Top Film Industry Stories of 2015:
#1 The Force Awakens Is the One
By David Mumpower
January 22, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Sixteen years later, Lucas returned to the scene of his greatest triumph, delivering new ideas in the first of an anticipated prequel trilogy. At first, audience members were receptive to this reinvention of the origins of Darth Vader, arguably the greatest villain of all-time. People fondly remembered the magic of Lucas-ian storytelling from their childhood. A treatise on economic and political maneuvering didn’t quite match their recollections of their youth. Also, Jar Jar Binks seemed to shamelessly pander to the next generation of movie-goers.
Still, this was a George Lucas movie, a Star Wars movie, no less. He had earned the benefit of the doubt from cinephiles, even if he was showing signs of being past his prime. This required a lot of forgiveness. The film that they’d anticipated for 16 years included dialogue as staggeringly awful as “Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo.”
Three years later, Lucas returned with what many, including myself, argued to be his make or break project. Sure, Lucas was a billionaire with one of the largest legions of fans on the planet, but a second lousy prequel would be hard to ignore. It would reinforce the belief that Lucas had lost his touch. Suffice to say that the second prequel stands as the worst reviewed film AND the worst box office performer in the franchise.
By 2005, the perception of George Lucas fundamentally changed. He no longer stood tall as the godfather of science fiction cinema. His formerly ardent fans now looked on him with a strange combination of pity and disgust. The man who built Star Wars from nothing delivered the conclusion to his meticulously planned prequels, and audiences collectively said, “Eh, that’s good enough.” Their opinions of Star Wars had lowered so much by that point that a movie that didn’t actively disgust them qualified as a modern success in terms of film quality.
That’s how far and how quickly Lucas fell from his Hollywood throne. In only six years, he flipped from conquering hero returning to the glory of battle to antiquated storyteller incapable of understanding the needs of smarter movie fans. The entire turn of events was brutal. Many people who followed Lucas shamelessly ripped off his ideas, adapting and modernizing them. By the time Lucas returned, his less artful imitators became the measuring stick against which his films were compared and found lacking.
The early days of the internet and social media involved innumerable outcries against the most popular film franchise in North America. Its inventor absorbed much of the criticism. The best comparison for the entire turn of events in today’s terms is if people suddenly started an uprising against George RR Martin, attempting to bully him out of Game of Thrones. That’s how unimaginable the situation is, and yet that’s exactly what transpired.
In October of 2012, George Lucas gave up the ghost. He sold his entire stake in Lucasfilm, the company bearing his name. Disney acquired the company and its intellectual property for a cool $4 billion. Despite the fact that all of our opinions were based in conjecture and speculation, Box Office Prophets still named this purchase as the number one Film Industry Story of 2012. Here are the relevant points from that piece:
“The core of Lucasfilm, the Star Wars franchise, has earned $4.5 billion from global box office sales alone. It has earned an additional $3.8 billion from home video, $2.9 billion from videogame licenses, $1.8 billion from book sales and $1.3 billion via other revenue streams. That’s a rough estimate of $14.3 billion over the course of the franchise’s 35 years in existence. And you will notice that I left out a key component in the calculations above.
Toy sales comprise the overwhelming majority of annual Star Wars sales. Estimates place total toy sales for Star Wars north of $12 billion. While no one outside of Lucasfilm’s accounting office will ever know for sure, these numbers are semi-confirmed by Forbes Magazine. They also note that in 2011 alone, Star Wars sold $1.5 billion worth of toys and games.”
Reading the above, you should draw the conclusion that buying the Star Wars franchise for so little money was a coup for Disney. In fact, I viewed it as functional arbitrage at the time since nobody sells toys like the Mouse House. The only noteworthy item from that item was how Disney would use the Star Wars movie brand as a Trojan horse for enhanced toy sales:
“Simultaneous with the announcement of purchase, CEO Bob Iger offered glorious news to fans of Lucas’ storied franchise. A new movie will be released in 2015, the first of a long rumored trilogy concluding Lucas’ initial story arc from the 1970s.
“Simply put, there is nothing but upside to this transaction for Disney, George Lucas and pretty much all the rest of us. We the people win with Star Wars becoming a Disney property. We get more Star Wars while Disney picks our wallets clean, which they were already doing anyway.”
Three years ago, with no script, no cast, and no George Lucas attached, Star Wars 7 was totally theoretical. Only three years later, it’s something entirely different. The fun began roughly halfway between the Disney acquisition and now. Rumors cropped up almost immediately after the announcement of Star Wars 7 that the key players from the original cast would return. George Lucas himself leaked this information, proving yet again that he didn’t have a firm grasp on how fast news spreads on the internet.
The producers of Star Wars 7, including Kathleen Kennedy, Lucas’ hand-picked successor to run Lucasfilm, all professed no knowledge of this rumor for almost a year. On April 29, 2014, Disney confirmed everything. While announcing the new cast for the project, they acknowledged that Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, and (most important) Harrison Ford would return to the roles they’d originally performed in 1977. At that moment, it was clear that franchise fans would finally enjoy something they’d wanted since 1983: resolution.
That’s what was most frustrating about Lucas’ decision to write the prequels. By ignoring the beloved cast of the Star Wars trilogy, he angered fans two different ways. The first was in denying them something that they loved. The second was in casting atrocious actors like Hayden Christensen and Jake Lloyd to anchor the prequels. Sure, Lloyd had the excuse of just being a kid in over his head but Christensen…yikes! To a larger point, Harrison Ford remained one of the most popular actors in Hollywood as well as one of the greatest box office draws. His absence from a new Star Wars movie bordered on inexcusable.
By returning Star Wars 7 to its roots, the twin Skywalkers and Han Solo, there was already something exciting about this reboot. The absence of George Lucas also helped. In an odd instance of Hollywood serendipity, JJ Abrams, a man whose job as a teenager was as an intern working for George Lucas, had become one of the most popular directors in the industry. Having recently redeemed the Star Trek franchise, directing the two most popular films in the series, he was the optimal choice to do the same for Star Wars.
By November of 2014, Disney knew they had magic. The debut of the 90-second teaser for the film they were now calling The Force Awakens immediately broke the internet. It recorded almost 60 million YouTube views during its first week, easily a record. Clearly, audiences were hungry for a good Star Wars movie after over 30 years of waiting. By the time the second teaser debuted, fans were obsessed. It enjoyed over 30 million viewings in 24 hours. If every one of those people went to see the movie on opening weekend, it’d shatter the record for opening weekend box office.
Of course, that seemed impossible. Disney specifically chose to release Star Wars: The Force Awakens the week before Christmas. Films beginning around that time demonstrably experience box office deflation. That’s why the standing opening weekend record for December was only $84.6 million, a title held by another fanboy favorite, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Disney was effectively ceding its chances at the opening weekend record in exchange for a much stronger two week box office window, the same one that had previously propelled Avatar and Titanic to become the most popular two movies ever.
At least, that was the conventional wisdom among box office analysts. Early ticket sales reports from businesses like Fandango hinted that maybe, just maybe, The Force Awakens wouldn’t play by the rules. Intel suggested that over $100 million worth of Star Wars tickets sold prior to the film’s opening weekend. Skeptics, including several of us at BOP, noted that every mid to late December release ever had played by the same rules. Even Star Wars should hold true to the finite laws of box office.
It didn’t. On its “first” day in theaters, The Force Awakens wasn’t exhibited until 7 p.m.. It still earned $57 million from zealous fans who couldn’t wait to see the return of Leia, Luke, and Han plus a new trifecta of leads in Finn, Rey, and Kylo Ren. Over the course of its first official day in theaters, Star Wars 7 garnered $119.1 million. In the process, it became the first December release ever to earn over $100 million on opening week. IN A SINGLE DAY!
The Force Awakens operated as a box office freight train from that point forward. Only a few months prior, Jurassic World had narrowly claimed one of the most important box office records, the opening weekend total. Despite having December box office deflation working against it, the new Star Wars movie absolutely shattered that $208.8 million record by accruing $248 million. And it was even more popular internationally. The Force Awakens grabbed another $281 million overseas, giving it another record-setting total of $529 million as its opening weekend global take.
I could go on for several paragraphs about all the records The Force Awakens has broken. It’s easier simply to link you to Wikipedia to see a running tally. The important numbers are the obvious ones. In addition to breaking the opening weekend, it rode the momentum of the holiday box office season to gross $650 million in its first two weeks in theaters. To put that in comparison, earlier this year, Jurassic World became the third biggest movie ever. Its grand total was $652.2 million. Star Wars 7 surpassed that total on day 15.
The Force Awakens eventually did the seemingly impossible by upending Avatar to become the number one domestic film of all time. That’s a record that James Cameron had held since the winter of 1998. JJ Abrams’ movie unseated Avatar’s once untouchable total of $760.5 million in only 20 days. Yes, by the time Star Wars 7 started its fourth week in theaters, it was already the holder of two of the three most important records in the box office realm. While Avatar’s global take of $2.78 billion seems out of reach, The Force Awakens should become the second biggest movie ever in terms of global revenue.
The amazing part of the entire situation is that the box office side of the equation isn’t the important part for Disney. The merchandising side is. They invented a brilliant news marketing event they named Force Friday, and its immediate popularity led to almost a billion in revenue. In totality, experts projected Disney’s Star Wars merchandise sales to approach $5 billion. As a reminder, they purchased the franchise from George Lucas for $4 billion. Stating the obvious, it’s one of the best buys in the history of Hollywood. The box office and ancillary revenue of the latest Star Wars sage lead to this unmistakable conclusion. With regards to selecting the most important Film Industry Story of 2015, this one’s an easy call. It’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens by a wide margin.