Quote:
Originally Posted by BigRedChief
if you are going to release a “Star Wars” story every year, you have to expect at least some diminishing returns with each movie.
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I'm not so sure about that. I think it depends on the quality of the film itself, not so much about the release dates.
If TLJ wasn't so divisive and actually answered questions posed in
The Force Awakens, or at least was a
fun movie, return business would have huge. Instead, Rian Johnson's "Apology Tour" continues to this day, meeting with any and every media outlet, whether print or internet show, trying to defend decisions he made in the film. It's so bad at this point that Lucasfilm has hired the original
Rogue One scribe, Gary Whitta, to write a 6 issues comic in order to fill in the blanks and give a much deeper backstory to TLJ.
If a director needs to defend his film nearly 2 months after its release, and the parent company of said film needed to hire an experienced, successful screenwriter to fill in the blanks and hopefully make said film better, we're talking about a bad film, period.
As I've said since last summer, many Lucasfilm staffers were thrilled when JJ Abrams was hired to co-write and direct Episode IX because, in their words, he would "right the ship". Larry Kasdan, screenwriter of
The Empire Strikes Back,
Return of the Jedi and
Solo, also expressed his grievances with TLJ, called it an "Odd, weird movie" months before its release. People that had seen the film knew it was going to be divisive, yet they released it, anyway.
The bottom line, despite the 1.35 billion in revenues, is that TLJ failed to deliver across the board. If Lucasfilm can avoid that in the future, they'll be just fine.
If they can't, well, I'd assume that there will be changes made sooner rather than later.