The Last Jedi The Last Jedi Box Office Prediction Thread - Part 1

[InCali]

Based on OW, TLJ looked like it was going to blow the doors off RO. But since then the performance of the 2 movies has been increasingly similar.

+$65.0 million OW vs RO
+$7.5 million 2nd w/e
+$2.9 million 3rd w/e
+$1.4 million 4th w/e

It's certainly not what anyone expected or wanted 3 weeks ago. I'm sure they were pleased by OW but what came next had to be a shock.

I thought the OW number would be slightly lower (as I recall) and that it would hold up a little bit better. I had it pegged at 1.4-1.6. If it comes in at 1.35 or so, I'd look at it as a slight underperformance. Often people have unrealistic expectations WRT BO numbers and then think the movie was a disappointment. I noted that some have A:IW coming in at over 2.5B. Honestly, I don't even know why that was part of the poll, but those people who think that are doomed to disappointment.

 

[dataSlave]

Say that Disney can sub $100M in expenses for a big budget movie (if you are wondering if I pulled that number out of my arse, the answer is "yes") and the profit is 16% (could be more or could be less depending on the specific group). That saves you about 16M right off the top on expenses. True? That sounds like a pretty good chunk of change to me (translates to probably over 30M in BO revenue??) as well as keeping your own people employed, having a group of people who know exactly what you want, probably less overhead than for other projects because of the reasons I listed above, and having a stable revenue stream above and beyond the outside projects they do.

I'm not a business guy, but having a varied company like Disney that can handle so many aspects of movie making would seem to be a nice advantage.

That's about right on the numbers as far as we can tell from the outside. It's definitely an advantage. Not a large one financially but very real. If a a customer has specific and unique needs it makes sense to set up a specialist group to handle them. If those needs are more generic, the economies of scale from outsourcing usually make more sense.

 

[Flemm]

It's still a very good BO total. The OW was gigantic and the signs were all very good and indicated a much better run than what transpired since then. So yeah, the run post OW has been underwhelming.

To an extent, but there really aren't too many relevant points of comparison.

It could be that the film just suffered somewhat from the fanboy effect which causes these big franchises to be increasingly front-loaded.

Both TFA and Rogue One escaped that to a significant degree, due to the novelty factor in each case. TFA was a return to the more classic Star Wars feel in a new trilogy, while no one really knew what to expect from R1.

The Last Jedi would probably have had to really surpass expectations to avoid being more front-loaded. With the reception being a little mixed, that didn't happen.

But I'm not sure that there is much to be said beyond that, other than this incarnation of Star Wars failing to catch on in certain important international markets.

It's just a slightly underwhelming result overall.

 

[InCali]

That's about right on the numbers as far as we can tell from the outside. It's definitely an advantage. Not a large one financially but very real. If a a customer has specific and unique needs it makes sense to set up a specialist group to handle them. If those needs are more generic, the economies of scale from outsourcing usually make more sense.

I'm pretty good at crunching numbers, but don't know a thing about what the real costs are when it comes to making a movie like IW or TLJ.

I wonder, what types of things Disney does in house (advertising to their own channels, 3D conversion, special effects/green screen, etc) and how much of the entire cost of the movie that comes to (approximately). Some of that stuff is very, very expensive I would imagine.....

 

[Blitzkrieg]

http://forums.superherohype.com/search.php?searchid=35542123&pp=25&page=4

Definitely low on domestic. I think TLJ can potentially hit (535-540) million in the calendar year (2017). I'm thinking domestic number will be somewhere between (755-780) million.

No clue about the OS number tho. I'm very curious to see how the OS rollout pans out. Will TLJ increase or decrease from TFA?? Will be very interesting to follow.

I don't think lightning will strike twice but the entire holiday season will make sure that TLJ posts very good legs even after opening to gigantic figures. So yeah, I think it'll be performing better than most normal or even high performing blockbusters.

I was searching for old posts in the Ep. VIII BO thread and this was my early prediction 2 months out. I remember I thought the OW would be slightly above Avengers/JW numbers (215 million) with identical/close legs to TFA in 2017 due to 2 extra days in release year calendar. I thought it'll be a close fight between TLJ and Avatar for the 2nd biggest of all time domestic.

The real bad part of that prediction tho is the potential legs. I thought it'll land around 3.6xOW. I was using the Hobbit model of identical legs for all movies of the trilogy and not the SW model of diminishing returns for the 2nd chapter of a trilogy. But even accounting for the much larger numbers for the SW trilogy and the sequel (2nd chapter) effect, I didn't think the multiplier would fall below (3.15-3.2) because of the last paragraph of the above post. The holidays are exactly the right time of any year to accommodate multiple movies doing very good/great numbers. All the movies should be able to co-exist. I just didn't envision a situation where TLJ's multiplier can fall down so much from either TFA or R1 let alone failing to reach 3XOW.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
$23.72M Weekend (Actual)
4,232 Screens / $5,607 Avg.
Weekend 4 / -54% Change
$572.69M

https://mobile.***********/BoxOffice/status/950458800506470400

If TLJ paces on RO dom. Track: $631,676,769 (2.87 Multiplier)
If TLJ paces on TFA dom. Track: $648,462,908 (2.95 Multiplier)
If TLJ paces RO dom. – RO D/F split gross: $1,253,504,830 worldwide
If TLJ paces RO dom. – TFA D/F split gross: $1,394,791,827 worldwide
If TLJ paces TFA dom. – RO D/F split gross: $1,286,815,389 worldwide
If TLJ paces TFA dom. – TFA D/F split gross: $1,431,856,938 worldwide
If TLJ paces RO dom. – 47.5%/52.5% D/F split gross: $1,365,096,505 worldwide

 

[TheVileOne]

Forest Whittaker must have a terrible agent to not getting him better paydays. Dude is an academy award winner.

 

[gerrym51]

I see no way this movie goes over 1.3 billion

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

It's over 1.2 billion right this moment. It only needs $94 million more and half or more than that can come domestically alone. It's not out of the realm of possibility.

 

[TheVileOne]

It's easily going to cross $1.3 billion.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Boxofficemojo - Top Weekends

 

[gerrym51]

It's over 1.2 billion right this moment. It only needs $94 million more and half or more than that can come domestically alone. It's not out of the realm of possibility.

where is 95 million coming from? if it crosses it it's going to be a long slog

 

[spiderman2]

where is 95 million coming from? if it crosses it it's going to be a long slog

It has at least like 40 million left USA and that is like low balling it and rest of OS not counting China it is doing better. It should at least another 10 million in China. 1.3 billion is like in the bag.

 

[gerrym51]

It has at least like 40 million left USA and that is like low balling it and rest of OS not counting China it is doing better. It should at least another 10 million in China. 1.3 billion is like in the bag.

where other than China are you talking about?

 

[DarthSkywalker]

No one here is saying the sky is falling. We are saying that TLJ will will make a profit. But it will make at least $100 million less profit than RO because of higher budgets. And there are hundreds of millions less in merchandise profits from shipments being cut in half.

The comparison to Empire Strikes Back is absurd. TLJ's gross box office will be about 5.2x even the low-ball production cost figures Disney is leaking. Empire brought in over 30.0x it's production cost. The ratio means expenses are a dominant figure when calculating profit for TLJ and a rounding error for Empire. You're comparing apples and skyscrapers.

Disney cut the budget sharply for the next movie after Pirates of the Caribbean 4. I suspect we will see the same thing on a smaller scale here.

And this makes no sense. Because TLJ didn't cost 100m more then Rogue One, and is making more then 100m more in profit domestically alone. Every dollar it makes is worth more. Its OS box office will make more. Nearly 200m more.

Using your example, Empire is a failure in comparison to Star Wars. Because the production cost to gross box office was what? For Star Wars, it was 56.5x. For Empire it was 25.3x Unless you are using the post Special Edition numbers. In which case Star Wars is even more. Using your numbers, it is 8.4x for TFA. 5.2x for TLJ. So yeah...

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=starwars.htm

You continue to change the argument. First you want to compare TLJ to TFA. When you compare Empire to Star Wars, it is similar. Also, what films that cost over 150m to make, make 30x production cost in the last 20 years? Not even Avatar and Titanic can claim that. But keep going.

 

[dataSlave]

And this makes no sense. Because TLJ didn't cost 100m more then Rogue One, and is making more then 100m more in profit domestically alone. Every dollar it makes is worth more. Its OS box office will make more. Nearly 200m more.

Using your example, Empire is a failure in comparison to Star Wars. Because the production cost to gross box office was what? For Star Wars, it was 56.5x. For Empire it was 25.3x Unless you are using the post Special Edition numbers. In which case Star Wars is even more. Using your numbers, it is 8.4x for TFA. 5.2x for TLJ. So yeah...

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=starwars.htm

You continue to change the argument. First you want to compare TLJ to TFA. When you compare Empire to Star Wars, it is similar. Also, what films that cost over 150m to make, make 30x production cost in the last 20 years? Not even Avatar and Titanic can claim that. But keep going.

I haven't changed a thing; you are just confusing yourself. No one else here seems to have any trouble following more than one comparison at a time. And you keep missing the point. I don't know whether you honestly can't understand what I'm saying or don't wish to acknowledge it so you can avoid dealing with it.

The ratio of revenue to cost is extremely relevant to TLJ precisely because the ratio is so much lower than in the case of Empire Strikes Back. Had the productions costs for Empire doubled, the profit from the movie would have been slightly lower. Double the cost for TLJ and it becomes a big money loser. I can't make it any simpler than that.

YOU were the one who introduced Empire into the discussion so you have no one to blame but yourself for its inclusion. I am merely responding to the examples you used.

 

[dataSlave]

where is 95 million coming from? if it crosses it it's going to be a long slog

It's probably 2-3 weeks away. There won't be much left by that time but $1.3 billion looks very likely.

 

[InCali]

I haven't changed a thing; you are just confusing yourself. No one else here seems to have any trouble following more than one comparison at a time. And you keep missing the point. I don't know whether you honestly can't understand what I'm saying or don't wish to acknowledge it so you can avoid dealing with it.

The ratio of revenue to cost is extremely relevant to TLJ precisely because the ratio is so much lower than in the case of Empire Strikes Back. Had the productions costs for Empire doubled, the profit from the movie would have been slightly lower. Double the cost for TLJ and it becomes a big money loser. I can't make it any simpler than that.

YOU were the one who introduced Empire into the discussion so you have no one to blame but yourself for its inclusion. I am merely responding to the examples you used.

It's been a long time since ESB was released. It seems to me that it might not be.....what's the word I'm looking for......fair? relevant? to compare revenue to production costs from 2 different eras.

It might make the comparison more favorable to ESB or TLJ, but what I'm saying is that this isn't necessarily a linear comparison. Movies of this sort might not generally get the same expected return that they did 30 years ago or they could get more. I'm not sure about that, but it seems like this might not be a simple comparison.

The comparisons I've made are the internal numbers of the OT to the current movies. I fully expect (and expected) them to follow their relative BO numbers. Movie 1 kills it, movie 2 makes the least, and movie 3 falls in between.

Also, it seems like it would be very odd to compare a production cost/revenue ratio to ANH and use that as any sort of baseline (not saying anyone necessarily is because I haven't been reading too closely) because it was a very low cost movie that took everyone by surprise and the BO by storm. You don't come across that sort of phenomenal performance almost ever.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I haven't changed a thing; you are just confusing yourself. No one else here seems to have any trouble following more than one comparison at a time. And you keep missing the point. I don't know whether you honestly can't understand what I'm saying or don't wish to acknowledge it so you can avoid dealing with it.

The ratio of revenue to cost is extremely relevant to TLJ precisely because the ratio is so much lower than in the case of Empire Strikes Back. Had the productions costs for Empire doubled, the profit from the movie would have been slightly lower. Double the cost for TLJ and it becomes a big money loser. I can't make it any simpler than that.

YOU were the one who introduced Empire into the discussion so you have no one to blame but yourself for its inclusion. I am merely responding to the examples you used.

1. Comparing 1980s cost ratio on blockbusters does not translate. TFA can't even claim a 10x return. It couldn't claim 30x unless it made over 7bil dollars. Does that make any sort of sense? Also, Empire didn't do 30x.

2. You want to directly compare Empire to TLJ. Never the point. It is comparing what Empire did compared to SW, next to what TLJ did to TFA. The fall off was as steep if not steeper for Empire. Using your logic, Empire is failure.

 

[Silver Surfer]

Using ESB as any sort of comparison other than creative is irrelevant. The two best comparisons for this movie are Ultron and the upcoming JW2, both sequels to 'lightning in a bottle' grossers. Ultron finished 5% behind its predecessor worldwide, TLJ look to come in between the 35% range drop WW. We'll see how JW2 does.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Using ESB as any sort of comparison other than creative is irrelevant. The two best comparisons for this movie are Ultron and the upcoming JW2, both sequels to 'lightning in a bottle' grossers. Ultron finished 5% behind its predecessor worldwide, TLJ look to come in between the 35% range drop WW. We'll see how JW2 does.

Avengers did not make 2bil.

 

[Silver Surfer]

Avengers did not make 2bil.

Yup, and TLJ won't even outgross it's sequel at 1.4b, that's how bad the drop is WW.

 

[Kuwolski]

The biggest issue that the SW franchise needs to address is growing it's stake in China going forward. Despite AOU's decline in the US, it grew in China as the market did, pulling in close to 250m. Star Wars is shrinking at the moment so they need to turn that tide in order to grow receipts long term.

The key to long term box office prowess in the future is to be huge in the two biggest film markets in the world.

 

[Iceman]

Yup, and TLJ won't even outgross it's sequel at 1.4b, that's how bad the drop is WW.

Don't think many would have predicted that.

 

[InCali]

Using ESB as any sort of comparison other than creative is irrelevant. The two best comparisons for this movie are Ultron and the upcoming JW2, both sequels to 'lightning in a bottle' grossers. Ultron finished 5% behind its predecessor worldwide, TLJ look to come in between the 35% range drop WW. We'll see how JW2 does.

Really, there are no appropriate comparisons. I felt from the beginning that TLJ would come in about 25-30% behind TFA. I don't think comparing TFA to TA is a very good one because you had an established, well loved franchise back after a very long hiatus that starred well loved characters that people were starved to see.

TA, on the other hand, really was lightning in a bottle, but was set up by some standalones that were well received. Jurassic is somewhere in between. TA crushed it and had something we hadn't seen before. AoU was a successful followup.

TFA was a huge blast from the past that people flocked to see. TLJ was/is a huge hit that probably underperformed somewhat because of the backlash by the core fan base.

JW had a little bit of that TFA thing going, but not to the same extent. I think the followup will do very well, but fall short.

Nobody is crying in their cereal about any of the BO numbers, but the studios will ALWAYS re-evaluate.