How ‘Star Wars’ Will Blow Up The Record Books With A $615M+ Global Opening

Deadline Hollywood ^ | August 26, 2015 | Anthony D'Alessandro and Nancy Tartaglione

[C19fan]

When Disney revives the long slumbering Star Wars franchise on December 18, The Force Awakens will take the global tentpole opening to a history-making high. How high? Many are already predicting a record $615M worldwide opening, and they have plenty of reason to be confident in that number. The first Star Wars in 1977 gave birth to the blockbuster era of filmmaking — and grosses.

[C19fan]

I hope this movies does not suck like the prequels.

[SharpRightTurn]

“I hope this movies does not suck like the prequels.”

Agreed. Terrible acting; almost unwatchable.

[GeorgiaDawg32]

I thought the remake of star trek was pretty good.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Agreed. Those prequels were AWFUL!

[NorthMountain]

I won't be there.

Sorry.

I enjoyed that little movie called "Star Wars" back in '78.

Since then ... the suckage has become intolerable.

[Sgt_Schultze]

This film will be available online the day before it opens in theaters.

[major_gaff]

The first Star Wars in 1977 gave birth to the blockbuster era of film making I believe 'Jaws' is considered the first blockbuster in 1975

[knittnmom]

Likewise. Prequels were a huge disappointment - I only watched 2 of the 3.

[InvisibleChurch]

star wars stole anakin skywalkers demise from police squad

[NorthMountain]

I only watched the first one. When I heard that the second one would NOT feature Jar-Jar Binks being ejected from an airlock into deep space ...

I completely lost interest.

[Junk Silver]

It’s striking to me how reporting on grosses and potential grosses of “blockbuster movies” never takes into account the quality of the film. If Abrams can pull off a movie half as good as “The Empire Strikes Back” or even his first Star Trek re-boot then there will be lots of box office cash.

On the other hand if this is another piece of crap like “The Phantom Menace”...

[Old Sarge]

Lucas said point-blank that Episode 3 was a statement against the evil-stupid-genius George W BOOOOOOSH.

[chud]

I am actually looking forward to these new Star Wars films.
I'm glad Lucas sold it to Disney, they did a good job on John Carter (even though it didn't do well at the box office), and I think Disney will put good writers on these films, so we should see some better dialogue.
Lucas was great at the "grand vision" sort of thing, but was not at writing dialogue (and yeah, Jar Jar Binks was a disaster).

[4yearlurker]

I remember "The Godfather" was held over 18th week......22nd week....25th week....

[The_Reader_David]

Yes, the original was great fun, but The Empire Strikes Back was the best of the lot, and for a good reason that the new revival shares: Lucas didn't direct it.

The prequels' intolerable suckage is all Lucas's fault, not as some claim the fault of the actors -- Natalie Portman can act under a good director, witness The Black Swan. Even the fellow who played the adolescent Anakin managed almost by accident to get credible emotion through Lucas's Jedi-courtly dialogue at a couple of places. With a good director, even with that script, he might have been pushed to do it throughout. And then there was the monumental mistake of having only two worthwhile story arcs (the rise of the Empire and the fall of Anakin Skywalker) spread over three very long movies without any one of the movies telling its own compelling story -- again Lucas's fault -- the implausible plot devices includes for the sake of video game tie-ins -- again Lucas's fault, as was the rightly much-mocked Jar Jar Binks -- yes intended as comic relief, but we didn't need comic relief since the dramatic tension was spread so thin over the three movies as to be barely noticeable.

Except for the mythos and the character concept for the returning characters, which you liked back in '78, and the name of the Disney subsidiary producing it, there's no Lucas in the forthcoming movie, so on the basis of the trailer, I'm looking forward to it.

[headstamp 2]

“Wait’ll we get them silly bastards down in that rock pile. There’ll be some fun. They’ll wish their fathers had never met their mothers when they start takin’ their bottoms out and slammin’ into them rocks, boy. “

I remember that summer of ‘75 well. I was 13. It was a far bigger spectacle than Star Wars ever was. Star Wars was big but that summer of Jaws was one wild ride. Many more people could relate to it.

[IYAS9YAS]

Agreed. Terrible acting; almost unwatchable.

All right, but apart from the terrible acting, Jar Jar Binks, sophomoric angst, form over function, crappy dialogue, poor CGI, Jar Jar Binks, pointless characters, and Jar Jar Binks, what was so bad about the prequels?

[Sans-Culotte]

I hope this movies does not suck like the prequels.

I remember going the first week to see The Phantom Menace. What a POS. I thought all the prequels sucked. And if you watch them in order starting with the prequels, they're full of spoilers for the three films of the original trilogy.

[kevkrom]

Yes, the original was great fun, but The Empire Strikes Back was the best of the lot, and for a good reason that the new revival shares: Lucas didn't direct it.

Nor did he do the sceenwriting.

If you rank the six movies from best to worst, one inevitable trend is that the more Lucas was involved in the directing and screenplay, the worse the film was. He designed an engaging universe, but frankly needed other people with more skill to present it properly.

I look at what Disney has done with Marvel, and I'm very hopeful that the new Star Wars movies will be enjoyable to watch, and re-watched.

[mountn man]

Jar Jar Binks!