thismeintiel said: Oh man, you got us. Oh, wait, no you didn't. When ESB came out the industry was going through a major shift. ANH was from the cinema world of old. Where films started slow (ANH only made $8.5M, adjusted, its opening weekend, which would be a flop today), but stayed in theaters for a long ass time (ANH was in theaters for 1 1/2 years its initial run), and then see umpteen rereleases. In the late 70s/early 80s, this model was dying out and changing to what we have, now. A model where movies open much larger and only stay in theaters for a few months, making way for further blockbusters. ESB was released right in the middle of this, so while it benefited from a larger opening than ANH, though still not great by today's standards ($25M, adjusted), it didn't receive an extra 6+ months to pad out its final take. By the time ROTJ released, the industry was pretty much done with the shift, seeing that it opened with $99.1M (adjusted), a number any lower/mid budgeted blockbuster would still be grateful to hit. Of course, even with the industry shift, and the fact that the foreign market was much smaller, ESB still made $1.5B+ WW, adjusted. With no industry shift, and a massively expanded market, what's TLJ's excuse? |
This has probably been asked in one of the ten other threads about this already, and I'm probably going to regret this, but what's Attack of the Clones' excuse then?