The Force Awakens Made $1,656,502,564 Less Than A New Hope
Hollywood loves to pretend their movies break new ground for box office every year. This is an illusion.
“No, no, no,” says studio executive who doesn’t personally like science fiction and sees it as nothing more than a way to make money without paying for a good script, “TFA made more than ANH, just look at the figures:
- A New Hope Worldwide Box Office: $786,598,007
- The Force Awakens Worldwide Box Office: $2,058,662,225
$786,598,007<$2,058,662,225 TFA wins.”
But what if we were to compare The Force Awakens to A New Hope, only this time we adjusted the numbers for inflation?
All the figures can be found on the website The Numbers.
Let’s run this in 1977 money.
First, TFA.
Worldwide BO=$510,834,299
Budget=$75,930,521
Profit=$434,903,777
Second, ANH
Worldwide BO=$786,598,007
Budget=$11 Million
Profit=$775,598,007.
$775,598,007 > $434,903,777. ANH wins.
$76 Million TFA made less money than its $11 Million sibling.
The difference in terms of box office is 36%. Meanwhile, the hype machine built for TFA was an inescapable $350 Million behemoth, more than the entire production budget for the film, and it had all the prior films, toys, books, video games, clothes, etc. working to market it effectively on top of that budget. Disney literally spent more money convincing people to go see a Star Wars film than actually making the film, all this after decades of brand awareness and audiences demonstrating that they really wanted to see these films.
Let’s try this again, in 2015 money.
If we were to adjust the $16.5 Million promotion budget for ANH for 2015’s money it would still only cap out at $66,495,000.
Bear in mind that budget included paying for film prints, which could cost upwards of $30K per copy. That means Lucasfilm was paying around $30K for every copy in every theater it was shown in, and less of the first film’s marketing budget was spent on actual marketing.
If you add the inflation adjusted marketing budgets for each movie to its total budget, in 2015’s money, here are the budget and box office breakdowns for each film:
A New Hope:
Budget=$110,825,179
Box Office=$3,169,989,968
Profit=$3,059,164,789
The Force Awakens:
Budget=$656,000,000
Box Office=$2,058,662,225
Profit=$1,402,662,225
There’s just no comparison. Did TFA have better special effects? You bet it did! Did that make it a better movie, or make it more money than its ancestor? Hell no!
Do you in your heart of hearts think TFA would have done as well as it did had the other Star Wars films never been made? Probably not.
