While heartbroken nerds continue to fill inches on message boards about how “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” ruined their childhood, many take for granted that George Lucas‘ saga was always here. While the franchise is an integral part of the pop culture fabric in the Western world, it’s worth noting that in China, the official premiere of “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope” only happened in 2015, and only as part of the promotional push for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Though the entire original trilogy has circulated on bootlegs, it’s a safe bet that knowing the difference between a Jedi and a Wookie isn’t firsthand knowledge among moviegoers in the country.
Try as they might, Disney has not been able to turn China’s moviegoers to the light. “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” opens in the country today, and it’s off to a chilly start, with Variety reporting a $7 million launch, and a second place finish, behind the rom-com hit “The Ex-File: The Return of the Exes” which is enjoying another week on top of the box office. It’s part of a downward trend for the series as a whole. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” pulled $124 million in China, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” — even with Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen in key roles — could only manage $69.5 million, and it looks like ‘The Last Jedi’ will wind up with less than that.
For a long time now, Hollywood has been looking to China to be their box office salvation, but it seems that brief love affair is over, or at least, doesn’t have any guarantees. Even Disney’s attempt at making a movie strictly for the Chinese market, last month’s “The Dreaming Man” (yeah, me neither), bombed pretty hard.
There are likely many factors at play here, but among them, China has a robust industry of their own, and audiences seem to be drawn to their own movies, rather than Hollywood vehicles (though, again, there are exceptions, like Vin Diesel, who is a megastar in the country). On the flipside, Chinese movies, don’t generally travel well to other parts of the world either. Even this year’s huge hit, “Wolf Warrior 2” ($854 million in China alone), probably won’t make much, if any, rumblings stateside.
In short, Hollywood can no longer expect China to prop up movies that do disastrously at home (like “Warcraft“) or extend a brand that is saturated elsewhere (“Star Wars”). But, such a lucrative market can’t be ignored, and no doubt they’ll keep trying.