Not to mention Disney had so little faith in Solo performing well in China that they renamed it Ranger Solo and removed all references of it being a SW film. Then there's the whole Mulan controversy going on in China right now where there's people asking the live-action remake be banned for historical inaccuracy and because the Mulan actress won't stop saying shit that's pissing off the Chinese population.
Regardless, China was never the biggest source of money for the Disney Wars films, so it was never really a concern. The biggest sources (according to Box Office Mojo) have always been the US, the UK and a few parts of Europe. Those are the countries you should be concerned with.
And speaking of Solo, China and probabilities of success...
I should mention that we're being too pessimistic (or optimistic depending on how you look at it) in regards to IX's performance. First off, everyone who's read the thread knows that I'm in the "IX will probably make 700mil to 900mil or more" camp, but one thing I've noticed that's started changing my mind a bit is a recurring pattern we're seeing.
For example, before Solo premiered, people online and a few even in this thread were talking about how the film would easily make 800mil or that it might underperform but only a little, with most arguments being "ITS FUCKING HAN SOLO! How could it fail?!" or "Its a Star Wars movie. That automatically means it'll make bank" and even in this thread Optimistic ratings were getting thrown around quite a lot (even by me despite wanting it to bomb but thinking it would gross 800mil or 900mil) when discussing the possibility of Solo outright bombing. Then the movie comes out and its a complete and total bomb and people on reddit and anywhere else online suddenly did a 180 and were like "Well yeah duh, of course it was gonna fail. I mean, who wants a movie about Han Solo amirite?" or blaming SW fatigue, Trump's America, Russian bots, the toxic fanbase, poor release date, "SW was never big in China", etc as usual.
Then there's the Resistance cartoon. Before the trailer or any animated previews officially dropped, SW communities were abuzz about how this would save the Disney Sequels like how Clone Wars cartoons saved the Prequels or how it would be a great new addition to Disney's "line of successes". People wouldn't even stop talking about how
beautiful the concept art was and how the promised "anime-aesthetic" would ensure this becomes the next Korra [gag reflex]. Or saying that because Filoni was involved and it had a male main character, it meant that it was "born to succeed" or "free of Kennedy taint". It was gonna be "The sequels' own Clone Wars" and fix everything, or so they said. But then the first trailer drops and "WHAM", thing gets downvoted to Hell and torn apart on countless sites with the exception of r/starwars and other echo chamber forums which banned, hid or deleted any "toxic feedback". Show ends up underperforming badly in ratings/views. Is thrown into a doomed late night timeslot (Sunday 10PM) despite the show's framework being designed for ages 4-12 which are usually not up that late on a Sunday. Can't even beat any other show on Disney channel. Show reveals that it takes place entirely on one planet with no features. Characters are 1-dimensional idiots. Actually makes people hate the sequels more. Causes controversy after Leia's voice actress shows support for Brett Kavanaugh and Trump. Ends up doing so badly that people stop talking about it altogether. Future comic tie-ins get canned. Gets abysmal ratings across numerous review sites except Rotten Tomatoes which was
later confirmed to have mostly fake reviews while negative ones were deleted. Then the show itself announces a fancy second season, despite that the only reason its getting one is because it was already green-lit for a second season before the show even aired, and then said second season reveal is followed by the announcement of its cancellation. And suffice it to say,
the animation looks even worse now than it did for the first season despite having more planets and the damn thing can't even hit a million views which was an easy enough task for the show premiere trailer. Despite all this, there was a time when people thought this would be the second coming of Genndy Wars or Filoni Wars and there was no way it could fail, but look what happened.
Then there's the video games. EA's Battlefront 2 was hyped up by many as probably surpassing the original BF2 or being some amazing game in its own right, and most were saying that there was no chance the game could fuck up or fail even with TLJ's bad mojo right behind it, but EA found a way and it became one of the biggest controversies in games, seeing one of the most sudden dips in sales midway and it earned EA the most hated game company title once again and the most hated posts on Reddit, with their only saving grace now being some DLC items which are the equivalent of pitiful apology letters that not many are bothering to read. Then there's the shitty mobile games that have all been discontinued except one, and the recent cluster fuck of shitty VR games like Porg simulators and Droid Builders. As well as the shit concerning the Vader Immortal VR game but that's a whole other can of worms (clip from the game below).
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People thought the games would continue to be the strongest point with SW after Disney bought it, and that EA's BFII would have things go swimmingly, but that turned out to be a load of bunk. Despite all of this, people still have hope for Fallen Order.
Then comes the merch. Toys are in such a decline that Hasbro wants little to do with SW and the "hottest" SW toys now are retro figures in retro boxes since those are the only ones that even remotely sell, yet people thought merch would forever continue to fly off the shelves simply because it has SW printed on it. Now you'll mostly see them on clearance.
Then finally Galaxy's Edge happens, probably the biggest clusterfuck of all after TLJ. I've already gone into strenuous detail about this as have others, but before its opening, people thought it would be some big amazing event. They thought there was no way it could tank (including me). Disney would destroy the theme park competition, or so people thought. But look what happened. It turned out to be far more of a failure than anyone thought, and even when it first opened and negative reviews were coming in, there were people on both pro and anti Disney sides saying stuff like "They could make a planet of shit and people will still go! ITS FUCKING STAR WARS! Doesn't matter how many nerds hate it! They will come!" then look what happened.
I'm not saying to be too optimistic about IX bombing, but be ready to expect the impossible to happen and expect the worst to actually transpire. Remember Murphy's Law. This string of fuck-ups have proven that Murphy's Law seems to currently be in full effect over at nu-Lucasfilm.
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