Should Kathleen Kennedy be let go from the Star Wars megaproject?

[Worffan101]

On one hand, tie-ins are typically explicitly noncanon or semi-canon, so I usually don't have much sympathy for people busy whining about that stuff being contradicted. Sometimes, canon marches on.

On the flip side, that's also lost revenue for Disney, and with TLJ making about 2/3 of TFA's gross and Solo crashing and burning, there is a strong argument to be made that they NEED that revenue.

The real test, though, is going to be Episode 9. Just like BvS killed the DCEU but it was Justice League that took the fall, there's a good chance that TLJ will kill this iteration of Star Wars, and it's Episode 9 that bites it. Basically, if Episode 9 makes lots of money (as in, over 1.5 billion), Kennedy is vindicated and was right the whole time to ignore long-haul fans in favor of attempts at outreach to the public. If it makes a billion or less? Kennedy needs to go.

Also, as for Rey--I liked her OK. She was a little OP in TFA but largely was just ANH Luke with tits. The problem came in TLJ where the casino plot and the constant Kylo Ren shilling took away from her character development.

It's probably worth mentioning the actual profits from the movies as well as the revenue.
As a general rule of thumb a movie gets half the box office takings and advertising/marketing is usually the same amount as the production cost. So a movie takes about 4 times its production cost to break even.

With those in mind, estimated profit from the four Disney movies so far:

TFA: $500 million
RO: $100 million
TLJ: £150 million
Solo: -$80 million ( could be far higher depending on reshoot costs)

Outside of that the vast bulk of money brought in my Star Wars before was from the toys and merch sales. Those numbers are harder to get hold of but if they have tanked as badly as they appear to have, the franchise could be making far more serious losses.

So in terms of movies made with the profit (since that's what they largely use the profit for):
TFA: Make and market The Avengers 1.2 times.
RO: Make 2/3 of Captain America
TLJ: Make Captain America
Solo: Losing money.

...yeah, that's a sharp drop. From TFA you have enough to fund and market a couple of passion projects for your studio's big auteur or your next big blockbuster AND give yourself a shiny bonus of a hosue. From TLJ...you can make a mid-range action flick* and try to crowdsource the advertising budget. That's not good.

*Yes, Captain America 1 was much more than just a mid-range action flick and is one of my favorite Marvel movies, but it resembled a midrange action flick in budget.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

So in terms of movies made with the profit (since that's what they largely use the profit for):
TFA: Make and market The Avengers 1.2 times.
RO: Make 2/3 of Captain America
TLJ: Make Captain America
Solo: Losing money.

...yeah, that's a sharp drop. From TFA you have enough to fund and market a couple of passion projects for your studio's big auteur or your next big blockbuster AND give yourself a shiny bonus of a hosue. From TLJ...you can make a mid-range action flick* and try to crowdsource the advertising budget. That's not good.

TLJ was the highest grossing film of 2017 and the 9th highest grossing film of all time. I'm not buying that as a poor performance from a pure box office perspective. I don't think anyone expected it to hold up to TFA numbers, TFA was a cultural phenomenon with a huge amount of hype behind it. So in a sense, I think TFA "overperformed", so the larger than average drop off is not surprising.

With that said, if my understanding is correct, TLJ certainly didn't exceed box office expectations and fell a little on the lower end of its expected range. Unless it had an absolutely horrible critical reaction before release, it was going to have a huge opening, which it did (close to TFA's numbers), but it did have some large dropoffs over its run. Not enough to make it a failure, but enough for some to question just how enamored fans were with it.

Then of course, Solo came along. Solo is the one that really raises questions, because it bombed more horribly than anyone thought possible (anyone I saw, anyway). The reasons for that aren't clear, but TLJ and the general malaise it created could certainly play a part in it. I certainly agree that episode IX is the crucial one. If Episode IX doesn't come at least close to TLJ numbers (at least, say, 1.1 billion), then I think the "haters" will have an extremely strong case that it was the story direction chosen by Kennedy, Johnson, et al. that somehow destabilized what had been the most bankable franchise in Hollywood.

Regardless of what the numbers end up saying, I know what I think of the direction they've taken, and I know I'm not alone in those feelings.

[Worffan101]

Yeah, Episode 9 will be the big deciding factor.

But still...Infinity War's made 2 billion so far and it's probably going to cap at around 2.1-2.5 depending on how its legs are (3 billion is still a ways away, methinks), and it cost probably 350 million. JUST so far, and both it and Black Panther are still in theaters even though the latter's on DVD now, Infinity War has made a profit of 1.3 billion dollars, not counting toy sales and merchandising.

Infinity War has made in pure profit what TLJ grossed.

I can't help but think that that represents a significant lapse in Disney's marketing and studio discipline when it comes to the Star Wars franchise vs. the MCU.

Also, I agree on the dropoffs, and I'm beginning to think that the "legs" a movie has are more indicative of the public reaction to it than the opening weekend. Wonder Woman was widely loved despite its messy third act, racist stereotypes in the supporting cast (Chief the Red Injun smuggler, anyone?), blatantly ripped-off plot straight from Captain America, and a frankly atrocious advertising campaign, and made a good profit with a mere 30% dropoff. Meanwhile, the other DCEU movies have had 50% or more dropoffs due to their chronic shockingly incompetent stories. Black Panther is an unstoppable juggernaut (or was prior to Infinity War making all of the money ever) because of its really low dropoffs and the cultural touchstone status it holds.

Justice League was to the DCEU what Episode IX will almost certainly be for Disney's handling of Star Wars; you can excuse the flop of something like Solo or the horrible reception and weak legs of Suicide Squad as a fluke or because of its off-brandedness, but when the main-line crowd-pleaser bombs, then you have problems, big ones. (though Justice League wasn't helped by its mediocre commercials, painfully obvious low quality, the Superman CGI debacle, and the multiple rewrites and gutting of the movie that result in actors' facial shapes, hair, and willingness to be in the scene changing between shots)

[Admiral X]

Again this is a good case of people reading something into the film that isn't there.

Nope, it's there.

Snoke was in my view an uninteresting villain and killing him off was one of the best things about TLJ.

None of the villains are particularly interesting. Hell, one could argue they're actually comically stupid. Honestly, most of the characters in the movies are uninteresting. This is a big part of why these movies are bad.

[Karha of Honor]

Yeah, Episode 9 will be the big deciding factor.

But still...Infinity War's made 2 billion so far and it's probably going to cap at around 2.1-2.5 depending on how its legs are (3 billion is still a ways away, methinks), and it cost probably 350 million. JUST so far, and both it and Black Panther are still in theaters even though the latter's on DVD now, Infinity War has made a profit of 1.3 billion dollars, not counting toy sales and merchandising.

Infinity War has made in pure profit what TLJ grossed.

I can't help but think that that represents a significant lapse in Disney's marketing and studio discipline when it comes to the Star Wars franchise vs. the MCU.

Also, I agree on the dropoffs, and I'm beginning to think that the "legs" a movie has are more indicative of the public reaction to it than the opening weekend. Wonder Woman was widely loved despite its messy third act, racist stereotypes in the supporting cast (Chief the Red Injun smuggler, anyone?), blatantly ripped-off plot straight from Captain America, and a frankly atrocious advertising campaign, and made a good profit with a mere 30% dropoff. Meanwhile, the other DCEU movies have had 50% or more dropoffs due to their chronic shockingly incompetent stories. Black Panther is an unstoppable juggernaut (or was prior to Infinity War making all of the money ever) because of its really low dropoffs and the cultural touchstone status it holds.

Justice League was to the DCEU what Episode IX will almost certainly be for Disney's handling of Star Wars; you can excuse the flop of something like Solo or the horrible reception and weak legs of Suicide Squad as a fluke or because of its off-brandedness, but when the main-line crowd-pleaser bombs, then you have problems, big ones. (though Justice League wasn't helped by its mediocre commercials, painfully obvious low quality, the Superman CGI debacle, and the multiple rewrites and gutting of the movie that result in actors' facial shapes, hair, and willingness to be in the scene changing between shots)

Reductive portrayal of a culture /=/ racist.

[Fixer]

Again this is a good case of people reading something into the film that isn't there.

Nope, it's there.

Snoke was in my view an uninteresting villain and killing him off was one of the best things about TLJ.

None of the villains are particularly interesting. Hell, one could argue they're actually comically stupid. Honestly, most of the characters in the movies are uninteresting. This is a big part of why these movies are bad.

Exactly. There was a lot of fandom interest about how the new characters and villains got from the ending of ROTJ to the start of TFA. It's a hallmark of JJ's mystery box writing. However we went from Snoke saying he'll complete Kylo's training at the end of one movie, to telling him to get rid of his stupid hat the second.

This is just a case of the second writer just abandoning the setup of the first writer, with no overall plan for the trilogy and no payoff for anyone that got invested.

You're also right about the incompetence of the villains. How big are the stakes exactly, when you get the impression the First Order will collapse on its own through infighting and stupidity in a couple of years.

TLJ was the highest grossing film of 2017 and the 9th highest grossing film of all time. I'm not buying that as a poor performance from a pure box office perspective. I don't think anyone expected it to hold up to TFA numbers, TFA was a cultural phenomenon with a huge amount of hype behind it. So in a sense, I think TFA "overperformed", so the larger than average drop off is not surprising.

With that said, if my understanding is correct, TLJ certainly didn't exceed box office expectations and fell a little on the lower end of its expected range. Unless it had an absolutely horrible critical reaction before release, it was going to have a huge opening, which it did (close to TFA's numbers), but it did have some large dropoffs over its run. Not enough to make it a failure, but enough for some to question just how enamored fans were with it.

Then of course, Solo came along. Solo is the one that really raises questions, because it bombed more horribly than anyone thought possible (anyone I saw, anyway). The reasons for that aren't clear, but TLJ and the general malaise it created could certainly play a part in it. I certainly agree that episode IX is the crucial one. If Episode IX doesn't come at least close to TLJ numbers (at least, say, 1.1 billion), then I think the "haters" will have an extremely strong case that it was the story direction chosen by Kennedy, Johnson, et al. that somehow destabilized what had been the most bankable franchise in Hollywood.

Regardless of what the numbers end up saying, I know what I think of the direction they've taken, and I know I'm not alone in those feelings.

The Force Awakens did have a lot of weight around it being the first of the new series. It wasn't a film that succeeded entirely on it's own merits. The Star Wars brand was valued as being worth $4 billion by Disney for a reason.

It's not that long ago I can remember the hype over seeing a new Star Wars movie, originally spiked by that short teaser scene of Han saying "Chewie, we're home." Well people got their butts in seats to see how Han continued his adventures to find he ran away from his responsibilities, then died. Then they tuned in to see how Luke continued his adventures in TLJ to find he ran away from all his responsibilities, then died.

Still despite the nostalgia and brand recognition boost TFA only had a slightly higher opening weekend. Raking in $247 million to TLJ's £220. The dropoff was spectacular though. TFA second weekend was $149 million while TLJ's was $71 million.

A lot of TFA viewers had gone to repeat viewings. 42% from a survey. Will have to make the assumption TLJ did not have as much repeat business. My search only came up with people trying to say "The Last Jedi is better if you view it a second time." Blu Ray sales are around half TFA's. Matches with the stacks of unsold discs I was told about. You can extrapolate that a lot less people wanted to see this movie again.

Whatever the case or other contributing factors, the numbers point to TLJ's opening weekend being the start of the decline.

[unknownsample]

Will have to make the assumption TLJ did not have as much repeat business. My search only came up with people trying to say "The Last Jedi is better if you view it a second time." Blu Ray sales are around half TFA's. Matches with the stacks of unsold discs I was told about. You can extrapolate that a lot less people wanted to see this movie again.

You might want to have a look at this.

https://www.mediaplaynews.com/black-pan ... s-for-may/

According to NPD, the May 2018 top 10 by units sold were:

Black Panther (Disney)
Fifty Shades Freed (Universal)
The Greatest Showman (Fox)
Peter Rabbit (Sony Pictures)
Red Sparrow (Fox)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Disney)
12 Strong (Warner)
Thor: Ragnarok (Disney)
Game Night (Warner)
Batman Ninja (Warner)

Year-to-date Top 10 (through May 2018):

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Disney)
Coco (Disney)
Thor: Ragnarok (Disney)
Black Panther (Disney)
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (Sony Pictures)
Justice League (Warner)
The Greatest Showman (Fox)
It (2017) (Warner)
Ferdinand (Fox)
Wonder (Lionsgate)

[Fixer]

You might want to have a look at this.

How does that contradict what I said?

[unknownsample]

You might want to have a look at this.

How does that contradict what I said?

Yeah to date clearly shows TLJ at the top. Looking at the official Blu Ray Chart TLJ is currently 4th

http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/blu-ray-chart/

[Fixer]

Yeah to date clearly shows TLJ at the top. Looking at the official Blu Ray Chart TLJ is currently 4th

http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/blu-ray-chart/

That means that it's not around half The Force Awakens' Blu Ray sales and shows a decline because...?

Bare in mind that the overall decline in sales for Blu Rays would only account for an 18% drop. Also that they're only 80% of Rogue One's sales so far and are highly likely to come in lower in the long run.

I do check my numbers before I post them.