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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

Part of the problem is their model is based on people really wanting to see a movie. Then they fail to produce movies people really want to see. Star Wars 8 may be profitable, but Disney failed to make Star Wars 7 awesome and people are just not jumping through hoops for the next one.

There are plenty of stories worth telling, but Hollywood tends to lag between what people want to watch and what they started making 5 years ago. Making great movies is hard, and playing it safe never works for long.

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Terrible analogy. Star Wars fans everywhere loved it to the tune of 2 billion dollars + and 90%+ on rotten tomatoes. As for the next one, Rogue One, earned over a billion dollars, making it the second largest opening this year. Episode VIII will do very well.

Yes, there were issues with Ep VII. No, those issues did not make it not awesome.

Consider 8 had a $306,000,000 budget, 9 had a $200,000,000 budget. I have no problem saying it was profitable, but so was The Land Before Time 9. When a movie pulls in ~1/2 has much as the previous film it's a sign.

http://www.the-numbers.com/market/2016/top-grossing-movies

Just looking domestically we have Finding Dory (squeal), Rogue One (franchise), Captain America: Civil War (squeal), The Secret Life of Pets (kids movie), The Jungle Book (kids movie), Deadpool (franchise), Zootopia (kids movie), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (franchise), Suicide Squad (franchise), Doctor Strange (franchise), Moana (kids movie) etc. Down at #14 The Revenant was at least nominally an original movie, though very similar to several other films.

I don't think any of these where bad for what they where, but there was nothing new for the 14-40 group. 2015 had #6 American Sniper, #9 The Martian, but was again mostly rehashed movies until #17.

> When a movie pulls in ~1/2 has much as the previous film it's a sign.

A lot of missing context here. "Star Wars 8" has not been released, so if you're drawing effect of 7 on 8's performance, I'm not sure how you're doing it. Budget alone does not necessarily tell you expected gross.

Perhaps you were talking about Rogue One? There's a lot of context there that would temper any direct comparisons.

Without the Episode you default to the release order.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_films_and_te...

"The Clone Wars", "Rogue One" are both on this list. http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Star-Wars#tab=su... So 8 is "Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens" and 9 is "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story"

Ignoring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Holiday_Special which was never in theaters.

Then I think you missed a lot of context regarding the star power, the prior franchise separation, etc. It's not really a 1:1 comparison.

That's reasonable, but again this is the #2 grossing film for the year in the US. #1, #4, #5, #7 where PG kids movies. #3, #8, #9, and #10 where comic book movies in a long string of comic book movies.

So, yes revenue was down, but the movies where also very derivative. The top grossing films adjusted for inflation are Gone with the Wind, Avatar, the first Star Wars, Titanic, The Sound of Music, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Ten Commandments, Doctor Zhivago, Jaws, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The Force Awakens might make #10 on that list while being the only franchise movie to do so. But, no movie from 2016 is even close.

No movie from 2016 is in the top 10 revenue list? OK. Is it the expectation that this should happen every year?

And you can't discount franchises, kids movies, whatever. Tastes change. One decade people want high flying, heavy-action westerns. The next they want gritty, brooding introspective crime dramas. Then fantastic/sci-fi movies. Public tastes change, and you can see that all over the history of the cinema.

No doubt that consumption patterns have changed, almost assuredly due to the glut of options available at home + technological improvements that have improved the quality of home viewing. I think it not unreasonable to suggest that Hollywood is splintering between the theatre and the home theatre at this time. Measuring ticket sales is a pretty shallow & simplistic way to measure the health of huge entertainment conglomerates.

These trends did not suddenly change from last year where a movie made twice the revenue. So, I don't think you can really blame trends. Not getting in the top 10 is completely reasonable for a given year, not getting 1/2 the revenue of 10th place is less so.

Every movie has some people that like it, but mass appeal takes more. Shrek I is rare, but this year had 15 significant misses and no big wins.

PS: And no: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/rogue_one_a_star_wars_story...

It got 85% and 88% from fans and this is the #1 movie globally for 2016.

I think that SW7 analogy does not work here. Disney is exception to this article and their movies are profitable, big time.

Profitable yes, but the question is how many hoops you will jump through to see the SW movie next year and the year after that.

Remember, Disney put out 'Land before time 13' because they made money on the first 12 'Land before time' movies. But, 13 was never going to see a movie theater.

I plan on seeing 8 and 9 (and the intervening Han Solo movie) in the theater on opening day with my brother, like I have for the previous 2.

You keep comparing "Star Wars" to "The Land Before Time". I think you vastly underestimate the popularity of Star Wars, particularly the past 2 movies.

It was #2 for the year and wildly profitable. So, no I am not doubting there where plenty of people who loved the movie. The movie was above average and that's the problem. Hollywood depends on movies like The Sorcerer's Stone, The Fellowship of the Ring, A New Hope, Bourne Identity, even Iron Man to drive future revenue.

Movies that build off of that success make money, but they don't prime the pump.

Especially since the former is targeted at broad appeal, while the latter is more specifically a series of children's movies.

Also, "The Land Before Time" was a Universal Studios product (per Wikipedia), not a Disney product, so the starting approach is very different.

Ops yea, George Lucas put out the first 'the first land before time' movie but after that there was no real connection.

Disney has nothing to do with The Land Before Times

Ops, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg put out the first The Land Before Time movie which is why I was making the connection to Star Wars.

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