The marketing campaigns hype machines for both Batman Vs. Superman and Star Wars started more than a year before their release but these films can never live up to expectations as seen previously many times before. Was amazed how box office experts weren’t able to predict Jurassic World’s success as ignoring Part 3 as the producers have done the first two films released in Jurassic Park in 1993 and The Lost World in 1997 had the biggest openings of their years and were the biggest films of the year. Jurassic World has a much wider audience than Star Wars as it is cross family and generational movie children who went to see with their parents to see the first film in 1993 are taking their own children and the parents and grandparents are also going. But films have become so front-loaded $511m in its opening 3 days many were expecting Jurassic World to overtake Titanic but four weeks later it is the 4th biggest film helped by a large about of 3D sales (with a 30% ticket surcharge) and China which in recent years is artificially inflating films box office but bringing far smaller profits (25% of box office).
The same box office experts who couldn’t predict Jurassic World are predicting Star Wars to take $2 billion but it might have the hype and nostalgia but so did the prequels released in 1999-2006 but they barely took $1 billion of course Star Wars has the advantage of 3D, IMAX surcharges equalling triple ticket prices of 16 years ago, China and all rival studios have run scared of opening against it meaning most cinemas will be showing Star Wars every 15 minutes on December 18th with very little other films to see if your not a fan.
J.J Abrams rebooted successfully Star Trek in 2009 but after the hype had disappeared the sequel 4 years later was very disappointing having a soft reboot as is being done with Star Wars mixing old with new seen recently with Schwarzenegger in Terminator Genisys that its a bigger risk than a complete reboot as there are so many great films characters we wonder what would happen to them after the curtains closed seeing those characters back on she played by the actors we loved when we were younger is great seeing the “Chewie, we’re home” scene in the Star Wars trailer was the scene adults felt like children again but it puts far more pressure on the film to be as good as people hope and expect but can a film live up to that pressure the Star Wars prequels couldn’t.
There has been huge rivalry between Batman Vs. Superman and Star Wars The Force Awakens during production, the films marketing and will be at the box office but they can’t be compared with each other as are targeting different audiences Star Wars audience is a much bigger one but not as big as Jurassic World which was amazing that no one predicted.
Comic-book movies have become big business since Christopher Nolan rebooted the Batman franchise in 2005 the same year Marvel got a $525 million financing deal to have complete creative control of their films signing a distribution deal with Paramount who would just get a distribution fee. 9 years before this deal Marvel were in bankruptcy owing billions to many companies including $1.7 billion to Disney who would end up buying Marvel in 2009.
But Star Wars franchise is very different 9 has a similar end story to Marvel being brought by Disney in 2012 but original films themselves are very different with the original trilogy being box office smashed but also films loved by critics and fans whereas the prequels weren’t so much. The hype machine surrounding them which started with the trailer launch in 1998 with fans paying to see Meet Joe Black just to see the trailer created hype and expectations on The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Silth (had fleeting mentions in the original trilogy) could live up to the hype. They performed well at the box office but not as strongly if you compare them with the inflation added box office of the original films. Which will be similar to The Force Awakens will need to do in December. Similar as comic-book fans loved Christopher Nolan’s Batman not so much Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel there is a lot of pressure on the combining Man of Steel with Batman reboot and a lot of pressure on Ben Affleck taking over from Christian Bale 2008’s The Dark Knight and 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises took $1 billion globally each the pressure is on that Batman Vs. Superman needs to do far more and will be compared with the success of Star Wars while it should rather be with the two Avengers films so looking at a $1.5+ billion global box office next March. While experts are predicting $2+ billion for Star Wars will be hard if Jurassic World can’t do similar after opening with $511m in 3 days globally?
Star Wars The Force Awakens the first film of 6 Star Wars films set for release every year between now and 2020 as seen by leaked artwork at Comic Con this week with a slate of Star Wars films set for release from 2015-2020. The films are just part of a bigger merchandise machine which George Lucas took a gamble on in 1977 exchanging rights for Star Wars A New Hope for with 20th Century Fox for merchandise rights which has made George Lucas far more money than the films have taken. After Disney acquired Lucasfilm they also took ownership of all bar the first Star Wars A New Hope which 20th Century Fox still own as part of that deal.
