Yea, that's pretty crazy.  I mean down ~$740M WW, largest drop in the franchise, with merch sales down against even RO, and you're still giving him the reigns to the future of the franchise?

I see one of two things happening.  They are going to wait to see what kind of affect TLJ has on Han Solo, and if it is down considerably against RO, they are going to strip that trilogy from Johnson.  They might actually wait to see how Ep 9 performs, which I see being down from TLJ, to possibly take it away from him and hand it to another director, which seems to be their MO.  Or they are going to not want to admit they made a mistake, so will keep him on for the next trilogy, BUT he will no longer have as large of a control over the story.

IIRC, Rian Johnson will be writing and directing the first movie of his upcoming trilogy. The other two are up in the air. It's possible that after the first one, the other two will have different writers and/or directors.

You truly are a man of reason. Either Disney admits to a mistake or they don't admit to a mistake - either way they made a mistake and that's that. It couldn't possibly be that TLJ met Disney's expectations and therefore Disney kept Johnson on the trilogy, no no, because that wouldn't align with your narrative! It can only be two options and you just so happen to know the result of them both!

Good job thismeintiel, thanks for the updates (thought I would post something positive).

I haven't looked it up in a while, but unless I'm very mistaken, the adjusted WW for the main franchise goes somewhat as following: 4 > 7 > 5 > 1 > 6 > 8 > 3 > 2. I do wonder where 9 will end up.

So you using the raw data which misleading since there was years between some of the releases.  It difficult to do a decent comparison for the WW numbers since estimating inflation extremely difficult when dealing with multiple countries.  If you look at the USA inflated numbers through it does paint TLJ in a much more favorable light.

How DARE you frame Empire in such an unfavourable light!

It is the best of all time, because... Yoda, Boba friggin FETT, ATST... and... and... the best twist in film history!!!!! I know some say it makes no sense at all, but if you really look into it, it makes the most amount of sense in the entire universe and flipped the world on its head (way better than Vertigo IMO!!!!!) And it's dark! None of the other Star Wars films have these things!

Boy, I wish you guys would make up your minds on what argument you want to use.  I give totals adjusted to ticket price inflation, and someone says it's not a fair comparison.  Now, I give raw data and you say it's not a fair comparison.  Oh, and don't try to adjust FBO to ticket price inflation, cause that doesn't look good when looking at gross totals, either.  Of course, ESB has two HUGE disadvantages, which I'll address (again) later.  For now, here is the all the numbers adjusted for 2017 ticket price inflation.

OG Trilogy

ANH - DBO: $1.28B/FBO: $1.31B/WW: $2.59B
ESB - DBO: $707.4M (-44.7%)/FBO: $837.5M (-36.1%)/WW: $1.54B (-40.5%)
ROTJ - DBO: $726.4M (+2.7%)/FBO: $476.8M (-43.1%)/WW: $1.2B (-22.1%)

Prequel Trilogy

TPM - DBO: $760.9M/FBO: $975.2M/WW: $1.74B
AOTC - DBO: $466.6M (-38.7%)/FBO: $522.9M (-$46.4%)/WW: $989.5M (-43.1%)
ROTS - DBO: $532.1M (+14%)/FBO: $655.6M (+25.4%)/WW: $1.19B (+20.3%)

Disney Trilogy (So Far)

TFA - DBO: $969.8M/FBO: $1.17B/WW: $2.14B
TLJ - DBO: $621.1M (-36%)/FBO: $711.8M (-39.2%)/WW: $1.33B (-37.9%)

So, while the percentages obviously increased, it doesn't tell the whole story.  I also agree that while the FBO adjustment isn't going to be exact, I highly doubt they are that far off.  Even if they are off some, in ESB's case, it would be more than made up for when considering its disadvantages.  These disadvantages are what lead it to its decline, whereas AOTC was due to it being so poorly received.  What are those disadvantages?  One, ESB, or really either film til TFA, did not have the advantage of the extremely large increase in the movie market we have seen in the past decade.  Of course, as you can see, it still had little trouble outgrossing it by ~$200M WW.  And two, which is just as important, ESB got stuck in the middle of a movie industry shift. 

ANH's initial run was longer than a year.  In fact, it was out for 1 1/2 years, or ~78 weeks.  This is just how movies were done back then, especially large ones.  They would open small and be a slow burn for a very long amount of time.  And if they were popular enough, would get umpteenth re-releases.  ANH opened to a 5 day take of $2.05M, which is just $8.24M adjusted.  Today, this would have been seen as an utter failure. 

However, as we entered the 80's, the industry was moving towards a model where films targeted large opening weeks, and then made room for new movies as the weeks went on.  Like I said, ESB fell in the middle of this.  It didn't benefit from a huge opening weekend, though it did open larger than ANH with a 5 day take of $7.24M or $24.2M adjusted.  Again, for a big movie today, this would be considered an utter failure.  And while it opened larger than ANH, because of that new model, it didn't get the benefit of a ~78 week run, instead leaving theaters in a little under a year.  If we look at ROTJ, which came out just 3 years later, we can see that the new model was pretty close to being in full effect, as it grossed $33.7M, or $95.9M adjusted, in its first 5 days.  Even today, 35 years later, this would still be looked at as a success, as long as the movies budget wasn't $200M+ and it had ok legs.

The main point, of course, is that no matter how you look at it, TLJ greatly underperformed.  Especially when the "safe bet" after opening weekend was $750M-$830M DBO, which would have meant a WW take of ~$1.65B-1.82B.  Analysts were still predicting a WW take of $1.6B after the 2nd weekend drop.  Here we are, now, with it doing less than even BOM's worse case scenario of $661.3M DBO, which would have been ~$1.45B WW.  You look at something like the opening weekend multiplier, and it the lowest in franchise history.  Where all the other films have a 3x+ multiplier, with several ~4x, TLJ is ending up with one of ~2.8x.  It just illustrates how much it benefited from a hyped up week or two, but then the numbers started to plummet as disappointed fans didn't go back for repeat viewings, to where it is even underperforming against RO.  Add in lower merch sales and there are no ifs, ands, or buts about the situation.

Rian Johnson should be relegated to simply handling the visual effects if anything, as that was pretty much the one decent aspect of TLJ. Disney should strip him of directing duties, and CERTAINLY from writing duties. The writing of TLJ was atrocious..

I don't think the fans have spoken yet. I think the effects of this mess will be really felt on EP 9.  I have heard way too many people saying that they are not interested in knowing where the story is going anymore.  And I know I cannot speak for everybody but I'm sure as hell not watching any other installment of this saga.  At least not in the theaters.

I will wait until the spinoff written by the Game of Throne's writers.

1.  And yet the title of your thread includes a percentage that supposedly tells the whole story.  That TLJ made it into the Top Ten instead of fizzling out like BvS kind of ruins your narrative.  

2. Well, given that TLJ has the healthiest drop-off percentage for the middle of a Star Wars trilogy, and that's just looking at your own numbers, it actually over-performed.  The fans have spoken, indeed.

Make all the excuses you want about the amount of time movies had in their theatrical run or the nature of cinema/home video for their times, if you want.  I'll see all those excuses and raise you Empire Strikes Back Special Edition vs A New Hope Special Edition.  Witness how Empire performs on an even playing field.