Well, we can’t say this comes as too big a surprise given its poor opening weekend in China and then the sharp decline in ticket sales it experienced the following week, but The Last Jedi has been pulled from all of the movie theaters in that part of the world.
“The Last Jedi has already been completely pulled from cinemas here,” Jimmy Wu, chairman of nationwide Chinese cinema chain Lumiere Pavilions, told The Hollywood Reporter by phone from Yancheng, a mid-sized city representative of the sorts of towns where the bulk of China’s box-office growth is now generated. “It’s performed much worse than we could have expected.”
The Disney and Lucasfilm tentpole — North America’s biggest movie of 2017, with a domestic total of $591 million and counting and a massive worldwide total of $1.27 billion — may now finish in China with less than $50 million, which would place it way down the list at around 50th place in last year’s rankings, behind disappointments like Valerian ($62 million) and Geostorm ($65.6 million).
What can be attributed to the extremely bad reception of Episode VIII in this region? The Star Wars franchise has never had a positive experience in China dating all the way back to the theatrical release of the Original Trilogy.
As many have pointed out, 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).
“Because of the complex characters and themes, the prequels, and all of the multi-generational layers that are part of the culture, or cult, of Star Wars, it’s been hard for young Chinese filmgoers to get into the franchise,” says [Beijing-based market research firm Fanink co-founder James] Li.
It will be interesting to see how these box office numbers influence Disney’s decision to release Solo, Episode IX, and other future Star Wars films in this region moving forward.
