That's correct, but aren't domestic metrics the most meaningful simply because Star Wars' core fanbase has always been primarily domestic?
-Vader
Oh, absolutely. Again as I mentioned, A cinemascore, 7.5/10 from IMDb, #8 movie of the year according to MC users and a domestic gross 3 times its opening, are not bad results for Jedi when it comes to audience reception. (It should be noted that neither Awakens nor Rogue One weren't facing such tough competition as the one that Jedi is facing in Jumanji)
All accounts point to this film being very polarising, but OH THIS FILM IS BEING TRASHED BY AUDIENCE EVERYWHERE is hyperbolic. The film got plenty of love from the masses and those who loved it, really loved it.£
That's true, too.
Interestingly, on the main popular subreddits for Star Wars they all seem* to prefer Rogue One the most. Which tells you something about the fandom.
Anyway, while we're on this point, you would love Ms. Nicholson:
TL;DW: She saw the film before it went into wide-release and before the 'backlash' began, and she made an eerily-accurate prediction that if you didn't like The Last Jedi, you probably loved Rogue One.
And in her next video that she uploaded after the backlash:
...she mentions it again, and even though she says that she's not judging you if you prefer Rogue One, she is clearly being condescending, like "Of course, you tasteless dolts would prefer Rogue One to The Last Jedi! Of course!".
It's because certain things have taken a special spot in culture where if they aren't praised outright then they're "being trashed."
Yeah, this is what's happening here. I haven't seen people saying that general audiences everywhere hate this thing but it's undeniable that the backlash has been significant.
There are also other factors that have affected Jedi's gross beyond audience reception. The whole "Disney is milking and ruining Star Wars" debate that has gained traction over the past two years and has surrounded the franchise with negativity, being one. The Battlefront situation had a big role in inflaming those discussions very recently.
And then there is the fact that 2017 was the post election year, where we have seen significant decline of interest among domestic moviegoers, due to the political debates and the increase of mistrust from a good portion of the population towards Hollywood, and that has been partially responsible in many highly anticipated and well received films like Apes or 2049 to seriously underperform.
Old reliable brands like F&F, Transformers, Pirates, Pixar, Despicable Me, all experienced considerable drops of gross in the domestic market
Also Disney's marketing that failed to eventise this film on the same level of Rogue One and Awakens that celebrated the return of Darth Vader and Han Solo, the two most popular characters in the franchise's history is to blame as another reason.£
Disappointment is a good adjective. I liked this movie, but all of the Star Wars are good movies (except Rogue One). It’s a high bar. I think of The Empire Strikes Back. They were in a similar situation as this movie:
they couldn’t enter hyperspace.
So what happens? They fly through an asteroid field and they escape to a city in the clouds. Those scenes were so exciting. Honestly, the Last Jedi was just boring. It didn’t take advantage of its setting. You’re in a galaxy far, far away. You can do anything! If the Rey parts were not as great as they were, I would have gotten bored. Luckily, I was interested in Rey enough, and the latter part of the movie was great.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi suffered one of the worst second-weekend declines the Chinese box office has ever seen. The film's debut of $28.7 million was already viewed as disappointing, but its 92 percent plummet to just $2.4 million in weekend two was arguably alarming.
"The Last Jedi has already been completely pulled from cinemas here," Jimmy Wu, chairman of nationwide Chinese cinema chain Lumiere Pavilions, told The Hollywood Reporter by phone from Yancheng, a mid-sized city representative of the sorts of towns where the bulk of China's box-office growth is now generated. "It's performed much worse than we could have expected."
Foreign studios only get to keep 25% of profits from China anyway.
Box office gross from China, unless astronomically huge enough to offset the marketing costs and being able to keep only 25%, means nothing, especially to a heavily-domestic-focused franchise like Star Wars.
It's really just an ego boost for producers who want to be able to say "my movie is a billion-dollar movie!" at parties, as opposed to "my movie is a $900 million dollar movie!".
Edit: fixed second sentence making no sense
Last edited by Oku on January 18th, 2018, 6:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
