In 2012, The Walt Disney Company bought the as-of-then independent production company Lucasfilm, founded by George Lucas in 1971, for $4 billion, acquiring the rights to such lucrative franchises as Indiana Jones and Star Wars.
As the chart based on figures from Box Office Mojo shows, the last five franchise entries on the big screen alone have been well worth this asking price.
With production costs between $200 and $317 million and global box office revenues ranging from $392 million to $2.1 billion, every Star Wars movie released since 2015 has been more or less a success.
The odd one out in this five-movie line-up is Solo: A Star Wars Story, which only made around $120 million when subtracting the cost of production. Since Box Office Mojo doesn’t state what’s included in production costs, Solo might have not made any profit at all if marketing and other costs were not included.
Films making a profit despite nine-figure production costs were Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and all entries in the third trilogy of the franchise.
The best-performing out of the three was The Force Awakens, released in 2015. The movie introduced the new protagonists Rey, Finn and Poe Dameron, played by Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac, respectively.
It signaled a quasi soft reboot for the long-running movie series, with each of the three movies mirroring certain aspects of the original trilogy. The second installment, The Last Jedi, was surrounded by severe criticism from fans, partially due to the treatment of the original trilogy’s hero Luke Skywalker, which might have resulted in a worse performance at the global box office.
Florian Zandt writes for Statista
