Baumer's Star Wars The Force Awakens Rant

[ShouldIBeHere]

Great post @Baumer . Especially what you say about other movies.

 

I really hope people will be able to appreciate numbers of other movies (especially other blockbusters) after that and discuss them with reason.

 

Context is all that matters, really, and without it the BO watch becomes impossible to enjoy.

[baumer]

Thanks @ShouldIBeHere That was the crux of the rant.  We should find a way to appreciate all terrific runs, not try to mitigate one so we can pump the tires of another.

[ShouldIBeHere]

Personally I also agree with you @Baumer that the next run that will THAT special in its own way to Titanic, Avatar or SW7 will be something we do not see coming, yet.

[Intergalactic Ping Pong]

I used to post all the time on boxofficemojo before the community was closed down. Thanks IMDB!  I missed the memo when this site was made. 

 

I discovered it a few months ago and I've been reading and keeping track of news on here. So much insight to be gained. People pull resources and content from every direction. I remember when there was hardly any information on China's box office and we were lucky to get weekly updates. Now people have the inside info, hour by hour. 

 

This was a fantastic post, Baumer and it is why I decided to go ahead and finally create an account. I couldn't agree more. There have been a few truly amazing box office runs over the last 40 years. Star Wars: ANH, ET, Titanic, Avatar and Star Wars: TFA. Each was special in it's own way. Each had factors that worked for it. And some had factors that worked against it.

 

Personally, I laughed when a friend predicted this past fall that TFA would make more than what Jurassic World was able to make. I figured people would be less forgiving of the disaster that was, IMO, the prequels. I figured if this one was really good, then SW: VIII would see some huge numbers. The Batman effect, I'll call it. Batman & Robin put Batman on life support, Batman Begins got the franchise back on its feet and TDK was the adrenaline shot. I figured something similar would happen here, only with better numbers. Maybe $500 million domestic and $1 billion international. But I was way off and I am very happy to be so far off. 

 

The one thing I think is interesting is how people want to measure international box office like it is apples to apples. I see people mentioning offhand how strong the dollar is and how this is effecting box office returns in different countries. But then people go back to trying compare Star Wars to another film or two that benefited from a far different international economic climate. For instance, in 2009, the dollar was weak by any measure vs a number of foreign currencies. Now the dollar is very strong. And China just had a significant drop in their economy just this month. These are not apple to apple comparisons. Each of the movies I mentioned and probably a couple others I forgot to mention had very interesting box office runs and are kings of their respective times. Because one had a better domestic gross than the others doesn't invalidate anyone's fandom of the others. Because the others had bigger international grosses doesn't change my feelings about this new Star Wars and what is to come with the franchise.