Star Wars: The Last Jedi (SPOILERS)

[Kyle]

Probably more to do with the fact it competed with Deadpool 2, Infinity War, and that nobody really wanted this movie.

 

[Andy44]

Looks like the galaxy have lost all it's hope... The spark is out.

Even a bankable brand name like the Star Wars franchise can only take so much abuse from garbage movies before it stops being a cash cow.

 

[Frilock]

Total weekend estimates are in:

[ame="https://twitter.com/BORReport/status/1000760704150814721"]BoxOfficeReport.com on Twitter: "Solo: A Star Wars Story debuted with an estimated $65.0M internationally through Sunday. Global total through Sunday is $148.3M.

#SoloAStarWarsStory #BoxOffice @DisneyStudios @starwars"[/ame]

To break even the movie is going to need AT LEAST $600 million (Production costs are estimated at $300 million, and theaters take roughly half of the ticket price so the rule of thumb is 2x the production cost for break even). At this rate its going to struggle to make $400 million.

 

[dbeachy1]

Solo is indeed one of the most expensive Star Wars movies to date, mostly due to its extensive reshoots after the first directors were fired. Snipped from the article:

It's unfortunate that they had to do all those reshoots, but I've seen the film and enjoyed the final product -- IMO Ron Howard did a great job after stepping in to direct.

As for the eventual break-even line vs. box office performance alone, that's a bit murkier than it first appears because blu-ray sales, streaming, and merchandising can make quite a bit of money, too, particularly long-term.

As for the opening weekend, according to that Box Office tweet Solo has already made $148 million "through Sunday", and will certainly make some more today (Sunday). Even at $148 million it's already the 19th biggest film opening of all time, coming in between Spider-Man 3 and Furious 7. Rogue One, #16 on the list, opened with $155 million, so Solo is already in the ballpark even without revenues from Sunday yet.

Another factor is that Solo is competing with Deadpool 2 and Infinity War, both of which are huge films. We'll have to see how Solo does the next few weekends to see if it drops off as much as typical films do.

In any case, I quite enjoyed Solo and it felt very much like a "Star Wars Universe" movie to me. :tiphat:

 

[Frilock]

~snip~

As for the opening weekend, according to that Box Office tweet Solo has already made $148 million "through Sunday", and will certainly make some more today (Sunday). Even at $148 million it's already the 19th biggest film opening of all time, coming in between Spider-Man 3 and Furious 7. Rogue One, #16 on the list, opened with $155 million, so Solo is already in the ballpark even without revenues from Sunday yet.

The $148 figure is Solo's WORLDWIDE total. The $155 for Rogue One is its domestic.

From Box office mojo:

That's the comparison with just domestics. So this movie is expected to make TOTAL this weekend what R1 did just domestically.

The foreign opening weekend for R1 was another 134,967,529.

According to Box Office Mojo R1 grossed 1,056,057,273 in total world wide. This movie is tracking to not even do HALF of that.

---------- Post added at 04:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:29 PM ----------

It's unfortunate that they had to do all those reshoots, but I've seen the film and enjoyed the final product -- IMO Ron Howard did a great job after stepping in to direct.

As for the eventual break-even line vs. box office performance alone, that's a bit murkier than it first appears because blu-ray sales, streaming, and merchandising can make quite a bit of money, too, particularly long-term.

Honestly I really think Howard did pretty good with what he had to work with, and that might be what eventually saves this movie financially for Disney. I can't imagine Kathleen Kennedy (and for that matter Rian Johnson) are sitting too comfortably right now. With a 4 BILLION dollar initial investment, Star Wars is not the franchise where breaking even through DVD and streaming is even remotely acceptable. The cost overruns are square on Kennedy's shoulder's, and the loss of good will from a large part the the fanbase is at Johnson's feet. If EP 9 even comes close to not breaking even (where we will know for sure how Ep 8 has impacted the franchise) I can almost guarantee Kennedy will be out, and Johnson will have lost his trilogy (if he hasn't already).

 

[4throck]

I've seen all the previous at the cinema, always on the opening weekend.
Not this one. Solo is the first Star Wars movie I don't care about.

The Last Jedi really killed the franchise.

 

[jedidia]

It's not so much about the last Jedi, I'm just not interested in a Solo movie... If they're doing firefly in the star wars universe I'm all up for that, but Solo's just too burdened a character to do anything worthwhile with.

 

[Andy44]

I've seen all the previous at the cinema, always on the opening weekend.
Not this one. Solo is the first Star Wars movie I don't care about.

The Last Jedi really killed the franchise.

Agree with this. TLJ was just awful, and it wasn't just a fluke. 3 bad Lucas films followed by 2 bad Disney ones. Lucas even went back and wrecked his earlier, good, films by re-editing and adding unnecessary CG garbage.

The fluke was Rogue One being good; it's the only one that breaks the streak.

This should be the greatest franchise in movie history, it should blow away James Bond and the Marvel Avengers and Harry Potter, but they keep blowing it.

 

[4throck]

Interestingly, if you look at Star Trek, they managed to give Spock a great character arch.
You see him from birth to death (and resurrection...) over two timelines, always being a consistent character! So even large franchises can get things right.

Star Wars needs to develop their NEW characters and give them depth. Only Kilo Ren grows a bit on the last movie, and that's really the only good part of it.

Anyway, I recommend watching any fan-edit of TLJ with the deleted scenes inserted, original opening, no light saber throwing, etc. It becomes a decent movie.
Here's what some guy was able to do about the saber:
https://youtu.be/2aIxYInj0uo?t=8m51s

I edited my own personal version, but something like this is sure to be an improvement:
https://ifdb.fanedit.org/star-wars-episode-viii-the-last-jedi-recut/

 

[jedidia]

Star Wars needs to develop their NEW characters and give them depth

Oh, I couldn't agree more. Especially that entire section where Fin, Rose and Poe go off on an unauthorised sidequest that endangers the entire fleet and achives nothing, and then top it off with a mutiny, should have payed off in some major character development. And then there was pretty much zero. That made me go wtf pretty heavily...

 

[Kyle]

JMO, Marvel consistently churns out good movies because they go out of their way to please the fans. The directors of the new Star Wars movies seem to go out of their way to p*ss off the fans. I really, really am starting to think the fault here is with Kathleen Kennedy. The Last Jedi was unacceptable and shouldn't have been approved.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Especially if the rumors about the plot of Episode 9 are true. If they're correct, that will absolutely be the final nail in the coffin for the Star Wars franchise for the foreseeable future.

 

[dbeachy1]

For some fans, yes. However, The Force Awakens made over $2 billion worldwide and is currently the third highest-grossing film of all time. The Last Jedi, despite its flaws (the casino sequence, for one) made $1.3 billion worldwide at the box office and is the 11th highest-grossing film of all time.

That's a total of ~$3.4 billion dollars gross revenue for two films, not including blu-ray, streaming, or merchandising revenue, so IMO the franchise won't be "dying" anytime soon. Personally, I'm happy that Disney is making more movies in the Star Wars universe instead of only making three movies every 20 years like George Lucas did. It's an interesting universe, and I love seeing more about it. But I can see how the new movies can be polarizing, and that's fine -- to each his own, I say. :tiphat:

What I did with The Last Jedi was make a custom edit of it (just for my own use) from the blu-ray I own, and I enjoy it even more now. For example, stuff like:

• Cut 80% of the back-and-forth in the opening scene between Poe and General Hux on the Star Destroyer.
• Cut the zombie Leia scene.
• Luke keeps the light saber Rey handed him (Rey obviously gets it back later).
• Cut the space cow milk scene.
• Cut the Porgs as much as possible.
• Cut some of the slow-paced footage where Finn first meets Rose by the escape pod.
• Cut most of the casino planet. Now they fly there, don't land on the beach (like they would land on a deserted beach in full view of the casino in the first place when trying to keep a low profile, lol!), and find the master codebreaker without being arrested for illegal parking. Then next we see them flying back to the fleet, and so now the codebreaker they found is the one Maz sent them to find. He still betrays them at the end, which makes him a more interesting character IMO.
• Luke burns down the tree instead of Yoda (and Luke then regrets doing it).
• Cut the fight scene between Finn and Phasma -- Phasma would have kicked Finn's ass there anyway.
• Cut the scene where Finn charges into the beam when all the other speeders veer off (which includes cutting the scene where Rose somehow caught up to him and knocks him out of the beam).
• ...and a bunch of other smaller edits I can't recall right now. Need to watch it again.

Original runtime: 2:31:42
Edited runtime: 2:07:54 (cut 23:55 of footage total)
Total cuts (edits): 48

So yes, The Last Jedi definitely has its flaws, but I did enjoy the movie, particularly with the above edits. I like how Luke is bitter instead of being a typical Boy Scout with a halo. But that's just my take.

 

[Andy44]

All that cutting and you'd wind up with a different movie.

Which is kind of the point: the movie sucked as is.

 

[Linguofreak]

My problem with the new trilogy so far isn't with characters, and mostly isn't with the plot, it's that it feels like the setting has contacted from a whole galaxy to a small star cluster.

Still, I don't have much problem with them standing on their own, and getting rid of New Jedi Order and afterward was worth nuking the entire Expanded Universe out of canon. Episode 9 will have to descend to Holiday Special levels of badness to drag the new trilogy down far enough that it wasn't worth having the new trilogy just to nuke NJO.

That said, when Carrie Fisher died, they should have rewritten/reshot 8 to have Leia die at the Zombie Leia scene (unless they intend to recast her). I'm also nervous about 9, because their obvious intention was to have Leia train Rey in 9, but they're going to have to completely rewrite 9 to have Leia die in between films. Killing off the other two members of the original trio would have worked if real life hadn't ended up writing the plot where Leia was concerned, but now it threatens to weaken 9 significantly (that's where redoing 8 would have helped as well, they could have gotten rid of Luke's death at the end, leaving him alive for 9).