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Well, the big question going into this weekend was, will all the drama about the segment of the fanbase that reacted negatively to The Last Jedi, which spilled over into mainstream media reporting, continue to drive the narrative about the movie and have a dampening effect on the box office totals?
Well, it seems like the answer is a qualified “yes.” The Last Jedi dropped $151 million from weekend to weekend, according to Scott Mendelson at Forbes.com. That’s the biggest drop ever. Both previous new Star Wars movies, The Force Awakens and Rogue One, dropped less than $100 million from their first to second weekends.
That said, there are a couple other things in play here as well. First of all, the Jumanji reboot got great reviews and is super-kid-friendly. Pitch Perfect 3 is also off to a successful start. And let’s not forget, the middle movies of Star Wars trilogies haven’t done as well as their predecessors at the box office.
But the one thing that’s not being talked about is something that we’ve talked about on the podcast before, and it’s the scarcity issue. Star Wars isn’t “scarce” any more. This is now the third movie in three years, when previously it took twice that long – not to mention having at least a decade between trilogies. Is the casual moviegoer starting to get bored with the galaxy far, far away?