Carl said:
Luke's return was also a huge part of the hype surrounding Force Awakens. He was a focus in the trailer, he was the focus of the story and he was doing press before the films release. Fans were completely expecting him to have a significant role and TFA completely blew that hype with the lackluster ending. However, that's not what I take issue with. I take issue with pointing at The Last Jedi's box office total as some kind of "proof" that it was a poorly received movie that damaged the franchise. It did over $1.3 Billion worldwide and was the 9th highest grossing movie of all time before Black Panther and Infinity War passed it just recently. It managed this despite another Billion dollar movie releasing shortly after in Jumanji. It was a massively successful movie, eclipsing the other high budget releases of 2017 like Beauty and the Beast and Fate of the Furious. As a side note, The Last Jedi has flaws, many of them, but I think the hyperbole on internet forums about how it's ruined the franchise is pathetic. |
You do realize that Jumanji had a poor opening, right? It didn't even hit $90M WW, hitting just $85.7M. Normally, that would have meant a flop for a movie with a $90M budget, as it needed $180M just to break even on the production budget alone (probably $280M-$350M with the ad budget included), and its all down hill from opening week. You know why it blew up instead of flopping? Because TLJ blew. If TLJ was actually good, it would have ate up and spit out Jumanji. Instead, disgruntled fans and disappointed movie goers needed something else to see. Jumanji was that film. Jumanji made more in Jan than TLJ, and not by a little. At the DBO, it outperformed it by $77.2M. Hell, Jumanji lasted longer in the theater than TLJ did. But, then again, so did the spinoff, RO.
You can stick your fingers in your ears, close your eyes, and shout at the top of your lungs, but that doesn't change the fact that there was a fan backlash. It happened. Accept it.
