The newest installment of the Star Wars saga has not had the expected box office success of its predecessor, defenders of the current installment might be bit desperate. At first they were dismissive of the fan based criticism, quick to smell troll while out trolling themselves. Admittedly the Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score was a suspicious, however since then RT has confirmed the rating is legitimate and anecdotally in my life that 52% sentiment is about right for Star Wars fans I know. I think there are fans who just plain old do not like the short cuts Rian Johnson took to arrive at the end of his story or the liberties he took with certain characters.
Latest meme the loyal studio defenders have come up with is The Empire Strikes Back had similar poor reaction from the audience in 1980 and made $98 million less than the first beloved movie. As for the reaction to the tone of Empire and revelations there in maybe they have a point, I wasn’t alive back then so I have no idea how common movie goers in 1980 reacted to Empire. My generation of fans regard Empire as one of the best Star Wars films bar none and just a good movie in general. The folks I suspect are working the keyboard for the company want us to equate the lack luster attempt at story telling that is Episode 8 with the pillar of perfection that is Episode 5, also for us naysayers to cut the poor writer/director some slack and re-up for seeing the movie a few dozen more times until we really love it.
Not to burst their bubble but a little research put the lie to their claim that in 1980 Empire was so controversial the box office suffered. One thing that is correct is Star Wars (Episode 4: A New Hope as it would come to be known) did make more money than The Empire Strikes Back, however what is not disclosed is Star Wars was re-released, then re-re-re-released. In 1977 Star Wars stayed in the US & Canadian theaters from May to December making $195 million. While the Empire original release was May to the middle of August. Head to head (roughly same number of days) Empire crushes Star Wars and Return of the Jedi crushes Empire.
- Star Wars 1977 May through August Box Office: $122,576,055 (Weekend #14)
- Star Wars 1977 Opening weekend: limited May 27th $1,554,475 / wide July 15th $6,806,951
- The Empire Strikes Back 1980: May through August Box Office: $145,893,923 (Weekend #13)
- The Empire Strikes Back 1980 Opening Weekend: limited May 21st $4,910,483 / wide June 20th $10,840,307
- Return of the Jedi 1983 May through August Box Office: $228,747,532 (Week # 14)
- Return of the Jedi 1983 Opening Weekend: $23,019,618
- Estimated average price per ticket: 1977 $2.23 / 1980 $2.69 / 1983 $3.15
- Estimated ticket sales May to August: Star Wars 1977 55million / Empire 1980 54.2mllion / Jedi 1983 72.6mIllion
What muddies the waters is these movies were continuously re-released so a lot of the glorious bragging rights box office totals are corrupted by adding on of additional showings. With all credit where it is due the original Star Wars was such a surprise hit that theaters were scrambling to meet the demand for a very long time. However it is clear that on the same footing there is no real backwards trend attendance wise in the original Star Wars trilogy. The confusion about the data is handy for the myth makers/spin doctors trying to lessen the negative press and sentiment towards Episode 8.
More confusing to me is the that Disney had successfully resurrected a formula that George Lucas couldn’t, Disney’s decision to hand control of the next installment over to an untested director whose goal was to shake up the franchise is extremely puzzling. There simply was no need to shake up the franchise at this point, maybe there never would be. Even with all of it’s flaws Episode 7 successfully reestablished the look and feel of Star Wars movies after the Prequels had failed to. However wasted Episode 7 was as an installment (I say wasted because it didn’t really advance the story much beyond reestablishing the Star Wars universe 30 years later) at the end of Episode 7 the possibilities were wide open. At the end of Episode 8 the possibilities are extremely closed off. It looks like for the next few years Disney will be playing a game where each director of their coveted movie franchise deliberately drives the story into a ditch then walks away leaving it to the next director to figure out what to do with the open can worms left behind.