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thismeintiel on 28 January 2018
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Angelus said:
I find it incredibly amusing how many times Forbes, Variety, and other outlets have written up some variation or other of "The Last Jedi is still a big win for Disney," "The Last Jedi is still a huge box office success," etc.....

All the trades are putting out articles like this at least once a week. Not transparent at all.

Lol.  I saw one from ComicBooks.com, from just today, talking about how it is the highest rated Sci-Fi movie on Rotten Tomatoes.  Uh, wasn't that the case the week it came out?  Why the damage control as we are headed into Feb?  Of course, I'm sure they didn't acknowledge that it's probably the lowest user rated Sci-Fi movie, as well. 

Though, I have read a few articles from Forbes highlighting the failures of this movie, i.e. large dropoff from TFA and it bombing in China.  Guess it just depends on the writer.

OTBWY said:
thismeintiel said:

Figured I'll just stick with weekend updates. TLJ did $4.18M. This is 20.7% lower than RO for the same weekend. From here until it left theaters, RO made just $12M. For the past 17 days, TLJ has performed 13.3% worse than RO. If this continues, TLJ will make $10.4M, bringing DBO final to $621.1M, or 33.7% down. If the 53.4% FBO holds, final WW total will be $1.33B, or 35.7% down.

Now, for theatre count. TLJ has lost nearly 60% (58.8%) of its opening screenings. At the same time, TFA had lost only 38.2%. And RO had lost 50.7%. At this rate, it is looking very likely that by Weekend 8 it will have only ~30% of its original screenings left. This is seriously calling into question its ability to last 120+ days like TFA and RO did, as it is not even at the halfway point, being 45 days in.

Didn't it get pulled from theaters in China already?

Yep.  Didn't even make it to two full weeks, ending with $41.3M. A far cry from TFA's $124.2M.  It didn't even match TLJ's opening weekend of $52.3M. 

OTBWY said:
Angelus said:

Just never popular, and not making any headway 

I guess sci-fi in general just isn't popular in China? Or is that misconception?

I haven't gone back to look at a bunch of films, so it may be possible, but that's not what happened here.  I know Avatar did incredibly well there, grossing $204.1M.  Even if Sci-Fi isn't as large there, in general, you can still post some large numbers.  GOTG did $86.3M over there.  That's pretty good for an unknown IP with no huge names in the film.  And GOTG Vol 2 grew that, grossing $100.7M.  I'd say Thor: R was pretty heavy on the Sci-Fi, and that did $112.2M.

No, the problem is that TLJ was just not well received.  I have read that the OG trilogy gets played on TV over there every now and then, so its not like they hated the franchise.  And like I posted above, TLJ did $124.2M.  Disney had a chance to grow SW in China to a much larger extent, but this movie was not the one to attempt that with.  If anything, it just made them less interested in the franchise, at least the new ones.  And there's just no getting around this fact.  Even the Sci-Fi flop Valerian performed better in China, grossing $62.1M.