News, Analysis and Reviews of the Disney Entertainment Business
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If any doubt existed about the success of Star Wars at the box office, it has been laid to rest. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is closing on $1 billion at the box office.
Perhaps some will respond: “Yeah, so what?” Well, let’s put this in perspective.
Consider that while Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) earned $1.3 billion in box office gross, it also – as we have noted before – failed miserably in terms of story and fan appeal. Its fan score on RottenTomatoes.com stands at a miserable 43 percent.
That was followed by Solo: A Star Wars Story, which, while a solid Star Warsentry, failed at the box office, taking in only $393 million. The likely total cost for the film topped $400 million.
So, Disney and LucasFilm had reason to be nervous about the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. And then came mixed reviews from critics, with a score of 54 percent on RottenTomatoes.com.
But actual moviegoers and fans have given a resounding thumbs up, with an 86 percent score on RottonTomatoes.com and handing over $919 million in box office gross through yesterday, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. So, while The Rise of Skywalker has only been out for two weeks, its gross has managed to beat the full box office take for Solo by 134 percent ... and counting. I’m guessing that Skywalker will wind up topping the $1.3 billion raked in by The Last Jedi.
At the same time, the lengthy lines and glowing reviews for the Star Wars: The Rise of the Resistance attraction in Walt Disney World – which will open on January 17 in Disneyland – and the success of The Mandalorian on Disney+ points to Star Wars relief and profits at Disney.
And yes, in a told-you-so moment, this is exactly what DisneyBizJournal predicted in previous pieces. You’re welcome. ;-)
Disney CEO Bob Iger has reiterated that less is more when it comes to Star Wars movies.
According to Gizmodo, in a recent radio interview for his new book, Iger declared, “I have said publicly that I think we made and released too many Star Wars films over a short period of time. I have not said that they were disappointing in any way. I’ve not said that I’m disappointed in their performance. I just think that there’s something so special about a Star Wars film, and less is more.”
Hmmm. Well, obviously, something changed. Was Iger on board with a Star Wars movie each year – which basically was what Disney had planned – and then suddenly had an unexplained change of heart and now believes “less is more”?
There certainly is a case to be made for limiting a Star Wars movie release to every two or three years. After all, given what’s coming on Disney+ streaming – including the much-anticipated series The Mandalorian – I don’t think Star Wars fans will be left wanting for new tales from a galaxy far, far away.
However, a counter case can be made that a Star Wars film every year also can be quite special – when done well. That means having people at the helm of the Star Wars franchise and of each movie that truly understand the characters and the Star Wars universe.
Director Rian Johnson, as evidenced by his Star Wars: The Last Jedi, doesn’t get the characters. Director Ron Howard is harder to assess, given that he came in late to do repair work on Solo. But, as I’ve said before, Solo is a solid movie that didn’t warrant punishment at the box office.
The big question remains: Does Kathleen Kennedy really get Star Wars? George Lucas thought so when handing her control over LucasFilm. And Iger apparently thought so by leaving her in that position after Disney bought LucasFilm. But as for many of us, her record is, to be generous, less than admirable.
Yes, less can be more. But less also can just be less. Indeed, get the right people in place, and more actually can be more.
Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels. He can be contacted at raykeating@keatingreports.com.
J.J. Abrams faces some big challenges with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which will hit theaters on December 20th. Is he ready? Well, according to an Entertainment Weekly report, Abrams declared, “We went into this thing knowing it has to be an ending. We’re not screwing around.”
Abrams faces the monumental task of wrapping up the nine-movie Star Wars Skywalker saga that began in 1977, and has become a cultural icon. EW also quoted Abrams, co-writer and director of The Rise of Skywalker, saying, “Endings are the thing that scare me the most.” Yeah, I bet.
But Abrams’ job was made far more difficult given that the eighth entry in the Skywalker series – Star Wars: The Last Jedi – has become so universally, well, hated. And quite frankly, justifiably so. The Last Jedi director and writer Rian Johnson turned out to be the exact wrong man for the job. It’s clear that he failed to understand key Star Wars characters – most glaringly, Luke Skywalker – and other story choices were made that made little sense. (For example, why were Rose and Finn off doing what they were doing? And the space ship chase made sense how? And Leia survived what? And Luke was where? You get the idea. Ugh.)
As a result, J.J. must do triple duty with The Rise of Skywalker in terms of the story. First, he has to satisfactorily close out the Skywalker tale spanning eight previous films. He also must deal with finishing specifics to this final trilogy. And he has to somehow repair at least some of the damage Johnson did. No wonder Abrams admitted to being a bit scared.
In turn, his work on the story obviously feeds into the box office. It’s kind of interesting to note that every Star Wars movie was a box office success, until the most recent one – Solo: A Star Wars Story. So, The Last Jedi, which, for example, serves up a miserable audience score on RottenTomatoes.com of 44 percent, still raked in an incredible $1.3 billion at the box office. However, Solo, while scoring notably higher, though still not great, with audiences at 64 percent on RottenTomatoes.com, wound up losing money, pulling in a box office gross of only $393 million. (See our postmortem onSolo: A Star Wars Story and related issues.) It’s like fans went to see The Last Jedi more than once, just to make sure they didn’t like it, and then decided not to bother with Solo at all. (By the way, the more I watch Solo, the more I like; and the more I watch The Last Jedi, the more it dislike it.)
So, J.J. Abrams – and therefore, of course, Disney – faces formidable story and business challenges. The longtime Star Wars fan in me is rooting hard for Abrams to pull it all off (and yes, the trailers have me excited). The analyst in me is cautiously optimistic.
Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels. He can be contacted at raykeating@keatingreports.com.
To the delight of Disney, superheroes just keep getting bigger at the box office – with the most momentous success coming late this month. Well, Avengers: Endgame (opening on April 26) better be the most successful – in terms of both story and revenue.
Despite a rather flat, flawed story that undermined certain characters and previous movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain Marvel (released on March 8) has raked in more than a billion dollars at the box office. (See the DisneyBizJournal review of the movie and early box office numbers.) Interestingly, if you check out RottenTomatoes.com, reviewers leaned positive on Captain Marvel, while audiences were not exactly enthralled. Yet, the movie made an enormous amount of money. Hmmm.
Meanwhile, Warner Brothers seems to be getting it right at the box office as well. Aquaman, which was released on December 21, 2018, made more than $1.1 billion. (All box-office numbers from BoxOfficeMojo.com unless otherwise noted.) Reviewers were not exactly huge fans of the film, while audience reviews were more positive.
And Shazam! just opened this past weekend, and it has taken in $159 million. I haven’t seen the movie yet (going on Tuesday night!), but both reviewers and audiences seem to love this film starring Zachary Levi (of NBC Chuck fame). For good measure, the film had a rather modest production budget for a superhero flick at $100 million. That’s a trifecta for Warner Brothers – loved by reviewers and audiences, box-office success, and some relative degree of cost control.
And then there’s the forthcoming movie... No, wait. Let’s call it the forthcoming phenomenon titled Avengers: Endgame.
During the first day of online presales early this month, records were shattered on Fandango, for example, and the traffic on the AMC theater chain website caused it to shut down. Some estimates put the opening weekend box-office haul for Endgame at $900 million – which would blow away every record around.
Avatar still holds the all-time global box-office record at $2.79 billion (in nominal dollars). I’m predicting that Avengers: Endgame will surpass that to become the top earner.
After all, this basically completes an amazing 22-film arc created by Marvel, while setting up future movies. My expectations certainly rate very high for a great movie. Obviously, I’m not alone in this, and that’s at least part of the reason why Captain Marvel did so well at the box office. As part of the MCU story, and being the final entry before Endgame, fans had to see Captain Marvel in preparation for the most anticipated movie ... well ... ever.
For Disney, the story with Captain Marvel is the opposite of what happened with Solo: A Star Wars Story. (Check out DisneyBizJournal’s take on Solo.) After the atrocious Star Wars: The Last Jedi, fans basically punished Disney by making Solo the worst box-office performer of any Star Wars film. In contrast, Avengers: Endgame helped make Captain Marvel a massive success.
The pressure is on Disney. What do I mean? Avengers: Endgame needs to be great to not only satisfy this incredible MCU journey moviegoers have been on, but also to justify having to sit through Captain Marvel.
Star Wars Needs to Bounce Back But It’s Not in Big Trouble
by Ray Keating
Review/Analysis
DisneyBizJournal.com
July 16, 2018
DisneyBizJournal.com Movie Rating:3 and 1/2 out of 5 stars
DisneyBizJournal.com Box Office Rating: $ out of $$$$
If someone had told me a year before its release that Solo: A Star Wars Story would be a box office flop, I would have resorted to mocking – the same way Luke Skywalker mocked the Millennium Falcon the first time seeing it in Star Wars: A New Hope.
Fallout from The Last Jedi
But then came the December 2017 release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. While the Millennium Falcon exceeded expectations, The Last Jedi fell woefully short. Sure, The Last Jedi raked in $1.3 billion and the critics largely gave it thumbs up. But while lots of people forked over money for Last Jedi tickets, fans were not happy. A recent quick look over at Rottentomatoes.comserved up a 91% positive rating among critics for The Last Jedi, but a grim 46% among moviegoers.
What happened? Well, it basically came down to poor storytelling by the film’s writer and director Rian Johnson, including myriad story holes, and either a lack of understanding or not caring about the character of Luke Skywalker. In fact, during a panel discussion featuring Mark Hamill and Johnson, Hamill made a statement about keeping the fans in mind when telling new chapters in the Star Wars saga. That seemed reasonable, but not to Johnson. Here’s what he said: “I know that George Lucas, the one thing he never did was to make any decisions in any of his movies based on some idea of making anyone but himself happy with the story. If you second guess every creative decision that you have, that you’re led to, with some idea of yes but is this abstract notion, the fan going to approve of this, then you’re going to make a bad movie… I had to kind of tell the story that I believed in and then put it out there.” There’s a sliver of a legitimate point buried here, but it’s lost due to Johnson’s going to extremes – in particular, what comes across as arrogance and immaturity. After all, without the fans footing the bill, Johnson would not be making films. Yes, Johnson went with his story, largely discarding the fans and the history of Luke Skywalker and Star Wars. It didn’t work.
The audience fallout from The Last Jedi wound up hitting Solo: A Star Wars Story (released on May 25, 2018).
A Solid Star Wars Film That Lost Money
While not being tops among the Star Wars movies, Solo ranks as a more-than-solid film.
It’s a largely fun adventure, with plenty of action, and some interesting character introductions and interplay, such as the relationship and separate paths taken by the two characters we meet at the outset, Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) and Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke), as well as the meeting and developing friendship between Han and Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo). Along with the characters, we experience love, betrayal, friendship, teamwork and the lack thereof, fear, courage, cowardice, and wrestling with what’s the right thing to do. In addition, it’s interesting to view the impact of Beckett (leader of a criminal group played exceedingly well by Woody Harrelson) on Han – for better and for worse. The young Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) brings some fun into the story as well, except for his weird relationship with the annoying droid L3-37. The movie serves up a few surprises and twists along the way, and hey, there’s even a high-tech train robbery. For good measure, Ehrenreich pulled off the considerable challenge of playing a young Han Solo. And given the need to switch directors in mid-stream, Ron Howard deserves credit for pulling off a dine directorial feat.
Nonetheless, Solo apparently lost money. According to various reports, such as from Variety, the movie cost some $250 million to make, plus another $150 million spent on promotion. But, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com(all box office numbers from Box Office Mojo unless otherwise noted) Solo only pulled in $380 million in revenue globally, short of the $400 million cost.
Looking Ahead
A longtime ago (relatively speaking in Hollywood terms) in the Star Wars galaxy, the biggest unknown was when or if George Lucas was ever going to get around to making another film. When Lucas did return to his franchise, it’s didn’t seem to matter all that much that the three prequels – especially the first two – did not compare well to the original trilogy. They still had a certain fun about them, and raked in big revenues and profits.
But what about now? Is Disney in trouble with Star Wars? Hardly. Here are a few reasons why.
First, this is not new territory for the franchise. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) pulled in more than $1 billion. But Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) fell back to $649 million. There were rumblings. However, with Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005) being the best of the Lucas prequels, the box office bounced back to $849 million. And a decade later, the first Star Wars film under Disney – The Force Awakens – earned more than $2 billion in box office revenue.
Second, director J.J. Abrams, who was at the helm of The Force Awakens, returns for the next movie, Episode IX, set for release in December 2019. Abrams clearly has more of an appreciation for Star Wars lore than Johnson. For good measure, while Solo came a mere five months after The Last Jedi, there’s a year-and-a-half from Solo to Episode IX, providing some breathing time and an opportunity to gin up new Star Wars excitement.
Third, that excitement will be further fueled by Disney’s opening the much-anticipated, immersive Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge parks at both Disneyland (summer 2019) and Disney World (late fall 2019).
Fourth, Bob Iger and the rest of the Disney management team correctly view Star Wars as a major, long-term source of revenue and profits, and are investing accordingly. While moviemaking is always part gamble, given audience’s shifting tastes and quirks, and Disney certainly has had its missteps, the number of missteps have been limited given the size and scope of this entertainment giant. Disney will not allow its original $4-billion-plus investment to purchase the Star Warsfranchise, and subsequent and forthcoming expenditures, to go to waste. There are more movies and series coming, including films from the creators of Game of Thrones, a trilogy from Johnson (who one hopes will bounce back being free to create his own set of characters and story), and multiple television shows (including one by Jon Favreau) for the forthcoming Disney streaming service. If success eventually requires cleaning out the current Star Warsteam, led by Kathleen Kennedy, then so be it, that will happen. Or, if the next film hits hyperdrive, criticism of how the House of Mouse handles Star Wars will fade … at least for a time.
In the end, the safe money goes with Disney and its Star Wars assets continuing to grow – and feeding Disney’s reputation, expanding IP (i.e., intellectual property), and bottom line.
