La Ron S. Readus
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Why Star Wars Movies Should Be Released in December (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2019-12-16 21:01:00 +0000 UTC
Now I know that this is an opinion piece, but I REALLY wanna emphasize that this is an opinion piece.
Now with that being said, let’s talk about Star Wars
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Readers, with the wrapping up of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, we’ve experienced a lot of things.
Colin Trevorrow was fired from Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker because he failed to check his rich white people privilege, and he was replaced with J.J. Abrams
So once it was revealed that the release date for Episode 9 would be shifted from the summer 2019 date to that of winter 2019 like it’s predecessors since the Disney acquisition of Lucasfilm because of the change, I was initially happy to hear the news.
And you probably think my reasoning why is because “I want them to take their time in making sure the movie is the best that it can be,” and you would be...PARTIALLY correct.
Because despite that being true, it’s not my main motivator for the shift in its release date. In actuality, it’s a sense of tradition.
You see, It’s very rare that I can look forward to seeing a big blockbuster movie with a December release date and it be given the same amount of funding, marketing and attention as if it were being released earlier in the year during the Spring and Summer months.
The one series that helped establish that giant film franchises have just as much prominence in the winter than the summer were the Middle-Earth movies.
/Every December from 2001 to 2003 when a film installment of Lord of the Rings would come out, my parents and I would hold off until New Year’s Eve night to go see them, establishing a three-year tradition within the Readus household that would eventually prompt me to try my hand at writing fantasy of my own./
Because of The Lord of the Rings, we made a habit of going to see a movie we thought equaled that same scale every New Years Eve night; the most memorable since the Lord of the Rings trilogy being the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s The Phantom of the Opera, Peter Jackson’s remake of the classic King Kong, and the film version of the musical Dreamgirls.
/But with the exception of Peter Jackson’s King Kong in my opinion, none of the movies we saw measured up to the grandeur that was The Lord of the Rings trilogy./
At least until the first installment of The Hobbit trilogy was released December of 2012, in which my mom and I went “Ah, shit; here we go again.”
Lots has changed in my life between the theatrical release of The Return of the King and An Unexpected Journey.
I graduated High School in 2006. I dropped out of college in 2009. My parents got divorced in 2010, and I both moved out on my own in January and lost my father to prostate cancer in June of 2012.
/So even though I didn’t have the comfort of my family to see it with, I looked forward to seeing the Hobbit trilogy of movies during the holiday season, and even felt a wave of relief when Peter Jackson made the decision to release The Battle of the Five Armies in December of 2014 as opposed to earlier in the summer as originally planned./
We’re just...not gonna talk about the fact that the trilogy as a whole was just...eh...
I make this point because if The Battle of the Five Armies was released during the SUMMER of 2014 as opposed to December like the other Middle-Earth movies were, it would’ve been up against Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Maleficent and X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Personal nostalgia and tradition aside, moving The Battle of the Five Armies to a December date was the best thing that could happen for it. And in my opinion, the same can be said of Star Wars.
/If Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released in Summer of 2015 as opposed to the Holiday Season of that year, it would’ve had to compete against Avengers: Age of Ultron, Mad Max: Fury Road, Jurassic World, Inside Out, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and Straight Outta Compton, just to name a few. Rogue One followed suit, taking home $155 million its opening weekend and 1.056 billion overall./
Solo on the other hand, not counting the firing of Phil Lord and Chris Miller along with OTHER production problems, was released in the summer of 2018, which unfortunately had just had a fuck-ton of competiton.
I’m talking Avengers: Infinity War. I’m talking Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. I’m talking Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. I’m talking Deadpool 2.
/And because of that, despite how impressive it turned out to be considerng the production and promotion scandals, Solo opened with under 84 million dollars opening weekend and an overall haul of 393 million worldwide to cover its 275 million dollar budget/
Meanwhile, the December competition only REALLY consisted of Mary Poppins Returns and Aquaman -- the latter making over a billion dollars worldwide in a December 21st release date that probably would’ve seen better box office results for Solo if it went toe-to-toe with it then or earlier in the month.
And like I said before, Readers; that’s coming from someone who was honestly pleasantly surprised at how good Solo ended up being considering everything that happened to it during production and whatnot.
I feel that if they read the room better, giving Solo a December release would’ve helped the movie a whole lot more than trying to shift back to a summer spectacle
Because not only has Disney and Lucasfilm shown that placing a cap on December releases for Star Wars can help the franchise both avoid and deter competition to maximize its box office power now that Middle-Earth no longer has a claim to the month
But trying to recapture that essence and produce it for summer, just doesn’t work. Especially when everybody and they mama ‘n them have the same idea.
Some may argue the fact that because it’s Star Wars that the movie theater seats will be filled up regardless of the season of the release, but there have been plenty of movies since the release of The Force Awakens that has proven there’s indeed something magical about December; Aquaman once again being a GREAT example
It’s something I feel that Lucasfilm -- especially with the Star Wars franchise -- shouldn’t really deter from considering how lucrative the December releases for most of the Star Wars films they made since Disney’s acquisition have proven to be
And as someone who feels that Star Wars is honestly right at home in December and wouldn’t mind that sense of nostalgic tradition again with a franchise from Lucasfilm that I love...well, to quote Saruman from The Fellowship of the Ring:
(It would be wise, my friend)
But, I digress, Readers; your homework assignment for the day. Write in the comment section below whether or not YOU think Star Wars movies should stick to December releases
Regardless of your opinions, I’d love to know your thoughts.
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But until then, this is Readus 101. Class dismissed.
