The Wall Street Journal Says Star Wars: The Last Jedi May Have Underperformed

When Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out in 2015, it rejuvenated everyone's interest in the Star Wars brand again. The Force Awakens grossed over $2 billion at the Box Office and merchandise sales were very good for Disney.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story came out in 2016 and did well for itself even though it was only a spinoff.

The film grossed over $1 billion at the Box Office and merchandise sales were down compared to The Force Awakens, but not too big of a drop.

The Wall Street Journal has analyzed the performance of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and its report might not be encouraging for Disney going forward in the future.

The Last Jedi was never expected to exceed the hype as The Force Awakens, but the drop-off was bigger than expected.

Even though The Last Jedi grossed $1.3 billion worldwide and is the highest grossing movie of 2017, it is lower than the estimated $1.6 billion it was expected to get.

This is mainly because the movie pretty much underwhelmed in China only making $42 million over in that country, plus the fans were divided over the film's quality too.

A downward trend of a property is never good because direct sequels are affected. We've seen this before due to the current DCEU from Warner Bros.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad made a lot of money, but many people did not like the films.

This is one of the reasons why Justice League grossed so low as people's faith in the DCEU brand diminished even though Wonder Woman was a success.

It's not just the Box Office numbers that should concern Disney. Sales for Star Wars Battlefront 2 is lower than the first Battlefront game that came out in 2015.

That said, Battlefront 2 was not entirely Disney's fault. This is because EA released the game with a controversial pay-to-win system so gamers boycotted its release.

Battlefront 2 is still expected to sell around 10 to 12 million copies worldwide. The first one managed to sell 14 million copies even though that game had less content, no single player campaign and paid DLC.

Lastly, it's being reported that toy sales for Star Wars merchandise in 2017 was the lowest it has ever been since 2015.

In other words, Rogue One toy sales were better than The Last Jedi despite the fact the former is just a spinoff movie.

Personally, I liked The Last Jedi although I do understand people's explanations of its flaws.

I'm hoping Solo: A Star Wars Story can still be a crowd pleaser mainly because Marvel is able to dish out lots of movies per year and still hasn't lost any momentum.

Wanna read more on this? Check these out: George Lucas Had Much Different Plans For Luke Skywalker In Star Wars: Episode IX (more); Star Wars: The Last Jedi Sweeps At The 2018 Empire Awards (more); Mark Hamill Really Wants To Reprise His Role As Luke Skywalker In Star Wars: Episode IX (more); Will Movie Merchandise Suffer When Toys 'R' Us Closes Down? (more).

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