Star Wars Griefing Thread (SPOILERS) - Safety off

[LORD IMPERATOR]

They didn't make their money back IMO, not when you include the money they pumped into Galaxy's Edge and if you include the costs to develop their movies. At best, they barely paid off the 4 billion initial buy. But I can't even believe this given that Disney got caught more than once buying their own tickets to save movie numbers.

So basically, they spent more than they made, just to save face with their SW franchise. Reputation mattered to them more than money, and ironically enough, everything they spent ruined their reputation anyways.

 

[Mississippi Motorboater]

And then Corona-chan struck and made them endure a confirmed $6 billion loss, which I'm sure is only going to be amplified by box office bombs like Outward and Mulan.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer company.

 

[Godzilla@1989]

This is a dead horse that I’ll admit that I love to beat, but what’s Disney going to have to do with themselves now once coronavirus ends? Will they have to downsize by selling off assets and throw SW in the vault forever?

 

[Ghostse]

Not to mention the time value of money comes into the equation. The 4 Billion spent on Disney 10 years ago is worth much more now.

This is less of thing currently. With interest flat, inflation isn't doing what it used to be doing (for the moment, its going ot be a wild ride when that stops).

The more damning thing is the "opportunity cost" - investors could have bought 4 billion of Amazon or Biotech or w/e had a more than flat growth. While they made back their investment it took years and years to do it.
This is going to make future investment in Disney a harder sell, especially when overall revenues on the property are not going up, or even staying flat.

(I.E. If Disney made that 4 billion back in say 3 years, you can say to yourself "Well, if I buy disney, all I need to do is wait 3 years and I'll have my initial investment back no matter what they do. In this case "10 years to get your investment back to the original value... that's a long wait, even if it say went to 8 billion tommorrow, that's still a long time to not be able to access billion dollars without taking a hit)

They didn't make their money back IMO, not when you include the money they pumped into Galaxy's Edge and if you include the costs to develop their movies. At best, they barely paid off the 4 billion initial buy. But I can't even believe this given that Disney got caught more than once buying their own tickets to save movie numbers.

Doesn't include the merch though.
I think we can all agree they didn't make the 4+ billion in profit (or 8billion in renvenue) investors/the board was expecting them to have made by now.

So basically, they spent more than they made, just to save face with their SW franchise. Reputation mattered to them more than money, and ironically enough, everything they spent ruined their reputation anyways.

Small point of order:
in this case Reputation and Money is the exact same. SW is a 4 billion dollar asset, but its only worth that under the premise SW will print money. Burning 200 million to buy fake tickets to pump the numbers for EPIX is nothing compared to the value loss if they hadn't done it. (Made up numbers, btw)

 

[Adamska]

Doesn't include the merch though.
I think we can all agree they didn't make the 4+ billion in profit (or 8billion in renvenue) investors/the board was expecting them to have made by now.

The merch mostly sold like shit though (especially after TLJ), barring the OT stuff and Kylo Ren. Hell, BB-8 sold like so much shit they had to foist them on idiots who went to Galaxy's Edge.

I don't know if they made all that much given the situation. It certainly was massively disappointing at least.

 

[Ghostse]

I don't know if they made all that much given the situation. It certainly was massively disappointing at least.

Agreed. And definitely less than projections almost certainly had them making.

Its sort of like getting a C in a class: Sure you didn't fail, but that 2.0 isn't doing your GPA any favors, and now you've got to explain it your parent. You can bullshit away getting a B as "just missed it by a few points", but full letter grade away is a much harder sell.

edit: To tie that together a little better, SW was not a financial disaster for Disney, but it was a big case of resource mismanagement (either their analysts did a shit job of picking the investment, or their management fucked up running the investment*) and they are going to be looked at much closer in the future.
They did better than breaking even, but they could have done better and were expected to have done better. They didn't lose money but they SHOULD have made a few billion, and didn't.

*We know what was the case for SW, just speaking in generalities.

 

[Mississippi Motorboater]

When Corona blows over, Disney will surely attempt to re-stabilize themselves by milking their existing IP's dry, Star Wars very much included...they'll just use the most cheap, cost-cutting measures to do it.

Good old Bob "Skin A Child to Save A Buck" Chapek will see to that, especially when he has actual power and he isn't relying on the previous Bob to manage things.

 

[Chilson]

This is less of thing currently. With interest flat, inflation isn't doing what it used to be doing (for the moment, its going ot be a wild ride when that stops).

The more damning thing is the "opportunity cost" - investors could have bought 4 billion of Amazon or Biotech or w/e had a more than flat growth. While they made back their investment it took years and years to do it.
This is going to make future investment in Disney a harder sell, especially when overall revenues on the property are not going up, or even staying flat.

That's basically what Time value is though. Its the most classroom example to use bond interest rates, but you could put any investment growth opportunity into the equation and it would still spit out present value and future value.

 

[ZMOT]

that movie was such a hot mess, a drunk, half-asleep Michael Bay could have done a better job.

after posting the transformer clips a while back I was seriously wondering what baywars would look like. would be kinda hilarious with all the inconspicuous rebel flags waving in the background and the low angle panning shot of someone slowly standing up in front of a sunset. also a lot of yelling and running.

So basically, they spent more than they made, just to save face with their SW franchise. Reputation mattered to them more than money, and ironically enough, everything they spent ruined their reputation anyways.

they spend most of it long before the franchise cratered. they were looking what kind of money it made in the past and thought "we're disney, we can double that" and went all in. the only thing they really spend big for salvage was epIX with the endless reshots to have a movie that isn't completely dogshit.
(I'd kill to see all the shit they cut, considering what we got it must be incredibly bad).

edit: To tie that together a little better, SW was not a financial disaster for Disney, but it was a big case of resource mismanagement (either their analysts did a shit job of picking the investment, or their management fucked up running the investment*) and they are going to be looked at much closer in the future.
They did better than breaking even, but they could have done better and were expected to have done better. They didn't lose money but they SHOULD have made a few billion, and didn't.

*We know what was the case for SW, just speaking in generalities.

I'd call it a pretty big disaster, because at this point it won't make the money back they spend (I think they made enough to make up for buying the IP, but galaxy edge was what, another billion or two?), maybe break even which would be nowhere near fast enough what people expect considering the wads of cash they dropped on the rights and GE.
it's so bad you'd have to go back and carefully build it up again to the state of just 5 years ago, and I doubt disney has the patience, will or even ability to do it.

 

[Doctor of Autism]

I think I've said this before but I think the issue with Rian is that he was an ambitious indie filmmaker that was given no restraints that was tasked with making a sequel to someone else's movie with no clear direction on where to go, and it didn't help Lucasfilms encouraged any lore-breaking ideas he had since he did consult them and they were like "Sure go ahead".

This is a massive difference to Rian's other works which are actually quite good, but he really is not the guy who should be directing a sequel unless there were plot mandates for him to keep ahold of.

Rian's incompetence really should drive home why planning is important for a trilogy that is part of a large franchise especially when it comes to picking directors as it was a really dumb decision to pick a very ambitious indie director instead of someone who'd bend the knee more. Of course he had politics and ideas they'd agree with (I honestly think Rian believed he was challenging Star Wars fans while Kathleen knew his ideas would piss them off and kept goading him). This could probably be why Lord and Miller were fired which is that they knew what the fans (given they hold a very good track record of making consistently good movies) wanted which displeased Kennedy since they didn't piss off fans enough.

 

[Ghostse]

That's basically what Time value is though. Its the most classroom example to use bond interest rates, but you could put any investment growth opportunity into the equation and it would still spit out present value and future value.

Ah, gotcha. Sorry misunderstood. I thought you were doing the "1% is ackshullay a negative interest rate".

I think I've said this before but I think the issue with Rian is that he was an ambitious indie filmmaker that was given no restraints that was tasked with making a sequel to someone else's movie with no clear direction on where to go, and it didn't help Lucasfilms encouraged any lore-breaking ideas he had since he did consult them and they were like "Sure go ahead".

This is a massive difference to Rian's other works which are actually quite good, but he really is not the guy who should be directing a sequel unless there were plot mandates for him to keep ahold of.

Rian's incompetence really should drive home why planning is important for a trilogy that is part of a large franchise especially when it comes to picking directors as it was a really dumb decision to pick a very ambitious indie director instead of someone who'd bend the knee more. Of course he had politics and ideas they'd agree with (I honestly think Rian believed he was challenging Star Wars fans while Kathleen knew his ideas would piss them off and kept goading him). This could probably be why Lord and Miller were fired which is that they knew what the fans (given they hold a very good track record of making consistently good movies) wanted which displeased Kennedy since they didn't piss off fans enough.

Rian's lore-destructive tantrum making it to theaters near you, I lay all blame on Kennedy. At the end of the day SHE green lit the script. And I know why she did. TFA was a huge success on every metric but merchandise moved (and not being a gender swap aping of a better movie). KKK was being proven right - woke sells. She could then set her sights on completely erasing all traces of the OT from Star Wars going forward.
Rian's script did that. Talked down to anyone who didn't like the direction the fanchise was going? Rian's script called them space nazis.

Rians other stuff was pretty good because he hadn't gone full-koolaid and he wasn't shitting on anyone's pre-existing work - and no one had to pick up after he was done. He very clearly works best in his own bubble.

I also think there's a real possiblity that Rian, being a film nerd, had a personal beef with JJ. I think Rian saw what JJ's plan for being able to claim genius was (and due to NDAs, would never be able to call him out on his shit of being left with planning notes of the quality of "Lol, idk, She Someone's kid. Maybe Obiwan. Maybe palps. You pick." and "Van + Molester Stache Vibes - run with that?")

JJ is a competent director. I didn't say good, I didn't say great, I said competent.
But he is the hackiest of hack writers to the point its almost an insult to hack writers to put him in with them, since even hack writers usually at least change their shit up a bit and improve, at least out of necessity. So Rian showed JJ what he thought of his mystery boxes by with great, deliberate care smashing each and every one on screen.

 

[Getting tard comed]

I wonder if Disney even made back the money they spent acquiring Star Wars.

If they did, it's probably just barely broke even.

Somebody did the math on twitter, and you can too. Numbers according to https://m.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Star-Wars


Theres no way Disney made their money back on SW. They spent 4.3b on Lucasfilm and the total Box office gross for all SW movies they have made is 5.7b roughly. We are going to ignore inflation completely. The total production costs for all of their movies is 1.2b. So if Disney were to receive 100% of the box office gross they are looking at 4.5b right? Except they don't get 100% of the box office gross. They have to split that with theaters.

Typically the split is 50/50 but Disney strong arms theaters to take more. It was documented they wanted 60/40 split in America for some of their later Marvel films. Every foreign distribution contract is different and I'm not aware of any so we will be kind to Disney and say they recieved 60% of the world wide box office. Suddenly that 5.7b is now 3.42b. Besides that already being less than what they paid for l, let's then subtract production costs. That 3.42b is now 2.22b. Still no return on investment. But wait, theres more!

I'm feeling kind today so we are going to hypothetically increase Disney's share of the global box office world wide to 70%. Quick maths means that 5.7b becomes 3.99b - production costs means 2.79b. Rounding up Disney has 2.8b made from a 4.3b investment they spent. Except... We have not included Marketing costs at all for any of these movies. Typically, when calculated. Its assumed a studio will spend the same amount on marketing that they spent on the production budget. Meaning that 1.2b production costs becomes 2.4b in production costs. If Disney had 60% of the box office that means they "made" 1b in "profit" on a 4.3b purchase. If they got to take home 70% of the box office they "made" 1.6b in "profit" on a 4.3b purchase. 70% is practically extortion so it's very unlikely they took home anything more than that.

Considering theres no way in hell they have made up the difference of 2.7 billion dollars in merchandise considering how terrible the sales have been, the books have been, the comics, the video games l, everything essentially Disney is clearly in the red since buying Lucasfilm. I'm confident in that even if Disney could produce all of those things without taking in to account production costs on anything else. This isn't taking into account the multibillion failure both Galxy Edge parks have been.


And the worst part is, for Disney at least, the numbers used are the ones Disney provided. Meaning the actual numbers are probably worse. No budget in anything is a clean round number. And considering how many and long reshoots Solo and RotS took those 275m numbers are probably higher. If you ever wondered why Bob Iger decided to step in and micromanage Lucasfilm during the making of RotS which goes against his entire managing strategy up to that point this is why. Somebody finally looked at the ledger and realized they were in the hole for multiple billions and the brand of SW was dying as well. Bad report to have to take to your boss, the stockholders.

Edit: Needed to mention, theres one way Disney could be relatively neutral in their purchase of Lucasfilm. Even if true it still makes the purchase a bad investment. I believe with the purchase of Lucasfilm they also bought ILM and Skywalker Sound. If true, one could argue the profit they recieve from owning those two companies could offset the losses involved in the SW IP. Prior to Disney buying Lucasfilm if you would see Skywalker Sound + ILM (both companies Lucas created and built) in the credits of practically every movie. Particularly the blockbusters. I haven't seen them nearly as often since Disney bought it which makes sense. If I'm another studio why in the world am I going to give my largest competitor, Disney, money and access to my product? In my opinion, it's unlikely that any potential profit Disney has made off of these two companies could offset the losses from SW due to visual effects houses and sound studios struggling in the current environment with most work being outsourced to independent contracters instead of being assigned to houses that have employed vfx workers. I doubt Disney has been spared the changes in the market, but the possibility needed to be included.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

When Corona blows over, Disney will surely attempt to re-stabilize themselves by milking their existing IP's dry, Star Wars very much included...they'll just use the most cheap, cost-cutting measures to do it.

Good old Bob "Skin A Child to Save A Buck" Chapek will see to that, especially when he has actual power and he isn't relying on the previous Bob to manage things.

Let's face it, Disney's strategy towards IPs basically boils down to either woke garbage, or this:

 

[ZMOT]

Typically the split is 50/50 but Disney strong arms theaters to take more. It was documented they wanted 60/40 split in America for some of their later Marvel films. Every foreign distribution contract is different and I'm not aware of any so we will be kind to Disney and say they recieved 60% of the world wide box office. Suddenly that 5.7b is now 3.42b. Besides that already being less than what they paid for l, let's then subtract production costs. That 3.42b is now 2.22b. Still no return on investment. But wait, theres more!

iirc according to /tv/ it's even worse than that since studios have far less pull in foreign markets making demands, can't remember the exact number but I think it was 50% at best, around 40% is probably more realistic.

And the worst part is, for Disney at least, the numbers used are the ones Disney provided. Meaning the actual numbers are probably worse. No budget in anything is a clean round number. And considering how many and long reshoots Solo and RotS took those 275k numbers are probably higher. If you ever wondered why Bob Iger decided to step in and micromanage Lucasfilm during the making of RotS which goes against his entire managing strategy up to that point this is why. Somebody finally looked at the ledger and realized they were in the hole for multiple billions and the brand of SW was dying as well. Bad report to have to take to your boss, the stockholders.

don't forget iger was actually already on his way out before the star wars debacle and the fox purchase catches up to him, getting involved on that level so shareholders can actually say "dude, wtf?" isn't a good sign.

 

[jspit]

So, I've been playing allot of EoW. The modding community is fucking insane. I was doing the NJO mod, can't recommend it enough. But. It got me thinking. The Vong war and the period in between the Galactic Civil War wasted. There was this whole galaxy with game of thrones level development and factions that just got dropped.

The Corporate Sector, this not empire not republic that was there in the Vong's path. How did that work? How did they interact with Luke's Jedi. We got one book on Hapes, kindof, and one book or two on the Empire. Other than Tom Taylor's Invasion series, which was out there in limbo the comics ignored it. Hell, forget the Vong.

Kathy Tyres Siiruk. Lando led a task force to investigate in the unknown region. Or the actual formation of the Remnant and the Orinda campaign. So much cool stuff that just got glossed over.

I just realized while playing that some of my frustration with the Vong or parts of the Galactic Civil War was that really cool moments happen off screen.

 

[Mississippi Motorboater]

So, I've been playing allot of EoW. The modding community is fucking insane. I was doing the NJO mod, can't recommend it enough. But. It got me thinking. The Vong war and the period in between the Galactic Civil War wasted. There was this whole galaxy with game of thrones level development and factions that just got dropped.

The Corporate Sector, this not empire not republic that was there in the Vong's path. How did that work? How did they interact with Luke's Jedi. We got one book on Hapes, kindof, and one book or two on the Empire. Other than Tom Taylor's Invasion series, which was out there in limbo the comics ignored it. Hell, forget the Vong.

Kathy Tyres Siiruk. Lando led a task force to investigate in the unknown region. Or the actual formation of the Remnant and the Orinda campaign. So much cool stuff that just got glossed over.

I just realized while playing that some of my frustration with the Vong or parts of the Galactic Civil War was that really cool moments happen off screen.

There's a lot of off-page aspects of NJO that are mostly alluded to or referenced, rather than shown outright (the razing of Obroa-Skai and the destruction of its libraries, for instance). I think it's mostly down to the fact that the authors wanted to concentrate on drama between characters and the Vong's warpath to Coruscant, and leave everything else to exposition.

Personally, I was fine with the story's decision to bottle the galactic focus on the Solo Children and their exploits specfiically (since that's where the bulk of my investment was), but I do agree that it's a shame that the larger aspects of the Vong Invasion weren't shown directly to us. One of my favorite bits of NJO is getting to see their interactions with the Hutts in Agents Of Chaos, and how they successfully de-stabilize their hold as crime lords through deception and subterfuge. That was cool, and we actually got to see it.

It would've been nice if more NJO-era content had been released after the book's run, but all we got was the Invasion comics, and even those were short-lived. There was even going to be a comic series detailing their early exploits and shadowy observations prior to the invasion called The Hatred Vector, but that never even materialized. Personally, I would've loved to have seen content about their wars with the Machine Abominations that got them exiled from the Force---I was always desperate to see what that conflict looked like.

 

[jspit]

There's a lot of off-page aspects of NJO that are mostly alluded to or referenced, rather than shown outright (the razing of Obroa-Skai and the destruction of its libraries, for instance). I think it's mostly down to the fact that the authors wanted to concentrate on drama between characters and the Vong's warpath to Coruscant, and leave everything else to exposition.

Personally, I was fine with the story's decision to bottle the galactic focus on the Solo Children and their exploits specfiically (since that's where the bulk of my investment was), but I do agree that it's a shame that the larger aspects of the Vong Invasion weren't shown directly to us. One of my favorite bits of NJO is getting to see their interactions with the Hutts in Agents Of Chaos, and how they successfully de-stabilize their hold as crime lords through deception and subterfuge. That was cool, and we actually got to see it.

It would've been nice if more NJO-era content had been released after the book's run, but all we got was the Invasion comics, and even those were short-lived. There was even going to be a comic series detailing their early exploits and shadowy observations prior to the invasion called The Hatred Vector, but that never even materialized. Personally, I would've loved to have seen content about their wars with the Machine Abominations that got them exiled from the Force---I was always desperate to see what that conflict looked like.

That's what's harder to swallow once you think about it. You look at the Galactic Scale factions.

the Chiss, the Remnant, Hand of Thrawn, Sii-Ruuk, all in the Unknown Region. Then there is the Remnant, the Hutts, the CSA. They mostly got folded into the GA. But you have a game of thrones set up, both in Legacy and post Vong that doesn't really get to come off.

Worse. Now Disney owns all of that. What are they going to do with it?

 

[Mississippi Motorboater]

That's what's harder to swallow once you think about it. You look at the Galactic Scale factions.

the Chiss, the Remnant, Hand of Thrawn, Sii-Ruuk, all in the Unknown Region. Then there is the Remnant, the Hutts, the CSA. They mostly got folded into the GA. But you have a game of thrones set up, both in Legacy and post Vong that doesn't really get to come off.

Worse. Now Disney owns all of that. What are they going to do with it?

Probably fuck all, since a multi-faction conflict on that scale doesn't lend itself to the same formula of one-shot filler garbage that we see in all the current comics and novels published these days. Plus, factions like the Empire of the Hand and the Ssi-ruuk aren't even canon anymore...and the version of the Chiss Ascendancy that's canon is completely different from the one in the EU. They didn't even exile Thrawn in the new canon, due to Zahn's nonsensical attempts to make him less of a vile anti-hero and more of a "secret hero of the Chiss people."

 

[Matthew216]

 

[Imperial Citizen]

That's what's harder to swallow once you think about it. You look at the Galactic Scale factions.

the Chiss, the Remnant, Hand of Thrawn, Sii-Ruuk, all in the Unknown Region. Then there is the Remnant, the Hutts, the CSA. They mostly got folded into the GA. But you have a game of thrones set up, both in Legacy and post Vong that doesn't really get to come off.

Worse. Now Disney owns all of that. What are they going to do with it?

Like there is ever going to be content in disney canon post RoS. The actors don't want to be involved with the project and there is no where left to go in the story since the Sith and First Order were conveniently all on Exegol in the final battle so there are no more bad guys to fight. All they have right now is the High Republic and post-Endor Squadron game.