At 40: The Force is still strong
standard-bearer,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst for BoxOffice.com.
“Four decades of recordbreaking, genre-defining entertainment across film, television, video games, toys, books and everything else the brand has touched simply speaks for itself.”
With its indie flick budget of just $11 million, the brashlooking Star Wars opened on Wednesday, May 25, 1977 — the anniversary falls on Thursday — on an inauspicious 32 screens, taking in $1.6 million on its first weekend.
Starring relative newcom- ers Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford as swashbuckling Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo, it benefited from word-ofmouth buzz and the crowds lining up to see it quickly grew exponentially.
Its first theatrical run ended with a phenomenal $221.3 million while various reissues by 20th Century Fox brought the domestic total to more than twice that amount.
The premiere was at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, where it played to soldout audiences five times a day for over a year, according to resident historian Levi Tinker, who said the crowds literally wore out the hand-woven Chinese carpet in the lobby.
Two sequels — The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983) — grossed more than $450 million each worldwide, but there were sizable bumps in the road ahead.
Lucas’s 1997 “special edition” reissues were met with jeers thanks to digital tweaks deemed unnecessary or downright off-putting.
Then there was the Lucasdirected 1999-2005 prequel trilogy beginning with The Phantom Menace — films considered subpar.
The 73-year-old filmmaker — who had struck a deal with Fox to keep 40 percent of the gross from the original movie, as well as merchandising and sequels rights — was just as shrewd when he sold Lucas- Film to Disney in 2012 for a staggering $4 billion.
The Mouse House breathed new life into Star Wars with the announcement of a sequel trilogy and three stand-alone “anthology” films, and has already added $3 billion with its first two movies to bring the total box office past $7.5 billion.
Speculation is building over the future of the franchise with the approach of the final movies by 2020 but, long before then, fans have The Last Jedi — the second of the sequels — to look forward to in December.
the total box office achieved by the movie franchise in the four decades since its release