story... - nope, in that wording I really disagree to it.

For the GA even knowing SW 4-6 and so on, even in the US a lot asked after watching SW R1 questions showing they didn't realize even after seeing a certain character at the end, that the film's time-line is 3.9 and not 7.5. In Asia... (forgot the country) people thought it is an alternative time-line film, with Vader still alive and so on.

= to me that does not speaks about recognizable in absolute terms.... (maybe per translation mistakes also), but also I do not see the basic SW R1 story as recognisable per se, only because it plays in the same world, uses the same kind of designs... it is not so near to the time-near part 4 in lots of key-story elements as this formulation makes it sound to my (English self-trained) ears.

 

Btw, i don't see a $1b OS also, but more because I do not think in such ways in general.

Before we have not seen any trailers, .... how to even think about those kind of numbers? It might have a bad story or whatever, it might have a good one, but based on then recent events the wrong one for the mood if certain regions or.... = way too early.

 

Edited January 6, 2017 by terrestrial
exceptions are not expectations... typos

[TigerPaw]

Wanted to take this chance to post about Rogue One's first day performance at the Chinese Box Office. Which was not incredible, but definitely did much better than expectations (our expectations were lowered due to Pre-sales).

I understand that not a lot of you here are familiar with the Chinese Box Office, as most will only check the threads there or read up on pre-sales comparison when a film you like is going to show and hopes the international total accelerates because China is a big market. I don't claim to be an expert, but I have been tracking the Chinese Box Office on-and-off for a few years now.

So last night at 10.00pm (GMT+8), the presales of Rogue One was 15.5 - 16m yuan (depends on which Chinese tracking site you use). A lot of us were looking at the numbers daily, since pre-sales started, but the pre-sales never picked up... Base on most posters at the Chinese forum, you guys will know that OD for a Hollywood movie is usually 2.75 - 3.25. Which means 44m - 52m Yuan OD is to be expected. So even the most optimistic of us were looking at 60m Yuan OD. And this big drop from TFA is to be expected, as TFA was so badly received in China... Lightsaber fight scenes were nothing compared what chinese viewers are used to seeing, how Wushu Champs like Jet Li and Donnie Yen handles weapon on screen.

(For full details on how TFA is impacting R1 negatively in China, read this: http://chinafilminsider.com/screen-china-force-not-strong-rogue-one/)

So this Opening Numbers was supposed to mean a Big Disappointment, considered a big flop in China. But right now, 30minutes before official estimates come in, we are looking at a 70m Yuan OD (around 10m USD), better than all of us has expected, a >4x multipler from pre-sales. And like what @POTUS says, he has tracked box office for 2 years, and 4x+ multiplier from pre-sales are very rare, and only happens to Jungle Book.

But what alot of us failed to realize was this... something so obvious and glaring (like the weakness in the deathstar). Because this was right infront of us all this time, on the China Poster...
Disney played his cards well, R1 is not a typical hollywood movie that needs to follow a 2.75 - 3.25x multiplier... because Rogue One has Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen. 2 of the biggest stars in China Market. 
 

For those who do not know, there are a few categorizes of Stars in China. We have Fresh Meat-小鲜肉 (Young, Up and Comers who may have been a singer previously) whose movie scores at review websites are inflated and pre-sales are outstanding because their fans are young generation who are great at social media. Another category are the established seasoned actors(实力派）like Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen。 

The key is this, for the latter category, which includes name like Donnie Yen, Jackie Chan and Jet Li... pre-sales for their movies are often(not always) disappointing. And it feels like a heartache tracking their movie pre-sales in China. But what they have are passer-by fans （路人粉）. They are a big art of Chinese culture, their movies are always showing on TV, but their friends may be of older generations and not that technological savvy. These passer-by fans may not even know DY or JL has a movie coming out, but they just need to take a stroll after work... see Donnie Yen's face on a poster, and buy the tickets without even watching the trailers(Walk-Ins).  I remember tracking Donnie Yen's Kung Fu Jungle in 2014, the pre-sales were pathetic, but the opening day outperformed.

That is why Disney has the trump card, with Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen onboard, pre-sales number may not look good, but people not from top-tier cities(eg: Beijing/Shanghai) still know these guys. These people may be from more rural part of the country, but they just need to see DY/JW's face on the poster and will buy the tickets.

There is no doubt Rogue One will drop drasically from TFA. But having Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen is really helping to boost the box office a lot, because without them, R1 would have suffered much much more. 

So for those un-initiated. Don't ask "Why R1 cannot outgross TFA despite having chinese stars.", because TFA indirectly killed R1 as it was badly received in China and in fact the chinese stars are already helping based on this pre-sales multiplier.

Of course, there will be people who disagree, and have other reasonings for why the multiplier is better than we thought. But from what I am reading on Weibo, Tieba...chinese social media sites and speaking to my friends who live in China, this really seems to be the case.


The OD is okay, what happens after these is really on WOM (which relates back to subs/dubs/title translation issues which is another topic altogether).

Edited January 6, 2017 by TigerPaw