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[ZattMurdock]

Just now, Alexdube said:

I don't see how TFA changed the ballgame

Well, changed so much that No Way Home happened last year and exploded.

[MikeQ]

Why did TLJ have such poor WOM/legs?

 

I remember being impressed when the follow up film ended up being so critically acclaimed (an impressive 91% / 95% and 8.1 / 8.0 average rating on RT), since reviews couldn't, in theory, benefit from nostalgia the same way reviews for TFA may have. I remember thinking it was poised to do really well.

 

And then it opened to what I thought was an exceptional hold from The Force Awakens - a $220M opening for a sequel to a film that smashed the opening weekend record at the time with $247M, and that benefited from pent up nostalgia, I think is pretty excellent.

 

I'm not a Star Wars aficionado, so I still to this day don't understand what happened...

Peace,

Mike

[Cap]

Some of you are having a little bit too much fun in here… We can’t have that. I barely recognize the place.

 

That said, I did just talk to Shawn 👀

[ZattMurdock]

Just now, MikeQ said:

Why did TLJ have such poor WOM/legs?

 

I remember being impressed when the follow up film ended up being so critically acclaimed (an impressive 91% / 95% and 8.1 / 8.0 average rating on RT), since reviews couldn't, in theory, benefit from nostalgia the same way reviews for TFA may have. I remember thinking it was poised to do really well.

 

And then it opened to what I thought was an exceptional hold from The Force Awakens - a $220M opening for a sequel to a film that smashed the opening weekend record at the time with $247M, and that benefited from pent up nostalgia, I think is pretty excellent.

 

I'm not a Star Wars aficionado, so I still to this day don't understand what happened...

Peace,

Mike

Star Wars sequels generally make less than its antecessor. It folllowed the same pattern from the other two trilogies. It isn’t that they weren’t well received necessarily, they just followed the pattern of sequels not making as much as the first part of their trilogies, which I think it will happen once again when the next trilogy happens.

[Alexdube]

2 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

Well, changed so much that No Way Home happened last year and exploded.

and TFA exploded because of Avatar?

[VanillaSkies]

37 minutes ago, Deep Wang said:

 

 

I guess I'm of the thinking that yes, they can go see it later, but what if a few days pass and they don't really want to anymore?

 

I know it might just be my lazy ass, but if I don't see something right away and the urge I had to see it is no longer there, I'm not going to see it at theaters.

I think this is valid. And even more so, people like myself who were on the fence to seeing it might now decide not to. I haven’t heard anything that really makes me think, oh yes, I want to spend 3.5 hours in a theatre to see that. And for the record, I saw the first one in theatres twice. The long wait and boring trailer just didn’t get me excited again.

[redfirebird2008]

18 minutes ago, Cheddar Please said:

I don't understand how anyone could have expected TLJ to gain on TFA, the middle installments have always traditionally done the worst

Only gain during a part of the holiday calendar, not for the total.  Deadline kept bringing up the fact TFA had way more people on vacation during the first 7 days. But even once we made it to more favorable holiday situation for TLJ, the questionable WOM had already killed it. 

[Menor the Destroyer]

6 minutes ago, MikeQ said:

Why did TLJ have such poor WOM/legs?

 

I remember being impressed when the follow up film ended up being so critically acclaimed (an impressive 91% / 95% and 8.1 / 8.0 average rating on RT), since reviews couldn't, in theory, benefit from nostalgia the same way reviews for TFA may have. I remember thinking it was poised to do really well.

 

And then it opened to what I thought was an exceptional hold from The Force Awakens - a $220M opening for a sequel to a film that smashed the opening weekend record at the time with $247M, and that benefited from pent up nostalgia, I think is pretty excellent.

 

I'm not a Star Wars aficionado, so I still to this day don't understand what happened...

Peace,

Mike

Let's just say a lot of story decisions made in that movie were...controversial. Don't really want to go into detail, because I don't want to start a discussion about it. 

Edited December 21, 2022 by Menor Reborn

[Porthos]

Just now, Alexdube said:

 

TFA was the first blockbuster released in December?

 

Define blockbuster (or rather don't, since we just had that discussion in the last WE thread).

 

I mean, you had the LotR films, but on 5 days OWs.  You had Avatar and the Hobbit films.  And then you had things like Ghost Protocol.  But things predicted/projected to get 150m+ OW?  Or even 125m+ OW back in the 2010s and 2000s when that meant a different number than it does now?  

 

Well, you tell me:

 

Top 20 Dec OWs as of Dec 2014:

Quote

Note: This chart only shows the top 200 movies, regardless of sorting.

Rank	Title (click to view)	Studio	Opening*	% of Total	Theaters	Average	Total Gross^	Date**
1	The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey	WB	$84,617,303	27.9%	4,045	$20,919	$303,003,568	12/14/12
2	I Am Legend	WB	$77,211,321	30.1%	3,606	$21,411	$256,393,010	12/14/07
3	Avatar	Fox	$77,025,481	10.3%	3,452	$22,313	$749,766,139	12/18/09
4	The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug	WB	$73,645,197	28.5%	3,903	$18,869	$258,366,855	12/13/13
5	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	NL	$72,629,713	19.3%	3,703	$19,613	$377,027,325	12/17/03
6	The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	BV	$65,556,312	22.5%	3,616	$18,129	$291,710,957	12/9/05
7	Sherlock Holmes	WB	$62,304,277	29.8%	3,626	$17,183	$209,028,679	12/25/09
8	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers	NL	$62,007,528	18.2%	3,622	$17,119	$339,789,881	12/18/02
9	The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies	WB	$54,724,334	21.5%	3,875	$14,122	$254,672,205	12/17/14
10	King Kong	Uni.	$50,130,145	23.0%	3,568	$14,049	$218,080,025	12/14/05
11	Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel	Fox	$48,875,415	22.3%	3,700	$13,210	$219,614,612	12/23/09
12	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring	NL	$47,211,490	15.1%	3,359	$14,055	$313,364,114	12/19/01
13	Meet the Fockers	Uni.	$46,120,980	16.5%	3,518	$13,110	$279,261,160	12/22/04
14	National Treasure: Book of Secrets	BV	$44,783,772	20.4%	3,832	$11,686	$219,964,115	12/21/07
15	Alvin and the Chipmunks	Fox	$44,307,417	20.4%	3,475	$12,750	$217,326,974	12/14/07
16	Tron Legacy	BV	$44,026,211	25.6%	3,451	$12,758	$172,062,763	12/17/10
17	Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows	WB	$39,637,079	21.2%	3,703	$10,704	$186,848,418	12/16/11
18	Ocean's Twelve	WB	$39,153,380	31.2%	3,290	$11,900	$125,544,280	12/10/04
19	Ocean's Eleven	WB	$38,107,822	20.8%	3,075	$12,392	$183,417,150	12/7/01
20	Marley and Me	Fox	$36,357,586	25.4%	3,480	$10,448	$143,153,751	12/25/08

 

Now as I said, this will mess with things like Ghost Protocol which had a soft rollout before it went wide or undercount films that had 5 day OWs (like the LotRs).  On the whole though, I'd say... No.  Not especially.

[TwoMisfits]

4 minutes ago, MikeQ said:

Why did TLJ have such poor WOM/legs?

 

I remember being impressed when the follow up film ended up being so critically acclaimed (an impressive 91% / 95% and 8.1 / 8.0 average rating on RT), since reviews couldn't, in theory, benefit from nostalgia the same way reviews for TFA may have. I remember thinking it was poised to do really well.

 

And then it opened to what I thought was an exceptional hold from The Force Awakens - a $220M opening for a sequel to a film that smashed the opening weekend record at the time with $247M, and that benefited from pent up nostalgia, I think is pretty excellent.

 

I'm not a Star Wars aficionado, so I still to this day don't understand what happened...

Peace,

Mike

 

B/c the 1st 5 minutes of the movie felt like the director was literally giving an FU to all the Luke fans and all the TFA fans who had built up the excitement for the movie.

 

That tends to be visceral...and visceral WOM drowns out critical acclaim...

 

Not that I'd know too much about that or anything...but I admit that someone who told me OW about the intro did cause me to wait for streaming and that was 6 OW TFA tickets that didn't repeat for TLJ...and all b/c I was (and am) a Luke fan.  Han's nice, Leia was nice, but Luke all the way, dammit!

 

I did eventually give the movie a C/C-:)...

[ZattMurdock]

1 minute ago, Alexdube said:

and TFA exploded because of Avatar?

Not necessarily. Cameron was the first sci fI blockbuster to exploit the release window with Avatar, but their approaches were different. Star Wars going for Christmas was apparently a happy coincidence, because Marvel Studios already had the usually “May 4th" date scheduled. The rest is history and Iger claimed that Christmas are Star Wars dates now iirc.

[TwoMisfits]

1 minute ago, Menor Reborn said:

Let's just say a lot of story decisions made in that movie were...controversial. Don't really want to go into detail, because I don't want to start a discussion about it. 

 

Whoops...

[Porthos]

*scans the last few posts*

 

Thanks bunches, @MikeQ.  No, really, thanks a million. 👍 

 

Spoiler

 

[MrPink]

13 minutes ago, MikeQ said:

Why did TLJ have such poor WOM/legs?

 

I remember being impressed when the follow up film ended up being so critically acclaimed (an impressive 91% / 95% and 8.1 / 8.0 average rating on RT), since reviews couldn't, in theory, benefit from nostalgia the same way reviews for TFA may have. I remember thinking it was poised to do really well.

 

And then it opened to what I thought was an exceptional hold from The Force Awakens - a $220M opening for a sequel to a film that smashed the opening weekend record at the time with $247M, and that benefited from pent up nostalgia, I think is pretty excellent.

 

I'm not a Star Wars aficionado, so I still to this day don't understand what happened...

Peace,

Mike

 

Fans were not happy at the lack of Maz Kanata

[MikeQ]

6 minutes ago, Porthos said:

*scans the last few posts*

 

Thanks bunches, @MikeQ.  No, really, thanks a million. 👍 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

This thread and the weekend thread have been such a lovely mix of conversations, I felt compelled to jump into the TLJ conversation. But maybe I opened up a can a worms that's a little too much/off-topic. My bad! ❤️ 

 

*goes back to lurking*  

 

Peace,

Mike

Edited December 21, 2022 by MikeQ

[Alexdube]

6 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

Not necessarily. Cameron was the first sci fI blockbuster to exploit the release window with Avatar, but their approaches were different. Star Wars going for Christmas was apparently a happy coincidence, because Marvel Studios already had the usually “May 4th" date scheduled. The rest is history and Iger claimed that Christmas are Star Wars dates now iirc.

It's not like putting Star Wars there was a very bold choice when the 2 highest grossing movies of all time had that release date, I wouldn't call that "changing the ball game". I'll leave it at that

[XXRDJisDoctorDoom]

@Porthos As the resident SW shill and apologist, I need you to get this under control.....

 

[BluKyberCrystal]

14 minutes ago, ZattMurdock said:

Not necessarily. Cameron was the first sci fI blockbuster to exploit the release window with Avatar, but their approaches were different. Star Wars going for Christmas was apparently a happy coincidence, because Marvel Studios already had the usually “May 4th" date scheduled. The rest is history and Iger claimed that Christmas are Star Wars dates now iirc.

I believe the release date was December not because of Marvel, but as a compromise between JJ and Horn on more time to work on the film. JJ wanted May 2016, Horn and the board wanted May 2015. They split the baby with Dec 2015.

[ZattMurdock]

1 minute ago, Alexdube said:

It's not like putting Star Wars there was a very bold choice when the 2 highest grossing movies of all time had that release date, I wouldn't call that "changing the ball game". I'll leave it at that

May the 4th is celebrated as the Star Wars day for almost 50 years now. Star Wars Celebration is an official event for 22 years. Lucas literally invented the ‘summer blockbuster’. Not a single Star Wars film was released during Christmas before The Force Awakens, and while now in hindsight it makes perfect sense, it was controversial back when it happened, one of the reasons what happened with Avatar’s first weekends with the weather. If that doesn’t seems like a game changer for the franchise to you, I don’t know what to tell you. 

[Lion Roar]

18 minutes ago, Menor Reborn said:

Let's just say a lot of story decisions made in that movie were...controversial. Don't really want to go into detail, because I don't want to start a discussion about it. 

For me personally it wasn't Luke or Canto Blight but the throne room scene that broke me.