STAR WARS : Episode IX December 20, 2019 6 6

[theCapraAegagrus]

11 minutes ago, mattn792 said:

Maybe Wonder Woman also appears in IX 

Better than Mary Sue...

[piper]

1 hour ago, valiantman said:

That's so funny because ROB LIEFELD is (and has always been) the Ultimate Fanboy Jerk Off! 

I just hope he is better at critiquing films than he is at drawing feet.

[zhamlau]

Looks like reactions are all over the place. Again I’m shocked we are seeing anything south of “tHiS mOvIe Am BeSt EvAh” this early in the game. You don’t bring folks who are critical to your epic tent pole movie who are gonna do anything but fall at your feet. It’s been odd seeing folks trying to justify their reactions while not being allowed to give much more. 
 

I noticed Lucas wasn’t there, that could be telling. Also there is one strong theme I’m seeing: this movie is designed to outright murder “The Last Jedi” and put it in the ground. Clearly Disney had an agenda and that was to make TLJ get wiped off the map and pushed down into the memory hole. Guess it’s now permissible to admit that was a very bad movie that killed a lot of the franchise.
 

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-first-reactions-are-mixed-not-the-best-finale/ar-BBY4KdG?ocid=st

[kimik]

There was never going to be a perfect way to end this trilogy and the original Star Wars/Skywalker saga since every fan that grew up on SW has their own view/hope how it should end. I am still looking forward to seeing the film over the Christmas break with the kids to see how they wrap it up.

[paperheart]

16 minutes ago, zhamlau said:

Looks like reactions are all over the place. Again I’m shocked we are seeing anything south of “tHiS mOvIe Am BeSt EvAh” this early in the game. You don’t bring folks who are critical to your epic tent pole movie who are gonna do anything but fall at your feet. It’s been odd seeing folks trying to justify their reactions while not being allowed to give much more. 
 

I noticed Lucas wasn’t there, that could be telling. Also there is one strong theme I’m seeing: this movie is designed to outright murder “The Last Jedi” and put it in the ground. Clearly Disney had an agenda and that was to make TLJ get wiped off the map and pushed down into the memory hole. Guess it’s now permissible to admit that was a very bad movie that killed a lot of the franchise.
 

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-first-reactions-are-mixed-not-the-best-finale/ar-BBY4KdG?ocid=st

smells like a poop storm

[theCapraAegagrus]

21 minutes ago, zhamlau said:

...there is one strong theme I’m seeing: this movie is designed to outright murder “The Last Jedi” and put it in the ground. Clearly Disney had an agenda and that was to make TLJ get wiped off the map and pushed down into the memory hole. Guess it’s now permissible to admit that was a very bad movie that killed a lot of the franchise.

Wouldn't it be ing awesome if they cast Rian Johnson and killed him on-screen?

Now that would be a fanboy moment.

[theCapraAegagrus]

"Could not have been more rude to Rian Johnson", one person said.

Not that I can get into...

[NewWorldOrder]

What a shock everyone is praising the movie.  Why?  So Disney doesnt ban them for their next world premiere event! haha

Sorry but when I see reactions, "a lot to process,"  and "overwhelmed so I need to see it again."  That all means its not very good!

TLJ had the same reactions and look how well most of us regard that disgrace.  

 

He loved the TLJ but didnt like this so maybe that is a good thing. 

[TupennyConan]

The angrier fandom gets at a SW film, the better the SW film. 

[theCapraAegagrus]

1 minute ago, NewWorldOrder said:

What a shock everyone is praising the movie.  Why?  So Disney doesnt ban them for their next world premiere event! haha

Sorry but when I see reactions, "a lot to process,"  and "overwhelmed so I need to see it again."  That all means its not very good!

TLJ had the same reactions and look how well most of us regard that disgrace.  

 

He loved the TLJ but didnt like this so maybe that is a good thing. 

I wouldn't be sure about that.

Infinity War and Endgame were a lot to process. Did I love them immediately? Yes. They're built on successful after successful film, though. Apparently TROS does a lot of rebuilding early in the film to setup the back-half of the movie.

[Broke as a Joke]

TLJ was so bad that they had to bend over backwards with Ep. 9 to throw everything in that fans wanted.  Ends up being a pile of junk that can't get out of it's own way.

In a very real sense, TLJ ruined this movie before it even started filming.  It never had a chance to recover.

[IMJ]

Just a point to consider - Only a true, true nerd would be directly insulted by Disney and their constituents, be told off and likened to the worst of humanity by Rian Johnson after paying him; and still pay to go see The Rise of Skywalker.

That's like the kid who gives the school bully his lunch money, then gets slapped in the face and afterwards still tries to friend up to the POS who violated him.

Resist your addictions people. Money talks.

[tv horror]

1 hour ago, TupennyConan said:

The angrier fandom gets at a SW film, the better the SW film. 

Blame it on Snather!

[TupennyConan]

41 minutes ago, IMJ said:

That's like the kid who gives the school bully his lunch money, then gets slapped in the face and afterwards still tries to friend up to the POS who violated him.

Nope, it isn't like that. 

[tv horror]

1 hour ago, theCapraAegagrus said:

I wouldn't be sure about that.

Infinity War and Endgame were a lot to process. Did I love them immediately? Yes. They're built on successful after successful film, though. Apparently TROS does a lot of rebuilding early in the film to setup the back-half of the movie.

Episode 10 The Rise of Lucas

Episode 11 Lucas strikes back

Episode 12  Lucas A New hope. 

Edited December 17, 2019 by tv horror

[theCapraAegagrus]

43 minutes ago, IMJ said:

Just a point to consider - Only a true, true Star Wars fan would be directly insulted by Disney and their constituents, be told off and likened to the worst of humanity by Rian Johnson after paying him; and still pay to go see The Rise of Skywalker.

That's like the kid who gives the school bully his lunch money, then gets slapped in the face and afterwards still tries to friend up to the POS who violated him.

Resist your addictions people. Money talks.

Fixed that for ya.

If RJ directed this movie, nobody would be going to see it. For those of us who have been entrenched in Star Wars fandom their entire memorable lives, we have to see how it ends.

[theCapraAegagrus]

2 minutes ago, tv horror said:

Episode 10 The Rise of Lucas

Episode 11 Lucas strikes back

Episode 12  Lucas A New hope. 

Hopefully an "Episode X" is never considered or released.

[tv horror]

2 minutes ago, theCapraAegagrus said:

Hopefully an "Episode X" is never considered or released.

As Sean Connery found out Never say never again!

[paperheart]

Market dominance is lucrative

From Deadline: I hear from exhibition sources that Disney is enforcing a four week engagement play in each venue’s largest auditorium for a film rental of 65%. Theaters are to provide no passes for the first two weeks of engagement, and no discount tickets outside of a theater’s one weekly discount night. Three trailers must play on every print of Skywalker: Fox’s Call of the Wild, Marvel’s Black Widow and Disney’s Mulan. Any breach of these rules will result in a film rental of 70%. These are standard terms I understand for a Disney Star Wars or Marvel pic.

 

[Rip]

https://deadline.com/2019/12/star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-global-opening-box-office-1202810995/

 

Disney will ring out its $10 billion-plus global 2019 with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, in what is expected to be a $450M global opening, which is what Star Wars: The Last Jedi opened to in 2017, behind Force Awakens’ $528.9M. Skywalker rises in France, Germany and Italy tomorrow with previews in China with domestic previews starting Thursday at 6PM. Broken out the expectation is at least $200M+ in U.S./Canada (with an asterisk — read on) and $250M abroad. This includes about $20M expected from China which has not warmed to the space saga, despite Disney’s best efforts to create a following.

But is Skywalker the last event pic mega global opening until 2021?

While there is bound to be big pics next year, you have to wait until 2021 before you get to the pent-up demand features such as Thor: Love and Thunder, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Matrix 4 and of course the mother of them all, Avatar 2, on Dec. 17.

Some disagree with this theory that Rise of Skywalker is the last big global opener until 2021 pointing to how other franchises, such as the Marvel pics, tend to overindex abroad pulling in 60% of their global ticket sales with China and South Korea being big markets. But 2020 is a wonky reset year for Marvel with frosh property Eternals next November and Black Widow, a spinoff about a female Bond-like Russian assassin who doesn’t have superpowers (and who hasn’t seen that before?).

Bond himself typically doesn’t do a day and date release with MGM/Universal’s No Time to Die starting in the UK and select foreign territories on April 2 before domestic’s April 10.

If Warner Bros./DC’s Wonder Woman 1984 is going to do any business over $400M in her first weekend, she’ll need to beat the comic book label’s biggest global opener Batman v. Superman ($422.5M), and make sure that China is along for the ride in its first weekend. Marvel has a better track record in larger numbers abroad than DC, and Captain Marvel‘s uber-debut of $456.7M was a tee-up to Avengers: Endgame. While Mulan should dominate China, it remains to be seen how it resonates in non-Asian markets; Beauty and the Beast —a much bigger property— being Disney’s biggest live action princess (and adaptation of a feature toon) opening with $357M.

In regards to pics opening to north of $450M next year, if there’s one possibility, it’s Universal’s Fast & Furious 9 on May 22. That hinges on Uni firing off the 9th sequel in 63 territories plus China like they did with The Fate of the Furious, which delivered a $541.9M opening global weekend (the third best of all-time behind Avengers: Endgame $1.2 billion and Infinity War‘s $640.5M), $184.9M of that from China. Overall, studios don’t know if China will be part of their opening suite until 30 days prior to a pic’s release.

But back to Skywalker. Recently we hear from exhibition that stateside advance ticket sales are on par with Last Jedi four days before opening and indicate a $200M opening despite the fact that tracking has the J.J. Abrams-directed ninth-quel at $175M. There was an upbeat response coming out of the Hollywood premiere last night, with the feeling that the movie had course-corrected the flyaway hairs in the Star Wars canon from Rian Johnson’s Last Jedi, so there’s potential for over-indexing. Reviews hit after 12:01 AM on Wednesday, Dec. 18.

Skywalker will play in 4,300+ theaters by Friday including over 3,200 3D locations, 415 IMAX screens, 850 Premium Large Format screens and 275 D-Box/4D locations. Fan event screenings at 450 theaters will take place at 5PM Thursday before the 6PM early shows nationwide. Additionally, 21 theaters in major markets will run 9 film Star Wars Marathons (kicking off Wednesday evening, leading into the Thursday 5pm showing of Skywalker).

I hear from exhibition sources that Disney is enforcing a four week engagement play in each venue’s largest auditorium for a film rental of 65%. Theaters are to provide no passes for the first two weeks of engagement, and no discount tickets outside of a theater’s one weekly discount night. Three trailers must play on every print of Skywalker: Fox’s Call of the Wild, Marvel’s Black Widow and Disney’s Mulan. Any breach of these rules will result in a film rental of 70%. These are standard terms I understand for a Disney Star Wars or Marvel pic.

No one is expecting Thursday night previews to be at the level of Force Awakens which made $57M and was recently unseated by Avengers: Endgame ($60M) which became the best domestic preview night of all-time. The Last Jedi earned $45M in previews while Rogue One in 2016 did $29M, and Solo $14.1M. Expect Thursday night to be around the Last Jedi range.
Overseas the only major market not releasing this session is Korea which joins in January.

Previous title The Last Jedi opened to $235M abroad in like-for-like markets and at today’s exchange rates. The Force Awakens did $312M in the same markets and at current rates. The leading hubs for Star Wars tend to always include mature majors the UK, Germany, France, Japan and Australia while China snuck into the Top 5 on Force Awakens given the curiosity factor, as did Rogue One with local actors Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen in the cast.

The sentiment abroad, like domestic, is that some fans felt burned by The Last Jedi, and perhaps more so by Solo which came out too quickly after Episode VIII and had little evident raison d’être. So, some may be on the fence about rushing out in the opening days and will wait a beat to hear which way word of mouth is leaning.

Still, Skywalker reps nearly 45 years of history all wrapped up in this last movie and it’s expected folks will want to turn out to see the culmination of Lucas’ odyssey. Looking back to Episodes I-III, The Phantom Menace was a massive event, but was pilloried, leading to Attack Of The Clones dropping significantly. However, Revenge Of The Sith bounced back up, though not to Phantom Menace numbers.

Says one international distribution exec, “How can it not be an event to wrap it all up?” Also, recall that The Force Awakens helped create a new young fan base who went back and watched the originals and will be in line this week.

As for China, previews begin Wednesday night at 7PM local and we hear Skywalker is going wide on Thursday rather than Friday as previously announced. This marks a change from the recent holiday Star Wars installments which have each bowed in the Middle Kingdom in January, after initial rollout elsewhere.

The timing is of course dictated by the Chinese authorities and gives Skywalker a coveted day-and-date release. A last-minute shake-up in China appears to have pushed Ip Man 4: The Finale (which was expected to underwhelm) back to January. Feng Xiaogang’s Only Cloud Knows is another major new pic in the market.

Still, as we’ve seen, China is not key to this franchise. Each of the new titles has had diminishing returns there. At historical rates, TFA did $124M, Rogue One came in at $69.5M and The Last Jedi made just $42.6M there (Solo grossed $16.5M off a late-May day-and-date release).

Disney has tried to increase awareness of (and fondness for) the franchise in China, but unlike on a lot of the rest of this planet, the 42-year old saga doesn’t have the hook there of nostalgia for the characters and mythology. To help move the needle, Disney in October teamed with Tencent-owned China Literature to produce the first original Chinese Star Wars story for the latter’s online reading platform. The two companies will also distribute 40 Star Wars novels translated into Chinese for the first time.

For reference, The Last Jedi finaled at $712M overseas at historic rates and was led by the UK, Germany, Japan, France and Australia. The Force Awakens did best in the UK, China, Germany, Japan and France, rolling up to a $1.13B international gross.

The cast and filmmakers have been traveling abroad in support. Kathleen Kennedy, Abrams, Ridley, Boyega, Anthony Daniels and Chris Teri were all at a recent press conference and promo event in Tokyo while Abrams and Ridley attended Brazil Comic-con.

Overall, Skywalker will be IMAX’s widest global release ever with 1450 screens in 75 countries.

Elsewhere stateside, Universal will brave Working Title’s Cats as counterprogramming against Star Wars. Again, if this movie doesn’t do any business, it’s simply about getting some sort of start in the pre-Christmas market with the studio banking that the Broadway and Greatest Showman fans leg this Tom Hooper directed adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical out. Showtimes being at 7PM on Thursday in what is expected to be a $15M-$20M weekend (it could very well go lower). Pic will be booked by Friday at 3,200 theaters. James Corden, Judi Dench, Jason Derulo, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift and Rebel Wilson star. Cats will spring in the U.K. & Ireland as well, expanding the following week into 42 markets including France, Australia, Germany, Korea and Mexico. Pic’s overseas rollout continues through February.

Lionsgate is also expanding Bron’s Jay Roach directed Bombshell after it detonated a great $76,8K per screen at 4 theaters. The film starring Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie about the women who take on Fox News boss Roger Ailes is poised to make between $7M-$12M.