Star Wars the Force Awakens Disney Plus

Talk about a gamble that's poised to pay off. Disney buys Lucasfilm for $4 billion in 2012. The studio looks to recharge the Star Warsfilm franchise, which hasn't seen a sequel in 10 years, coupled with the challenge that the last trilogy left a bitter taste in fans' mouths. But here Disney stands with the all-time domestic opening record forStar Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakensat $238M, and the current 2nd best global launch at $517M behind Jurassic World.

And out of all the release dates on the calendar, the studio chooses the weekend before Christmas, a time usually challenged by weather, holiday activities and travel. Distribution executives expressed their concern earlier this year: Why re-launch a franchise that was born in the summer, in the winter? There's only a finite amount of time to make a lot of money when kids are off school. In fact, Disney already knew about the difficulties of the pre-Christmas frame: In 2010, at the same point in time, they tried to re-launch their dormant 1980sTron property and fell short with a $44M opening after a year's worth of promotions and a $170M production cost.

Disney originally staked out a May 2015 date forForce Awakens but two years ago when it looked like Abrams and Lucasfilm required more time, they moved the film to this weekend. "We needed more time to get the film in perfect form. It had to set the stage for the other titles," one Disney insider told Deadline.

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"We saw the opportunity to create an event since people are off from work and school, along with the fact that there was an absence of tentpole competition," said Disney distribution chief David Hollis on why this weekend was the right one to launch a newStar Wars trilogy.

With 96% of all moviegoers saying that Force Awakenseither met or exceeded their expectations, coupled with 88% saying that they'll pass good word of mouth along to at least five people per Rentrak PostTrak, Episode VIIis expected to make at least $500M before Dec. 31. And financial analysts believe Disney got away with a cheap acquisition price for Lucasfilm, with the next trilogy and spinoff films sets to rake in $25B in revenues.

In the days ahead, the momentum forForce Awakenswill be fueled by a combination of repeat moviegoers and newcomers (or latecomers). Many predict the film will beatJurassic World's 17-day pace to $500M, and the 36 days the Uni title took to hit $600M.

"We have this big pre-holiday burst despite the distraction level from shopping and travel and this will transition in the next couple of weeks where moviegoing is the primary activity that most people will be doing," adds Hollis who also praised the exhibition community this morning for responding to audience demands by adding more showtimes. As a four quad film, Force Awakensplayed everywhere from the big cities to small towns, although non-Disney box office analysts noticed the J.J. Abrams title over-indexing in the west given the abundance of tech and fanboy audiences. The next two weeks are like several Fridays in a row. And although most kids will go back to school after January 3, there's still a good sum on recess through the Martin Luther King Day Jr. holiday frame which most distributors count as the end of the holiday season. At this point in time, Deadline projects that Force Awakenscan have a run at No. 1 all the way until either Jan. 15 whenRide Along 2opens or Jan. 29 whenKung-Fu Panda 3debuts.

When discussing the success ofForce Awakens,Hollis called out to the Disney marketing team led by president Ricky Strauss and EVP Asad Ayaz who ran point on the two-year-plus campaign. They are the unsung heroes behind Force Awakens.When it came to re-energizing the Star Warsfan base, the point can be argued that Disney provided a bigger promo push for Force Awakens than 20th Century Fox did with any one of the prequels from 1999-2005. Aside from any presentations for the film at Disney's D23 conventions, the studio stoked fans with a Star Wars Celebration on April 16, trotting out Abrams and the cast along with a teaser for next December's spinoff film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Another is planned for this year, as well as a European convention in London. Fan excitement was seen at the San Diego Comic-Con when the masses followed Abrams and the cast after aForce Awakenspanel to a special outdoor San Diego symphony orchestra performance of the Star Warsmusic.

Friday, September 4 was designated a Star Warstoy day, aka 'Force Friday,' when all the merchandise for Force Awakensdropped. This was preceded by a toy unboxing day broadcast on YouTube across several global time zones. Force Friday was the catalyst for driving Star Warsmerchandise to $3B this year, per analysts' estimates, with another $5B projected for 2016.

Global promo partners  for Force Awakens include FCA USA auto group (Jeep Cherokee, Dodge), Duracell, HP computers, Subway, General Mills and Verizon. Castmembers canvassed late night with visits toJimmy Kimmel LiveandConan,but taking turns onThe Tonight Show. ABC'sGood Morning Americahosted a week ofStar Warsinterviews followed by coverage onLive! With Kelly and Michael. iSpotTV estimates that Disney spent $26.3M across 2K-plus TV spots on 46 networks. Co-branded commercials from 19 brands generated $68.1M in TV ad value, with iSpotTV also reporting that the estimated media ad value for Force Awakens stands at $93.6M.

Some media reports have mentioned that the total global P&A on Force Awakensis less than $100M, but that figure is highly suspect for a tentpole that cost an estimated $200M, especially when you take into account the PR stunts mentioned above. Couple that with the fact that Disney threw the biggest movie premiere in Hollywood history, closing down two blocks, taking over three theaters (the El Capitan, TCL Chinese and the Dolby) with 3,500 guests being served food by chef Wolfgang Puck. In addition, Disney sent the cast to the European premiere in London, Harrison Ford to a special Sydney event, and Oscar Isaac and Lupita Nyong'o to a Mexican fan screening.

Another feat Disney can relish is the fact that they successfully rebooted the series with a female lead — the character Rey played by British newcomer Daisy Ridley — likely expanding the female fanbase, particularly for future installments. After Friday saw 63% guys turning up, the next two days had more women attending, repping 42% of the audience. Disney believes the percentage will even out over the film's run, especially since women gaveForce Awakensan A+. Historically, women haven't been a huge part of the original trilogy's audience, nor were they a dominant share of the prequels. Disney licensees were expanded to target young women with cosmetics ("The Dark Side" mascara by Covergirl), jewelry (a Stormtrooper necklace at Kay Jewelers) and a clothing line at Forever 21.

So with a domestic opening of this size, has Disney set the bar so high that no other title will ever surpass it?

"No," answers one rival distribution chief. "At $238M,Force Awakensis only 14% higher than the opening weekend ofJurassic World.Records are meant to be broken. I mean, the fact that the all-time record opening record was broken twice in the same year, it's like, wow. That's pretty cool."

Star Wars the Force Awakens Disney Plus

Source: https://deadline.com/2015/12/star-wars-the-force-awakens-disney-box-office-success-feat-1201670169/

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