Re: Kathleen Kennedy to step down from Lucasfilm?
There is no doubt that SW as a brand is facing a troubling future. Where you want to apportion the blame depends on alot of opinion but these last couple of weeks BO kind of proves at least one thing to me.
If you look at this weekend and the last there was a huge box office take with both "Incredibles 2" and "Jurassic World 2"
. We24/6 we 17/6 worldwide total
JW2 $150 m - $711 m
I2 $80 m $182 m $485 m
DP2 $5 m $8 m $707 m
Solo $4 m $10 m $353 m
The reason Solo did not do the huge BO is there simply was just no general public interest in the movie. Its as easy as that.
Its not the boycott, because outside the fandom there was very little social media knowledge it was happening at all . That may have lost them between $5 to $10 million at the most. But its obvious that the bulk of the money for blockbusters comes from the ordinary cinema goers.
And its clear that TLJ DID have a significant impact on general audiences opinions of SW and that was reflected in Solos figures. Alot of people outside the fandom I've talked to thought it was just a very average story and a weaker film than they would have expected. The general levels of respect and appreciation held for the franchise were eroded by this more quickly than expected and thats reflected in SOLOs BO.
Case in point.The original Jurassic Park.
That had exactly the same popular impact that SW:ANH had on a generation of movie goers back in the seventies.That first movie is so very well loved. And that was repaid with interest with its return in" Jurassic Worlds" huge $2 billion take,similar to that of TFA.
Nostalgia and affection have a massive influence on people wanting to go to see a film on release week. They want to remember and be remineded about what they loved about it. I do think JW2 will suffer a similar drop to TLJ, as the story is not as strong and will not able to sustain those hugely important repeat viewings ( but its still had a strong performance globally).
Want more proof?
Incredibles 2. Fourteen years have passed since the first one. And again this is a hugely loved movie with the general public. So the sequel had another great openning despite having slightly weaker storyl, but overall its still been very well recieved by families and critics alike . It was judged to be tonely consistent with the first and thus felt like a properly planned sequel. Note the lack of any really negative critiscism of it anywhere.
These BO figures show exactly what is NOT happening with the SW brand. General perception with the public is that competitively its just coming in poor second, and its failling to trigger that essentail nostalgic appreciation .
There is no doubt that Lucasfilm disrupted the franchise by doing what it did with the story and characters in TLJ and in so doing generating a large amount of very vocal criticism with the fandom, which has had the unfortunate effect of leading to the dislike being capitalized on by social media channels that directly profit from promoting that discontent and negativity.
But all this internet generated propaganda IS becoming counter productive because its promoting a growing idea with the general public that to say you might "like" SW movies is no longer a positive, particularly given that even more of the media is portraying that fans of the series are a certain dysfunctional stereo type.Which ,whilst being hugely unfair ,also drives more people away from the brand. The entire argument its self is becoming newsworthy:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...at-would-the-200m-fan-funded-remake-look-like
And this kind of perception is further NOT being helped when Lucasfilm and their employees respond in kind. Thats NOT at all professional as its just fanning the flames and turning the brand "toxic" for everybody. When you get this kind of stuff is printed in a national newspaper its time to be worried.
If I were head of DIsney I would have a very serious conversation with those people producing these movies and point out VERY CLEARLY, that considering the amount of money they are being paid that they should be able to react ( or more importantly NOT react ) in a manner that does not continue to grow anger amoungst the elements of the fandom that want to react to it and allow this terrible publicity to grow.
Alot of social media is now becoming a dangerous click bait snare in the "opinion" game. At least Marvel shows how to handle it when this inevitable question is raised once again:
www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/artic...cters-Tessa-Thompson-reveals-Valkyrie-bi.html
Personally I'm very bored of this. "Sense8" proved there is no mass audience no matter how much they want to believe there is. But they can't resist bring the same question up at almost every press conference everywhere. Because it gets attention.
This latest demand to refilm TLJ is another case in point. I don't believe for a second they have managed to raise this amount of money, but its all about sending a message to Disney/ Lucasfilm (as if anybody at believes they haven't got it already).
There is no possible way this will ever happen.
People on both sides just need to find away to use their time and energy more constructively.