The Force Awakens Production In Review! Writer’s Roundtable Volume 2 (Part 3 of 3)
Summer usually flies by in the blink of an eye of its own volition. This year the dog days of summer were propelled by the frenetic excitement surrounding The Force Awakens production, which hopped from the arid desert of Abu Dhabi, to the moody, gloomy Forest of Dean, the brisk coastal isle of Skellig Michael, and of course the rolling leas of Greenham Common. In the first two installments of this “Writer’s Roundtable” we recounted the second leg of the filming journey. In this third and final part we discuss the Official start of The Force Awakens marketing machine.
Production officially wrapped on November 6th, 2014 and almost immediately our various websites sensed tremors in the Force that a teaser trailer was imminent . . .
Describe your excitement about the rumors of a SW teaser trailer?
Pomojema: Initially, I heard the whole “wake up” description make the rounds through the internet, and while I was a bit underwhelmed at the premise it suggested (showing a bunch of faces and throwing in a shot of the Millennium Falcon to keep people interested), I was really looking forward to it due to being able to see footage of the movie for the first time.
DEKKA129: Right on cue, here came my inner ten year-old, reeking of peanut butter and Fruity Pebbles and bouncing off the walls like a superball. Any time there has been a new Star Wars movie on the horizon (even when I was feeling rather burned by Episodes I and II) I’ve felt the same excitement I always felt as a child when anyone so much as mentioned “Star Wars.” This time was no different.
Jason Ward: For me it was like getting the jitters. But then I would push it down and say “No, it’s too early still . . .” But then as stuff started coming in over and over again, it became a little more obvious it was actually probably happening.
The persistent rumors soon proved to be true, first as Regal Entertainment Group let the proverbial “cat out of the bag” by announcing their exclusive participation in showing the teaser trailer in their theaters . . .
. . . and second when JJ Abrams, via Bad Robot Productions, Tweeted out the Official confirmation of the rumor:
THANKSGIVING pic.twitter.com/46811BgWiF
— Bad Robot (@bad_robot) November 24, 2014
The Official Star Wars site backed-up JJ’s boast:
ICYMI: The Force is with you on #BlackFriday when #TheForceAwakens teaser hits @iTunesTrailers. Head to http://t.co/TduDyXnepo
— Star Wars (@starwars) November 27, 2014
How excited were you?
Pomojema: When I actually knew there was going to be one, this long before the release of the movie? You could say I was pretty freaking stoked. More on that below.
DEKKA129: Oh, about thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much. (THAT much, with the tail!)
Jason: I couldn’t sleep the entire night. I kept waking up to check the clock to make sure I was awake when it hit.
Echo-07: LOL I can understand that. In my case, since my “day job” is actually third shift I kept checking to see if it dropped and it hadn’t. So when I got home I kept refreshing iTunes until it appeared. I must have been in on the first wave that crashed the site because I only got to see it twice initially — ECSTATIC out of my gourd, though, after seeing it!
Then came “Black Friday” of November 28th when the world received the first new filmed Star Wars footage from the most anticipated movie in the history of forever! Rabid — and there’s no better way to describe us these days — fans converged on poor, unsuspecting Apple iTunes to watch the 88 seconds of pure gold only to crash the site.
“Then Disney appeared to blink Wednesday, announcing that the trailer would be available on iTunes as well. That led to a bit of a hiccup Friday morning as a stream of fans eager to see the clip appeared to crash iTunes’ site.”
What did you do on “Black Friday?” How did you view it? How many times?
Pomojema: I stayed up until two at night to see if there was a midnight release. There wasn’t one. I set my alarm to fifteen minutes before the projected release. Twenty minutes later, the thing hit YouTube. I watched it a dozen times.
DEKKA129: Well, first I went “WOW!!!!” and then I was all, “WOOOOOAH!!” and then I was like, “Huh?!” and then I wee’d ’em just a bit and went “YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” 😀 Watched it at least half a dozen times in a row on my laptop when it first went online, and then quite a few more over the next couple days.
Jason: My wife worked that morning. So we watched it online a bunch of times. Shortly after that it was on AppleTV so we watched it on our 55 inch television about every 20 minutes that first day. After she got off work we went and saw it at the theater in San Francisco.
Viral Hide: Well, I was dealing with the site’s issues. Because of the huge traffic the site crashed just before the trailer hit the web. I was furious.
Echo-07: And I thought people were so excited to discuss the trailer they also crashed our site . . . LOL
What was your reaction to the teaser trailer?
Pomojema: It took me a couple of times to really get the full effect, but upon watching it and re-watching it, I came to the conclusion that this is the definitive future of Star Wars.
DEKKA129: Overall I really liked it. Considering that there was actually only about half a minute of new footage, I thought it was a fantastic way to give us a first glance at the film.
Jason: I was shocked by the intensity John Boyega brought to the shot! BB-8 made me ecstatic. BB-8 is a character I’ve been following since the droid was a shoe box with legs. So to follow the evolution behind the scenes to what we saw on screen was mind blowingly cool. Kylo Ren kind of made me pause though. The saber is fine. I was just more interested in the way he moved. It wasn’t like the throw back pulpy villains Star Wars has used before. It felt more like something from Harry Potter. I still don’t know what to make of that. But the X-wings and the Falcon delighted me and it was just like “cool.” I love The Phantom Menace, but when I saw the trailer with the bad Yoda puppet, I was not pleased with the teaser and I was the only one that wasn’t sold at the theater that day. I didn’t have anything like that with this teaser.
Viral Hide: A big smile on my face. I really enjoyed it. A new Star Wars movie is coming!!!
Echo-07: I was really blown away! There’s no better way to describe it.
In a week’s time The Force Awakens trailer reaches 100 million views worldwide!
Thank you #StarWars fans for 100 million global views of our #TheForceAwakens teaser! #ImpressiveMostImpressivepic.twitter.com/es8VAnCIp1
— Star Wars (@starwars) December 6, 2014
How many times have you seen it since?
Pomojema: Probably a dozen more – one of which was in a theater, too. It looks great in 3-D.
DEKKA129: Bunches, man. BUNNNNNNNNNNNN-ches!!
Jason: I can’t count that high!
Viral Hide: Maybe around 20-30 times.
Echo-07: I’ve lost count by now . . . LOL, no doubt we helped greatly with the 100 million views!
This is obviously a conservative estimation since it cannot possibly account for people watching the trailer multiple times, on multiple platforms, with multiple devices and in groups. Needless to say it’s one of the most viewed vids ever to hit the internets and is sure to break all kinds of records, with “The Hollywood Reporter” saying:
It is tracking to become the most-viewed preview of the Internet Age
Anyway, a little over a year from the BIG, like G I N O R M O U S, premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the knobs on the hype-machine are already cranked to eleven because as that dude from Spinal Tap said, “These go to eleven.” George Regan of the Regan Communications marketing firm clearly concurs:
“From now on, young people will be glued to their iPhones and computers to see what happens next.”
What is your favorite part? Any disappointments?
Pomojema: The X-wings over the lake was easily the best part of the trailer. Stunning cinematography. Aside from the numerous “blank spots” in the trailer, I think they got everything right.
DEKKA129: I thought the new actors looked great in character, and I was psyched to see the new X-wings, the old Falcon, and Daisy’s (sorry… Rey’s) big ol’ vending-machine scooter. And I must say, though, when I saw the leaked concept art I had initially been less than crazy about the new little cross-bar light-nubs on the bad guy’s lightsaber, I thought it looked great onscreen, particularly the feral vibe he gives off as he ignites it.
On the downside, I’m not at all crazy about there being a new character who’s basically a giggling little soccer ball (as though kids need a stuffed animal shoved in their face in order to dig Star Wars!) and the shot of the Falcon left me a bit concerned that J.J. is going to fall into the modern-day trap of letting “ex-TREEEEEEEEME!!!” camera moves upstage the action onscreen. But those are comparatively minor quibbles. Again, overall I really dug the teaser.
Jason: BB-8. Hands down is the best part. Not getting a clear sense of the bad guy was probably my biggest disappointment.
Viral Hide: Oscar Isaac and the X-Wings sequence. No disappointments at all.
Echo-07: The X-Wing clip was very popular around the web from what I’ve seen and read. There’s a poll about this question in The Cantina’s TFA forum. I couldn’t answer it because I loved everything about the trailer — just left with awe and wonder. No disappointment in any way.
What do you think about the “Sithcalibur” controversy?
Pomojema: There was a controversy over that? I couldn’t hear it over the controversy of a black person playing a Stormtrooper, in spite of the fact that nothing in the canon suggests the Stormtroopers were Clone Troopers, OR that it was explicitly shown in Rebels that Stormtroopers are recruits.
DEKKA129: I understand it to a point, because as I said, when I first saw the concept art I didn’t really like it either. I just think that the film (at least the brief shot we saw) sells the design very well, and I’ve really come around on it. However, I admit I’m puzzled that the new saber generated anywhere near the massive amount of fan outrage that it seems to have done.
Jason: I think it was kind of dumb. Laser swords aren’t real or even practical for that matter. To get hung up on crossbeams which can have a fictional function seems silly to me. You’re taking a lot of stuff for granted at this point if the crossbeams bother you.
Viral Hide: When I first saw the art with it, I didn’t like it. But now I think it’s not that bad. With the right backstory it could be great.
Echo-07: LOL Yeah, Stephen Colbert ended the “controversy” once and for all in my mind.
On December 11th, Disney/LFL revealed several of the new character names via vintage-style digital “trading cards.” The names included Rey, Poe Dameron, BB-8, and Kylo Ren.
What do we think of the names that were released?
Pomojema: I think they’re all pretty good. The only curiosity that I think is that they seem to have named Oscar Isaac’s character (Poe Dameron) after the guy that Nicolas Cage played in Con Air (Cameron Poe). Which reminds me – Disney, is it too much to ask to get a cameo from Cage in a Star Wars movie?
Echo-07: I think the names are pretty fitting for the universe and mixed with a lot of powerful symbolism and, of course, we haven’t heard them all.
Of course they won’t be glued just to iPhones, they will be glued to Blogs like ours, or addicted to our Cantina forum, or refreshing MakingStarWars.net every half-hour. There’s little doubt that starved Star Wars fans will eagerly be counting down the days until Episode VII is finally told. They will be watching Star Wars: Rebels on Disney and then DVD. And with this year-long countdown we’re sure to see groups of people start forming lines months in advance. After all, nothing says Star Wars hysteria like the massive seas of humanity that crowded movie theaters back in 1977 — Disney IS trying to duplicate that kind of success, yeah? So, 2015 sees another Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim that will, in actuality, be a year-long celebration shared the world over in what may someday be looked upon as the greatest era in Star Wars history!
What do you think about all this hype already?
Pomojema: It is real. I don’t think it’s going to reach levels akin to the response that came before The Phantom Menace hit theaters, but I do think the amount of interest in the movie is going to make The Force Awakens more profitable than the last trilogy-starter.
DEKKA129: It’s Star Wars, man! There’s always going to be a ton of hype around any new SW movie, ad the first one to be done by somebody other than George Lucas? With Disney’s fortunes riding on it, no less? It’d be unnatural if it weren’t hyped beyond belief. And yet, that’s the funny thing about all this. If there were ever a movie franchise that needed absolutely ZERO hype in order to attract an audience, it’s Star Wars.
Finally, I made a bold prediction back in May that Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be the first $3 Billion dollar movie, a prediction that I not only stand by but fully expect. I’m not alone as Entertainment Weekly and Germain Lussier, of Slash Film, have jumped on my bandwagon:
Was just flipping through the new @EW. They predict @StarWars #TheForceAwakens will open to $225 million and end up at $3 billion overall.
— Germain Lussier (@GermainLussier) December 19, 2014
How’s that for hype?!
I wrote an article in which I detailed why I think TFA will break $3 billion in box office and I stand by that guesstimation. IS there any way in the world that TFA does NOT break box office records and make cinematic history?
Pomojema: I think that that’s more likely to go on that path given that the only blockbuster-level competition it has in December is Mission Impossible 5 (which comes out the following week) – Kung-Fu Panda 3 might have given it a bit of trouble, but Dreamworks delayed that movie from December to its original release date.
It also has the domestic advantage of coming around before the “box-office dead zone” of January and February – the only movies I see directly competing with those two films in those months are The Fifth Wave (January 29), Deadpool (February 12), Gods Of Egypt (February 12) and the remake of Ben-Hur (February 26), which gives both Mission Impossible 5 and Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens the added advantage of not having any other competition until a month after they release. The absence of immediate competition is what netted Guardians Of The Galaxy and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles so much money in 2014, and it’s part of why Avatar was such a huge hit back in 2009; I think something similar is bound to happen here.
Plus, the international market has expanded greatly since the release of Revenge Of The Sith, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the international numbers for this movie would double or even triple its predecessors. I think we’re sitting on a golden egg worth $2,000,000,000 at the least in box office tickets alone; it breaking the $3,000,000,000 mark (or at least eclipsing Avatar) depends on people going to see repeat viewings of the movie.
DEKKA129: Sure. It could turn out to be a load of rubbish. It’ll still make barge-loads of money even if it blows, of course, but it wouldn’t tend to get the kind of repeat audience that it will need to break records and rake in billions. But yeah, I think it’s probably going to do pretty well.
Jason: Are we talking inflation adjusted? It will take years to catch up to the true domestic box office of Gone with the Wind, Star Wars, and E.T. I don’t see why it can’t beat a subpar, but sensational film like Avatar. I certainly hope it does well. But I also remember before The Phantom Menace when the geeks tried to pit it against Titanic, another Cameron film, and they were off by about $200 million and it had nothing to do with the quality of the film. I think the film will outsell the prequels simply because Lucasfilm under George Lucas would actually limit the amount of theaters that could show his films. Those days are over and just the fact the film will likely open in a considerably large amount of theaters almost guarantees it beats The Phantom Menace no matter what. I think it could do it and 3 billion is possible. I know about 1 billion alone will come from my repeat viewings.
Viral Hide: The movie will be successful, no one has any doubts about it. I think this movie will reach the $2 billion mark,.
Echo-07: LOL And another 1 billion from my repeat viewings. I plan on going to the midnight madness premiere and then see it again in it’s first, Official showing of the day (like I did with all three PT films.) Then I will probably see it several more times, also catching it on an IMAX screen at least once.
With those final thoughts, this wraps another edition of the StarWars7News Writer’s Roundtable. I like to give a big thanks to my fellow writers — Pomojema, DEKKA129, and Viral Hide of course — as well as the moderators — Voxx, DarthDwight, and TIDMADT — for their time and participation. I’d also like to offer an extra special “THANK YOU!” to our extra special Blogger, Jason Ward, of MakingStarWars, for agreeing to join our brand of Star Wars insanity. Also, be sure to check out the FULL Writer’s Roundtable Q & A, along with answers from our writers and moderators, in The Cantina forum.
Would anyone like to carbon freeze me, use me as their coffee table, and thaw me out in December?
No!
Plot twist: You fuck up and go so far into the future Star Wars no longer exists.
You’ve woken up in… The Twilight Zone.
Now THAT my friend is a great idea! Aaaaaah empire my favorite SW movie. BTW I’ll need to be thawed out in time enough to get a couple shots (of liquor), to calmm my nerves!
Han was blind for a while after being thawed out so you epileptic be able to see the film anyway!
BETTER make it november, so you don´t suffer from hibernation sickness & the movie is just a dark & light blurr in the cinema 😉
My predictions for the box office success:
1. If it turns out to be a poor film (which I do not think it will be) a 1 billion USD tally is all but guaranteed anyway.
2. If it is a solid effort (definitely better than the prequels) than it has a good chance to surpass 2 billion USD.
3. If it is a sensational film (e.g. on par with the New Hope or the Empire Strikes Back) than it may reach 3 billion worldwide.
Three billion is not even possible. They will not even make two. Phantom Menace 15 years and inflation I know, but it didn’t make One in that year, as for ticket sales only.
Avatar barely made 2 billion.
EP 7 in ticket sales in the winter of 2015 will not make 2 billon dollars.
Phantom Menace made nearly 1 billion worldwide way back in 1999.
Now considering the “artistic” quality of The Phantom Menace, the lack of Luke, Han and Leia in that film, as well as inflation and more cinemas worldwide today, the Force Awakens is virtually a lock to gain much more than 1 billion USD.
3 billion is too far of a stretch
Where is Writer’s Roundtable Volume 1?
Possible spoiler
I am surprised that no one has posted about Mark Stanley being listed on IMBD as in Star Wars 7 listed as a clan member??
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