Nolte: Advance Ticket Sales Not ‘Overly Robust’ for ‘Rise of Skywalker’

Advance ticket sales for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker are “not overly robust,” reports the far-left Deadline.

As of now, the concluding chapter of the nine chapter Star Wars saga launched by George Lucas all the way back in 1977, is projected to open between $175 million and $205 million, depending on which source you look at.

Regardless, it was not supposed to be like this.

Let’s start with the math.

Two years ago, The Last Jedi opened to $220 million,.

Four years ago, The Force Awakens opened to $245 million.

Now, you might look at those numbers and say, Hey, even $175 million is a boffo opening and pretty close to the others.

Fair enough. There is not a person working in Hollywood who would not sell their own children to white slavers in exchange for a $175 million opening weekend. All true, and we cannot forget that.

But…

Let’s also not forget that The Rise of Skywalker is this franchise’s Avengers: Endgame…  What I mean is that it is the conclusion of a nine-chapter franchise, the end of a saga that is not only 42-years-old, but a saga older than most of its fans.

Endgame opened to $357 million.

Avengers: Infinity War, the opening chapter of Endgame, opened to $258 million.

The very idea that advance tickets are “not overly robust” for what should be the event movie of all event movies, especially in the 2010s, an era where audiences are primed for this kind of thing, does not mean Skywalker will be anything other than a big hit, but if this projection holds, we are looking at something unprecedented in the world of Star Wars.

In 1983, Return of the Jedi opened to $23 million, compared to $5 million for 1980’s Empire Strikes Back. Jedi would go on to gross $309 million domestic, compared to Empire’s $290 million. This all makes perfect sense in a world where a franchise does not disappoint, does not alienate its fans, does not stomp all over its own goodwill.

You want a real shocker…?

The George Lucas prequels also performed better. I don’t mean dollar-for-dollar better, but each one of the widely derided prequels opened better than the last.

Phantom Menace opened to $65 million, Attack of the Clones opened to $80 million, Revenge of the Sith opened to $113 million.

But here we are, not only with the close of another Star Wars trilogy, but the end of the entire saga…  and advance sales are “not overly robust.”

And we all know why…

Kathleen Kennedy, an obnoxious, man-hating feminist, has been put in charge of Star Wars, and she abused her power to bury this franchise with her strident, alienating,  and off-putting woke politics. The future is female. Men suck. Take that! Screw you!

She killed off our favorite characters and replaced them with Rey and Rose, two of the Mary Sooyiest Mary Sues in the history of storytelling; two unappealing, uncharismatic, bossypants… and because the future is female, these movies don’t even give us a romance to enjoy, which is plain nuts in an adventure film.

Oh, wait, there was a romance between a pansexual (I don’t know what that is and I don’t want to know) Lando Calrissian and a feminist robot in the box office bomb Solo,  and there is the platonic homosexual romance between the two male stars of Skywalker, Poe and Finn.

And now Star Wars is dead as a film franchise.

Skywalker will make a ton of money, no question… But it will likely make as much as any other blockbuster and nowhere near as much as the end of a saga could or would. This sucker is not gunna Endgame, it won’t even Infinity War.

As of right now, Star Wars has nothing in the film hopper, when it had the potential to be another Marvel Universe, the potential to sustain an endless franchise that would release two blockbusters a year, which was the plan, despite the lies being told now.

On TV — LOL TV — as far as the fan base is concerned, Star Wars is doing much better with The Mandolorian, and that’s due to the fact an adult is in charge. Jon Favreau oversees it, and he just wants to tell a good story. He’s not interested in prostituting a beloved franchise to push whatever obnoxious and divisive ideas he might have about human sexuality, about how awful men are.

Star Wars is dead as a film franchise. Wow.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.