Star Wars Griefing Thread (SPOILERS) - Safety off

[Creep3r]

@BoomerDenton I'll make Absolutego's potential mistake and treat you as a non-troll.

Also remember that while TFA made 2 billion at the box office, TLJ made 1.3, both on budgets around 250 million. So you'd thing 2+1.3-0.25-0.25 = 2.8 Billion, but remember that is from net box office receipts. Hollywood goes above and beyond to keep actual profit numbers hidden by playing lots of game (which is a whole other rant) but you can assume that for any blockbluster, less than double the budget is a loss.
(Compare this to say Deadpool which pulled $800 million on a $60 million budget)

As @Absolutego points out, the box office totals are nice, but as Lucas presciently figured out for starwars, that's small potatoes compared to merch. And those are in the toilet and declining. (If you have Netflix, there is a docuseries "The Toys that Made Us" and the first episode is about the Star Wars toys.) Part of this is Disney cannibalizing their own market - Marvel and SW audiences have large overlaps of Man children, and they have been saturating the market with both.

But the other part is that the Didney Waz movies just isn't getting or retaining adult fans, especially ones that buy merch; Marvel is selling, pre-buy out Star Wars is selling, but no one gives a fuck about Holdo and Rey.

Also remember that Disney bought Lucasfilm back in in 2012, 7 years ago, for 4 billion; lets just round up to 10 to give TRS a chance to drop, go to DVD, and accounting to complete. I don't want to sperg too deep into business math, but forgetting the cost to build Galaxy's Edge for a moment, if after 10 years Disney only makes back the 4 billion on the films, it will be a huge failure and Iger will be feeling pressure to step down.
You might be thinking "That doesn't make any sense, they made the purchase price back and still own the rights, so any dollar they make after that is a dollar in the black". But you'd be forgetting that investment math is different - if you just break even its been a failure, and was a bad risk. After 10 years, and given what Lucas was pulling from SW before the buyout, investors will be looking for at least double returns and probably more.

Disney isn't exactly in the poorhouse - 'not making as much money as hoped' is a far sight from 'losing money' - and even if all 7 billion people in the world suddenly decide "You know what? TLJ was a mess and I hated what they did to Luke. I'm done." and TRS never makes a single dollar, that's not going to put Disney under.
But what it IS going to do is make the investors pissed and demand a toll in blood and heads from the executives.

tl;dr Disney will survive TRS being a bust. Iger won't.



I doubt Kennedy is any sort of Lucas-sent assassin, despite how horribly she's fucking up.
But if we're going the Machiavellian Lucas route, its more likely that Lucas probably recognized she was worthless, but made sure she'd stay at the helm after the hand over, and just decided to let nature take its course.

Lucas by all accounts wanted Didney Waz to be a success; why wouldn't he? Just sit back let other people do the work and deal with angry nerds, and just collect the fat checks. Disney's attempts to muscle him out of his percentage backfired.

So, here's a graph from earlier showing off sales. I'm pretty sure this is sales revenue, and not total profit for Disney
View attachment 898058
So that's, (rounded generously for Disney) about 26.2 billion dollars in all sales. Assuming they take 60% of all of this (generous assumptions), they come away with 15.72 billion dollars, which they can then turn around and alleviate their debt of 10 billion, leaving them with a profit of about ~5.72 billion dollars.
View attachment 898079
Here is a very quick, very poor investment for Star Wars. This is 2% compound interest yearly over the same time period. This abysmal investment comes away with about ~1 billion dollars profit, but the numbers are starting to rack up. In another 4 or so years, this would outpace Star Wars in terms of investment, and certainly in terms of reputation.

I found this interesting article on the shit hole that is the io9 collective detailing the profits for a film and how little of it a studio may actually get to keep. It was written in 2011 but I'm sure it still applies when adjusted for inflation.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-much-money-does-a-movie-need-to-make-to-be-profitab-5747305

So generally, how much of the domestic box office revenue goes to the studios?
The percentage of revenues that the exhibitor takes in depends on the individual contract for that film — which in turn depends on how much muscle the distributor has, according to Stone.

These deals often protect the theaters from movies that bomb at the box office by giving the theaters a bigger cut of those films. So if a film only makes $10 million at the box office, the distributor will get only 45 percent of that money. But if a film makes $300 million at the box office, then the distributor gets up to 60 percent of that money.

You can actually look at the securities filings for the big theater chains, to look at how much of their ticket revenues go back to the studios, points out Stone. So for example, the latest quarterly filing by Cinemark Holdings, shows that 54.5 percent of its ticket revenues went to the distributors. So as a ballpark figure, studios generally take in around 50-55 percent of U.S. box office money.

Is it better if a movie makes more of its revenue in the U.S.?


The highest profile example of a film that bombed in the U.S. but made tons of money overseas was The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which made only about $100 million domestically but made about $270 million overseas. And a similar thing happened with the previous Narnia movie, Prince Caspian. Another big film that made way more money overseas than domestically was Terminator Salvation.

So if a film does incredibly well overseas but flops in the U.S., does that make it a hit? As with everything else to do with box office, the answer is "it depends." But generally, domestic revenue seems to be be better for studios than overseas revenue, because the studios take a bigger cut of domestic revenue.

According to the book The Hollywood Economist by Edward Jay Epstein, studios take in about 40 percent of the revenue from overseas release — and after expenses, they're lucky if they take in 15 percent of that number.

Domestic revenue just counts for a lot more than overseas revenue, says David Mumpower with Box Office Prophets:

The reason for this is simple. Collecting revenues abroad is a trickier proposition since the dollar fluctuates against foreign currencies. There are also tariffs from these governments in place in order to keep as much money as possible from leaving their countries and going abroad, which is an understandable practice. While the global conglomerates such as Fox, Disney and Time-Warner that run major Hollywood studios can secure sweetheart deals with various local governments, it doesn't happen for each film. As such, international box office revenue is much less reliable than in North America.

But still, overseas box office does matter, more and more. And stars who have a huge global following are more likely to open a movie than ones who are only famous in the U.S. — just look at the fact that the world-famous Tom Cruise is still starring in movies, despite his ongoing backlash in North America. Mumpower points out that Cruise's Knight and Day only made about $76 million in the U.S., against a production budget of $117 million. But since Knight and Day made $262 million overseas, chances are it will end up being profitable once home-video revenues are factored in.

Adds Mumpower:

A shocking number of 2010 releases did better abroad than in North America, which makes sense when we consider population numbers. It's just a relatively new phenomenon for the industry. Avatar's performance is a great demonstration of global expansion. It earned $760.5 million domestically, which is (almost) a drop in the bucket compared to the $2.02 billion it accrued in international box office. Only 27% (i.e. roughly a quarter) of Avatar's box office was earned in North America. That's how important the global picture has become to Hollywood studios.

In short, according to the article, a studio is lucky if they even get half of the box office revenue while the rest goes to the distributor, and the more money a film makes, the more the distributor gets. And what foreign distributors get may even be more than US ones since foreign governments don't want all of their country's cash leaving their country, so they may even impose tariffs upon US studios.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

The thing is Iger is out in two years anyway so personally I doubt he gives a fuck anymore.

He was supposed to leave this summer but the Fox buyout changed things.

I didn’t hear about that.

 

[CheezzyMach]

I didn’t hear about that.

This was from two years ago

 

[Ghostse]

I found this interesting article on the shit hole that is the io9 collective detailing the profits for a film and how little of it a studio may actually get to keep. It was written in 2011 but I'm sure it still applies when adjusted for inflation.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-much-money-does-a-movie-need-to-make-to-be-profitab-5747305

In short, according to the article, a studio is lucky if they even get half of the box office revenue while the rest goes to the distributor, and the more money a film makes, the more the distributor gets. And what foreign distributors get may even be more than US ones since foreign governments don't want all of their country's cash leaving their country, so they may even impose tariffs upon US studios.

I have a relative tangental to the film industry (semi-retired) and has some stories.

the very longest tl;dr Is that film studios do everything in their power to hide profits and shift them down the road so they can be used to offset flops*. They have a bunch of wonderfully scummy ways of doing this, but if you ever find yourself signing a contract, always get a percentage of the GROSS. You will never see a fucking dime outside of court if you take a net percentage**.

Anyway, how studios make money is based on the lease time of a film- that is, how long a film runs in theaters. Box office numbers don't really make it back to studios, except that they can charge big rental fees for hot movies. This is why studios are pushing sequels and remakes even harder than ever, theaters are more likely to pay big for something that they are still will bring in people. (Well, partly why - you can also fuck over the screenwriters by only paying 'editing' rates when you remake some move from the 70s.)

That's one of the reasons why Deadpool 2 was... I don't want to say greenlit here because it was greenlit as soon as it did well with test audiences, and a film being greenlit doesn't mean that it'll make it through pre-production let alone a release ...but after about a month it was clear Deadpool was going to be a project seen through to a release outside of Ryan Reynolds pulling a Polanski. The film didn't just win at the BO, it stayed in theaters; people kept coming to watch it in viable numbers. When Deadpool 2 comes out, theater owners are going to see how long they were able to run the first one, and happily pony up.

TLJ spent a rather short time in theaters, and I believe TFA ran a little shorter than average.

*I don't remember the term, but if you ever see a movie and wonder "How did anyone think that was a good idea?" chances are what you're seeing is a 'contract pictures', where a studio is trying to burn a film off someone's (or several someones') contract. They just want to made the least ouchie flop they can, so they'll put it out, minimize advertizing, and the actors involved will get jack shit on their percentages. These are often not-very-subtle 'get out and fuck yous' to the principal cast.

**I cannot find it now, but JMS talked in an interview like 10 years ago about how hard WB fucked him on the Babylon 5 DVD release because they wouldn't produce the DVDs unless he took his royalties as a net percentage - he knew it was coming, and didn't care because he wanted to get the DVDs out to fans. He was saying he'd get a nice quarterly (or maybe monthly) letter about how he wasn't getting any check because the studio had bankrolled other projects using future returns on the DVDs as collateral, so since that movie went bust, the loan was being repaid out of the B5 dvd profits.

I read this whole post wondering what "TRS" is until I realized you're talking about the new movie... everyone just seems to call it IX still, which should be an indication of how sucky that "Rise of Skywalker" name truly is.

Oh that's on me too. I thought it was "The rise of skywalker". Again, shows how catchy the name is.

This was from two years ago

I didn't hear about that either. That changes the calculations a bit.

 

[MI 814]

For what it's worth, I don't think @BoomerDenton is trolling so much as he's a massive sperg.

Like, I totally believe he believes the things he says, I just disagree with him on the particulars.

Disagree on what? They admitted they are basically going down the same route as Star Wars lol.

I mean just because the people posting on that thread in particular were smug obnoxious fuckers and I decided to fuck with them in return doesn't mean you have to start it up here.

And for the record yes I do believe what I say. And no there is nothing wrong with that, the films are mediocre but harmless because most people don't fucking read or care about comics unlike with Star Wars.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

Disney is apparently trying to manipulate social media influencers to encourage people to go see their shitty park in Florida.

EDIT:
Lol. It definitely does not.

Forbes

The biggest commercial advantage that 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker' may have over 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' in North America may be as simple as when Christmas break begins this year versus in...

www.facebook.com

 

[Antipathy]

Disney is apparently trying to manipulate social media influencers to encourage people to go see their shitty park in Florida.

Oh boy, a new wave of soyboys and thots posting pictures of themselves making stupid faces in Galaxy's Edge is inbound.

How will us, the hateful loud minority, ever survive this brilliant attack?

 

[Godzilla@1989]

Oh boy, a new wave of soyboys and thots posting pictures of themselves making stupid faces in Galaxy's Edge is inbound.

How will us, the hateful loud minority, ever survive this brilliant attack?

Those soyboys never set in those parks.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

A Disney whistleblower has apparently filed a complaint to the SEC about Disney inflating its revenue for the Parks and Resorts Division by billions.

Not sure if this will be a scandal.

Disney whistleblower told SEC the company inflated revenue for years

A then–Walt Disney Co. accountant filed multiple whistleblower tips with the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging the company materially overstated...

www.google.com

Disney Shares Slip Amid Reported Whistleblower Allegations of Inflated Revenue

Sandra Kuba, a former senior financial analyst for Disney’s revenue operations unit, says she has filed a series of whistleblower tips with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, allegi…

www.google.com

 

[Uranus Pink]

Could be very bad if the SEC decides to ask the IRS to come over and take a look at the books.

 

[Creep3r]

Disney is apparently trying to manipulate social media influencers to encourage people to go see their shitty park in Florida.

EDIT:
Lol. It definitely does not.

Forbes

The biggest commercial advantage that 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker' may have over 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' in North America may be as simple as when Christmas break begins this year versus in...

www.facebook.com

Not just via Instagram whores, but even major sites like Yahoo (and Forbes as you already showed) are trying to shill for them and "claiming nothing's wrong here! Its just a minor bump in the road!" As if.

Disney World Needs Galaxy's Edge to Succeed

Passholder previews for Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge kicked off at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida this weekend.

finance.yahoo.com

Its still amazing how obvious the bias is when it comes to Disney or anything connected to them. If a company, media or GoT fails, many will happily rib on them (unless they're woke and aimed at kids), but when its Daddy Disney, everyone goes all up in arms, even for political reasons despite the Disney Wars films hardly being as "in your face" with its woke aspects as the rest of Hollywood (or the Disney EU).

However the Wall Street Journal does make a nice little jab at Disney.

Disney Claims Force Was Too Strong at Star Wars Attraction

Walt Disney Co. blames itself for the disappointing attendance at its new Star Wars theme-park attraction, believing heavy promotion scared off would-be visitors who expected crowds. But higher prices surely didn’t help either.

www.wsj.com

Not everything is proceeding as Robert Iger has foreseen.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

Midnight’s Edge canes out with a video with their friends about how Disney made the brand not interesting for newer kids nowadays.

As someone who grew up with the franchise right around the prequel trilogy came around, I can sympathize that if you get rid of the cooler original characters with new insufferable ones with no arcs and just agendas only, you’re fucked.

For me, I’m always a fan of the first two trilogies and consider them, like the old EU, canon. Like some, I felt that Revenge of the Sith was a proper send off of the Skywalker Saga. I was personally off guard by the Disney buyout, but was willing to give them a chance with the challenge of the sequel trilogy.

And then the Force Awakens happened and the rest was history.

 

[I ain't having it]

That trailer was nuts! Now it's time to start avoiding any potential spoilers for the next few months.

I also nabbed me a ticket once they dropped. I'll be seeing the movie on December 14th.

I'm sorry for your loss

 

[Vault Boy]

On a happier note, Instant Action, Clone Commandos, and Felucia are coming to Battlefront II next month.

I know the game more or less shit the bed at launch, but seeing how much it improved since then has impressed me.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

Forbes thinks Hollywood is projecting The Rise of Skywalker to gross on par with The Dark Knight.

Box Office: Hollywood Is Betting That 'Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker' Performs Like 'The Dark Knight'

If (emphasis on "if,") 'The Rise Of Skywalker' plays merely "very good" overseas, 'Spies In Disguise,' 'Jumanji' and 'Cats' will be there to pick up the slack.

www.forbes.com

Remember when people thought Solo would open to $135-170 million yet open to $83 million? Well these are the same people.

 

[Creep3r]

On a happier note, Instant Action, Clone Commandos, and Felucia are coming to Battlefront II next month.

I know the game more or less shit the bed at launch, but seeing how much it improved since then has impressed me.

I'm surprised they recanonized Clone Commandos, although it does surprise me that EAfront II (despite its greedy corporate faggotry) does a better job of honoring the mythos and expanded media than the rest of Disney. If only they could expunge the sequel shit and Inferno Squad storyline nonsense from the game.

Anyway time for some NEWS.

Some elements of an upcoming book (or possibly the whole thing) have been leaked again and it was set for release this November. The book is called Resistance Reborn, taking place after TLJ and is about how utterly fucked and destroyed the Resistance is and that the First Order is taking over all the Resistance-allied worlds, like Mon Cala (formerly known as Dac and Ackbar's homeworld), Ryloth (Twi'lek homeworld), Corellia (Han Solo's homeworld) and Cerea (Ki-Adi Mundi's homeworld again) may be next, but despite all of this the Resistance hasn't given up "Hope™" and will "rise from the ashes like a star phoenix". The most annoying thing about this book is that it reveals that the majority of the galaxy now knows about Poe, Rey, Finn, Rose and nu-Leia (they didn't care about Leia much before this I guess) and considers them the greatest heroes ever, meanwhile Luke is still a myth and Han is only remembered as the "12 Parsecs" guy. Worst part about the book is that its classified as "required reading" alongside the shitty Vi Moradi/Blackspire book I posted before, so you HAVE TO READ IT in order to understand the backstory of IX in case you get confused.

The Kylo Ren comic series is also a "required comic" as you HAVE TO read it to understand Kylo Ren, his connection with Snoke and his relationship with the Knights of Ren along with their backstories... If you can't fit this shit into your movie where these mostly unknown characters play an important role, don't bother creating characters that will never have a purpose other than being Sith knockoffs. Its the same problem Dooku had in AOTC where you had to see his tie-in media to understand him completely, but people could get over that because everyone fucking loves Christopher Lee, plus his acting and interactions saved the character. The Knights of Ren are just obnoxious background characters who only exist because "muh mystery box secrets". The comic miniseries will be 4 issues long and releases in December.

These adult comics I've posted before during SDCC (along with leaked pics, check it out in case you missed my previous posts) are also "required" as they serve as tie-ins to IX. They will be 4 issues long and will be released in October. MAKE SURE TO READ THEM TO UNDERSTAND WHY ROSE IS STILL SUPER IMPORTANT... and why she's reduced to an irrelevant role in IX. And also read about how Finn is still wasted comic relief and Poe is a bitch.

Seriously, how can Disney's EU fail to understand the appeal of the original EU this hard? Most of the old EU stuff were standalone stories and expansions, with the closest thing to "required" being during the prequel era, mainly Genndy Wars (which was badass and short) and the novelizations of Episodes II and III. That's it. But with Disney you gotta buy fucking everything to get what's going on for their next movie.

Also, big head's up, Galaxy's Edge still sucking.

Activity at the California park still ranges from moderate to almost dead. Hype for the Florida one is null since its just a cheaper version of the California one.

 

[Vault Boy]

I'm surprised they recanonized Clone Commandos, although it does surprise me that EAfront II (despite its greedy corporate faggotry) does a better job of honoring the mythos and expanded media than the rest of Disney. If only they could expunge the sequel shit and Inferno Squad storyline nonsense from the game.

Actually, Clone Commandos have always been canon thanks to The Clone Wars (or Filoni Wars, as you guys call it). One of the arcs in Season 4 had one that went AWOL due to memory loss, while Delta Squad themselves made a cameo appearance at the beginning of one of the Darth Maul episodes.

To my knowledge, this is the first time Clone Commandos have appeared since the show, so that's kinda cool.

 

[Creep3r]

Actually, Clone Commandos have always been canon thanks to The Clone Wars (or Filoni Wars, as you guys call it). One of the arcs in Season 4 had one that went AWOL due to memory loss, while Delta Squad themselves made a cameo appearance at the beginning of one of the Darth Maul episodes.

To my knowledge, this is the first time Clone Commandos have appeared since the show, so that's kinda cool.

True, but their appearance in Filoni Wars was pretty much all they got for almost 6-8 years. I usually consider any EU reference in Filoni Wars to be "non-canon" in Disney's shitty "canon" until it appears again in something Disney-related since Disney could just pretend it doesn't exist, much like they did with Jungle Felucians (who were referenced verbally in an episode and appeared in a deleted scene) but are still not considered official to Disney for some reason despite shit from other deleted scenes and even the unfinished episodes being considered official in later Disney media and guides. Aside from that, the only other thing Clone Commandos have appeared in are some shitty "half-canon" mobile games Disney has released which have since been canned.

It's still nice to see them again, it just a shame it had to be in such a divisive game, and that they have to share said game with Inferno Squad and the Kennedy OCs. I mean why not just make a new Republic Commando game? And to save money, just re-use assets from EAfront? The original and its characters are still popular after all these years, and it would be a good way for the fucks at EA to actually salvage what little is left of their reputation. Of course then comes the question of whether or not they can actually do that considered how possibly fucked the ownership of SW is if the rumors are true. Would explain why the next SW game is just a Force Unleashed knockoff with shitty OCs and why Bioware wasn't allowed to make KOTOR 3 despite practically begging for it.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

The most annoying thing about this book is that it reveals that the majority of the galaxy now knows about Poe, Rey, Finn, Rose and nu-Leia (they didn't care about Leia much before this I guess) and considers them the greatest heroes ever, meanwhile Luke is still a myth and Han is only remembered as the "12 Parsecs" guy. Worst part about the book is that its classified as "required reading" alongside the shitty Vi Moradi/Blackspire book I posted before, so you HAVE TO READ IT in order to understand the backstory of IX in case you get confused.

The mistreatment of Han and Luke aside, I just love how 3 movies in, they still have not figured out that info like this should be in the movie.
Like this shit:

The Kylo Ren comic series is also a "required comic" as you HAVE TO read it to understand Kylo Ren, his connection with Snoke and his relationship with the Knights of Ren along with their backstories... If you can't fit this shit into your movie where these mostly unknown characters play an important role, don't bother creating characters that will never have a purpose other than being Sith knockoffs.

They had an entire movie where they could have introduced and established the Knights of Ren, but Ruin had no time for that, we had to get the immensely important scenes at Canto Bight and Luke drinking green testicle-tit milk.
Now you have to read several books and a couple of comics, just to understand the characters and their relations, it's a mess.

MAKE SURE TO READ THEM TO UNDERSTAND WHY ROSE IS STILL SUPER IMPORTANT... and why she's reduced to an irrelevant role in IX.

Seems like plausible deniablitity to me. They had to remove Rose from the movie, this allows them to go "See, she's still super important", while also avoiding to be forced to waste any screentime on Rose and explaining why she's doing something else.

Man, SW is such a garbage-fire with required reading and them desperately trying to retcon TLj without aknowledging that they are retconning TLJ.
It's the Hollywood Studio Version of Doublethink.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

While Galaxy’s Edge is flopping, Disney just got slapped in the face by Sony as they will no longer use Spider-Man in the MCU.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/deadline.com/2019/08/kevin-feige-spider-man-franchise-exit-disney-sony-dispute-avengers-endgame-captain-america-winter-soldier-tom-rothman-bob-iger-1202672545/amp/