![]() ![]() What if that happens again? What if there is even less foreign interest in a disconnected Star Wars film than there was last time for the “explicit sequel to Return of the Jedi”? If that (spitball math-ish) opening weekend prediction is anywhere close to accurate, then the comparatively “smaller” worldwide opening weekend would give Rogue One a $225 million global debut, which by any other rational standard would be huge. While The Force Awakens did great overseas by any rational standard (over $1 billion overseas), it made almost half of its money in North America. That’s in line with the last couple Hobbit movies. That means, thanks to poor reviews, which correctly anticipates poor word-of-mouth, a lack of comparative interest among general audiences and brutal competition from Sing!, Rogue One gets a domestic total of $245 million from that would be $105m debut weekend. So even terrible legs for December would be ideal for almost any other month, which is how (for example) Star Trek: Nemesis can drop 76% in its second weekend and still pull a 2.33x weekend-to-final multiplier.Īnd since this is “worst-case-scenario,” we’re darn well using the worst Star Trek movie as the comparison point. But after that, well, this is where we play “worst-case scenario December math.”Īs you’ve heard me discuss for at least four years (longer if you followed me during my “Mendelson’s Memos” days), the last two weeks in December offer insane legs for openers, specifically because you get two weeks of glorified weekend days where a huge chunk of the population is out of school and/or off of work for the holidays. ![]() Let’s say $105 million (the adjusted Fri-Sun debut for The Return of the King) for easier calculations. So what happens? Well, it still scores the second-biggest December opening weekend of all time, something between Suicide Squad’s $133.6 million and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’s $84.6 million from four December’s ago. So while a big opening is assured, it has to contend with Illumination and Universal/Comcast Corp.’s Sing! the next weekend, which is the kind of uber-kid magnet that The Force Awakens scared off of the Christmas holiday last year. So, under this nightmare scenario, Rogue One doesn’t work on its own terms, and it is (to general audiences) just a random would-be blockbuster with the name “ Star Wars” slapped on it. There is no guarantee that this stand-alone Star Wars movie, which is not a sequel to The Force Awakens and also not a sequel/prequel to the beloved original films, won’t just play like a far more conventional year-end blockbuster, especially if the movie doesn’t deliver. We’ve all seen sequels to hit movies that underperformed because the curiosity just wasn’t there the second time out, even if the first film delivered. It can also be argued that quite a few of the people who flocked to The Force Awakens did so out of curiosity and because of the deluge of positive media the picture ensnared before and after its opening weekend. 1 issue that Walt Disney marketing has to deal with between now and Dec. So yeah, and I may go into this later, but that’s the No. All it has is the fact that it’s a movie set in the Star Wars universe, a kick-ass female action lead in Felicity Jones, some inspired imagery and a Darth Vader cameo.Īdding to complications is the fact that the general audience isn’t sure when or where this film takes place, with confusion about whether it’s a sequel to The Force Awakens. That may sound mad, but my wife (who follows this stuff as much as any normal adult) asked me the other night when the film took place, a question that frankly took me aback. ![]() In this scenario, unlike The Force Awakens (or Suicide Squad), Rogue One doesn’t have the advantage of popular fan-favorite characters like Han Solo (or Harley Quinn) to get audiences into the theater. The film is a bit more “crowd-pleasing” or kid-friendly, but it doesn’t work beyond the scale of the imagery and a handful of colorful characters. The reshoots and post-production work allegedly spearheaded by Tony Gilroy create a final film that is as tonally wobbly and narratively jumbly as Suicide Squad. The fears of Gareth Edwards’s grim war story being reworked into a gee-whiz adventure caper in order to more tonally resemble The Force Awakens prove to be accurate. ![]() So, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story screens for the press, and it’s… well, okay? The rumors of the reshoots turn out to be mostly right. In other words, what if it is chaotically terrible and doesn’t have even halfway decent December legs? But yeah, this post is a “What if it performs like a regular movie?” scenario. And heck, not to beat a dead horse, but even Suicide Squad … Well, ya know. Unless it’s chaotically terrible, it’s going to open rather well and probably have halfway decent December legs. ![]()
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