Disney/Lucasfilm’s Track Record
The blame typically falls on the lack of nostalgia, or the lack of audience interest in general, in favor of more home-grown myths, but the fact is the weekend box office returns on, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, continued the long, slow descent into ignominy that the tentpole franchise has experienced since it’s launch in China.
From the trades:
The Disney/Lucasfilm mega-tentpole, directed by J.J. Abrams, was knocked out cold by Donnie Yen’s martial arts epic Ip Man 4: The Finale, which brought in a healthy $46.7 million, according to box office tracker Artisan Gateway. It also was beaten by a holdover Chinese thriller, Sheep Without a Shepherd, which debuted back Dec. 13 but added $23 million in its second weekend.
Not including its lavish preview screenings Wednesday and Thursday of last week, Rise of Skywalker earned just $8.9 million from Friday to Sunday, which was less than yet another Chinese release. Feng Xiaogang’s romantic drama Only Cloud Knows grossed $9.4 million from Friday to Sunday, or $10.8 million including Thursday previews. Including its more aggressive preview rollout, Skywalker scores third for the weekend, but discounting sneaks it slips to fourth.
There are reasons for this slide. But they are ones that the arrogant and greedy people who run Hollywood in general, and who run Disney in particular, will, of course, fail to give their due.
Before we get into that though, here are the final box office numbers for the Star Wars franchise films post-Disney:
- The Force Awakens $124 million,
- Rogue One $69 million,
- The Last Jedi $42.5 million,
- Solo: A Star Wars Story $16.4 million.
Some Mythologies Don’t Translate
Here’s a big reason for lack of resonance with a Chinese media audience that no one wants to actually say out loud: the Chinese government is unrepentingly Communist in its orientation and focus, and, despite what Hollywood and politicians in the West might believe, that is deeply ingrained into the culture.
From the trades:
…a large part of Star Wars‘ struggles in China stem from the fact that the original three films never received a wide release in the country (When Star Wars: A New Hope came out in 1977, China was deeply impoverished and only beginning to recover from the ravages of the Cultural Revolution).
And, when the communists—or countries and governments in Asia in general—haven’t been able to crack the space barrier like the Americans and the Soviets did before them until recently, there is no imaginative power to space, space opera, or even space stories.
From the trades:
“The space opera is a very unfamiliar genre for [the Chinese] or the Koreans, and this reflects in how franchises that are most faithful to this genre, like Star Wars and Star Trek, have not done well here…”
And, when the previous films have to be accessed in order to have feelings and emotional connection to what’s happening in the current films—or emotional disconnection—that’s something that Chinese audiences lack.
From the trades:
…the new Star Wars films lean especially heavily on references and nostalgia for the originals…
What Are We To Make of All of This?
The abandonment of reverence for the original story, combined with the hollowing out of nostalgia, combined with a lack of understanding of the history, culture, and politics that drive the Chinese media market, has caused Disney/Lucasfilm to consistently do poorly with their media product in a diverse Chinese market with a lot of options for Chinese audiences.
From the NBA to Hollywood, the West is going to have to make some decisions about media products that have long-term cultural underpinnings and cannot be translated easily into a non-Western context.
Otherwise, in the pursuit of revenues, there will be more and more failures in markets where the sale of an idea is perceived as “easy.”
