Which is why I still think this turkey clucks its way to over a billion dollars at the box office, maybe even reaching TLJ numbers. There's enough fans out there with nostalgia for this in the USA, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, NZ and Japan to get it to that level. Despite dying in every other market, which it will, this should be enough to get to that level.
Star Wars is basically a Stuff White People Like (or honorary white people w/Japan) circle jerk at this point. And even with WiPePo they're seem to be losing the youth demographic. (How many kids wear Star Wars Halloween costumes these days?)
Also, still pisses me off we can't abbreviate this thing. RotS is Revenge of the Sith, not Rise of the Skywalker. Not sure if it is weird that that bugs me, but it does.
Even with
what I've said before, there's still a chance it might break a billion depending on the factors at hand, but I doubt it'll beat TLJ and I'm still open to the idea of it underperforming or horribly underperforming. Just gonna post some box office numbers about TFA, RO, TLJ and Solo for comparison and because I think its interesting.
TFA grossed $2,068,223,624 worldwide. Half of that ($936,662,225) came from the US alone. While the other half ($1,131,561,399) came from foreign markets. The biggest sources of foreign cash being (in order of highest gross to lowest) the UK, Germany, China, Japan, France and Australia, with the first three coughing up over $100mil, with the UK in particular coughing up $163mil, Japan coughing up $97mil, France $88mil and Australia $67mil. Meanwhile the rest of the world gave less than 30mil or less than 5mil. All in all, no other country gave as much money to the film as the US. Now we divide said profit up by 2, since at least half of the profit (technically more than that but we'll just stick with 2 for convenience) has to go to the distributors, cinemas, foreign distributors and tariffs, making the actual profit for the film something around or less than $1,034,111,812.
RO was also able to break 1 billion ($1,056,057,273), with half coming from the US and the other half from foreign markets. Much like TFA, the majority of the film's gross came from the US ($523,879,949) while other individual countries gave less than 40mil (minority) or 9mil (majority), except two countries, the UK and China, with the UK coughing up $81,432,097 and China coughing up $69,484,899. Now we divide the profit of the film by 2 for those pesky fees, which leaves the actual gross at $528,028,637.
Then comes TLJ with a gross of $1,332,539,889 worldwide. A drop of $735,683,735 from TFA but an increase of $276,482,616 from RO. Much like with TFA, around half of the budget came from the US ($620,181,382), while the other half came from foreign markets ($712,358,507), a noticeable drop of around 300mil in both areas when compared to TFA. China has lost interest by this point, coughing up only $42mil initially which was then followed by a drastic drop in interest in the following weeks of the film's release. Many other countries saw a notable dip with most giving around only 10mil or around 1mil. But like with TFA, the biggest sources of cash were once again (in order of highest to lowest) the UK ($111mil), Germany ($83mil), Japan ($66mil) and France ($64mil). But all of this pales to the amount given by the US which once again was the biggest cashflow for the film. Now we divide, leaving the actual profit at around or less than $666,269,945.
Finally, here's Solo with a gross of $392,924,807, the second most pisspoor performance of any SW after the Filoni Wars movie from 2008. The US was the largest source of cash at only $213,767,512, an extremely drastic drop from previous films despite always being the biggest source of cash. Individual countries in the foreign market all gave less than 20mil (minority) and 4mil (majority). The UK was once again the biggest source of cash but only at $25,840,047. And the usually recurring Japan coughed up only $18mil. Germany was once again #3, but only at $17mil. China gave $16mil. France barely even bothered this time, barely breaking $10mil. Since the film didn't even break 800mil, it doesn't need to give much to distributors and whatnot.
In short, the biggest and most consistent source of cash has been the US, UK, Germany and Japan. China's casual audiences never gave a shit when compared to Avengers or Disney's shitty remakes. However, there is an SW community in China, but they're like D&D or Trekkies fans who, despite being a large community of their own, their interests aren't really popular with the Zhengchang of China (normalfag in Chinese apparently) and their interests only occasionally align when its trending, much like with Trek. Casual audiences didn't like Finn (and later Rose) and they didn't really find much appeal to the new movies for various reasons, and the SW cliques over there didn't really care for TFA nor Disney's new characters due to mostly being old school fans.
For those interested in finding out more about what Chinese SW nerds do all day, here's a link:
星球大战论坛以研究和普及星球大战文化为己任,是中国大陆最专业、华语圈内具影响的星球大战中文网站,内容涉及星战电影、星战动漫、星战小说、星战游戏和星战玩具等。 ,星球大战中文网 Star Wars China
www.starwarschina.com
Most of what they do is shitpost and complain about Disney. This thread in particular is one where they analyze and review the new Disney books. In short, from what I can tell, they're saying they enjoyed the new Thrawn books but that they are pretty unfulfilling when compared to the original Thrawn books. They also talk about the "bitterness" and shittiness of the new Disney EU, particularly the "Wendy trilogy" (Chuck Wendig) which are a "slag" (渣), and that Disney's new media doesn't live up to the old, calling it a "History of Bitterness". Discussions about Disney stuff usually get zero replies:
http://www.starwarschina.com/thread-45374-1-1.html Apparently it seems to have killed activity a bit due to how rampant it is. In the end, Disney failed to attract Chinese SW fans because they wanted EU movies.
Anyway, if the US doesn't give even half of what it usually does (and it might not considering they went from 900mil to 600mil to just 200mil) then this movie is screwed and no amount of foreign aid can save it. At best I can see the US (if there's no boycott or too much indifference) giving as much as 300mill or close to 400mil, but if something unexpected like say a beloved actor dies or some big "hype" is revealed, then this movie might make 500mil or more in the US.