Dr.Jonesy said:
I have no sympathy for him. He's thrown fans under the bus for valid critiques.
On top of that, he's stated that many times that he always wants to make divisive films. That's some stunningly ridiculous hipster crap.
So he both screwed the pooch on purpose to be divisive and he's suddenly tired of ducking the crap that's flown his way?
Sorry, Rian. You did this to yourself.
Let me put it this way. As someone who's written and made some short films myself, I can speak from experience when I say that I myself can get upset when others critique my movies, no matter how valid they are. I guess when you work on something like that for a while, it almost becomes your baby, in a strange sense, and you become very defensive of it.
As for his statement on divisive films, I think what he was trying to say was that he wanted to make people "think" when watching his movies, whether in the positive or the negative. Of course, you and I both know that doesn't exactly work out for
Star Wars, for the simple reason that they're ultra-high concept films that deal with a mostly black and white morality and established ideas of good vs. evil. So when he tried to make his film so "deep", it actually became quite shallow (another reason why I didn't like TLJ).
JasonMa said:
Though on average Star Wars movies are not as successful the further into Disney's ownership we go. Is that because of burn out, poor movies, poor timing, other reasons? That's the great debate. We'll have to see how IX does at the box office to see if the pattern continues.
I'd chalk it up to franchise fatigue and poor timing at this point, as well as a lack of interest. A lot of audiences simply aren't interested in watching spinoff movies, and as a result they can become almost niche films, especially when placed right after movies like
Infinity War. It's not that the spinoffs are bad, they're just very forgettable, and as a result not many people want to see them.
Rogue One's success, in all honesty, was a bit of a fluke.
As for IX, I think it'll make at least 900 million-1 billion at the box office in total, but will probably see a sharp decline from the previous two. The reason why TFA made so much was because it was a major event which starred major players in Hollywood (Harrison, for example), as well as the lack of any live-action SW movies for the past ten years. IX doesn't have that buildup, and neither did TLJ, so consequentially it could make less money as a result.