Name: スターウォーズが中国で失敗した理由 (Why Star Wars Failed In China)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T10:59:44.000Z
Duration: 11 min 49 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

Even if you've never seen a "Star Wars" film, you know the phrase

George Lucas's space opera is a cornerstone of the modern film

industry and a cultural phenomenon around the globe.

Struggle, if you would pardon my stealing of film line

In the U.S., the ten films in the "Star Wars" franchise have grossed more than $4.5

billion since the first film was released in 1977.

Outside the U.S., it's garnered more than 4.6 billion.

But there's one place that "Star Wars" hasn't quite had the same success, China.

The original "Star Wars" trilogy wasn't shown in China.

So while a lot of people around the world were having their formative

cinematic experience within that "Star Wars" universe.

"Star Wars" was an instant sensation with American audiences.

It changed not only how people viewed movies, but how they were made.

The commercial success of "Star Wars" created a boom in state of the art

special effects in the late 1970s, and along with the movie, "Jaws,"

started the tradition of summer blockbuster films.

It also created the model for production companies to create trilogies

and multi-film series and show that merchandising rights were just as

On playgrounds, children pretended to use the force, honed their light

saber skills with broom handles and sticks and recreated Luke

Skywalker's is Death Star run in makeshift cardboard box x-wings.

That first installment known at the time has just "Star Wars" hauled

in $322 million, a massive score for 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm.

This made it far and away, the highest grossing film in 1977,

outpacing "Smokey and the Bandit "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

"Star Wars" was nominated for ten Academy Awards and took home six

1977 when the first "Star Wars" was released, China was still at the

So they were watching model operas and propagandistic films about

And so it was a very, very different universe.

If you want to talk about a galaxy far, far away.

China's strict ban on Western cultural influences made it so the only

film shown in the country where government produced.

At least if we go back to 1977, there was no context for science fiction.

And of course, American films were not distributed in China during that time.

So there was just no way for it to get a foothold.

Outside of China, "Star Wars" flourished.

Its success allowed Lucas to continue the story of idealistic farm boy

Luke Skywalker, scoundrel Han Solo and rebel leader Leah Organa.

"Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" arrived in theaters in 1980

The second installment earned $222 million domestically.

Once again, the runaway success of the Empire Strikes Back allowed Lucas to produce a third film.

"Star Wars: Return of the Jedi" hit theaters in 1983 and hauled in a whopping $263 million in the U.S.

When the original star was released in 1977, it was a kind of an

anomaly. Nobody had ever seen a film like that. It was kind of inventing this whole new universe.

More than two decades passed before Lucas returned to the Skywalker saga.

In the decades between "Return of the Jedi" and Lucas's new trilogy,

China had relaxed its ban on Western films and launched a quota

system in 1994 to allow a certain number of foreign films to get a wide release in the country.

At first, only 10 films were allowed per year.

However, over the last two decades, that has expanded to more than 30

films per year, with the provision that at least 14 of those films must either be 3-D or IMAX compatible.

There was this incredible appetite in China for consuming American

products, Hollywood products, Coca-Cola, music, Michael Jackson.

The first American film released theatrically in China was 1994's "The Fugitive", starring Harrison Ford.

Five years later, "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" became the

first "Star Wars" film to get a theatrical release in China.

In the U.S., crowds of moviegoers flocked to theaters.

The children that had grown up on "Star Wars" eagerly awaited Lucas's new films, bringing their own children in tow.

The original kenner toy's they had once coveted had long been handed down to the next generation.

While fans in North America shelled out $431 million for the first prequel film,

without a connection to the original "Star Wars" saga, ticket sales in China were extremely anemic.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., the films hauled in more than $1.1 billion.

The "Star Wars" prequels also likely suffered because of China's massive bootleg market.

You also have the incredibly robust bootleg market. And so bootleg DVD in the 1990s,

that's where a lot of people are watching their Hollywood films.

Censorship laws in the country drove up the demand for film

contraband, leading to a rampant industry of pirated films and television shows.

As China has loosened its grip on what media is allowed into the

country and strengthened its crackdown on piracy, its film industry has flourished.

Having seen the disconnect between Chinese audiences and the "Star Wars" brand.

Disney decided to take a different tactic when it bought Lucasfilm for

The company planned to pick up where Lucas left off and bring

the final three films in the Skywalker saga to the big screen.

Three years later in 2015, "Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens" arrived to theaters.

"The Force Awakens" earned $122.8 million dollars in China, thanks in part to Disney's expert marketing

tactics and a shift in Chinese movie-going culture.

Still, it's box office haul wasn't as high as some analysts had hoped.

When you compare that to a film like "Furious 7" or some of the, you

know, the "Transformers" films, that's a very small number.

And I think there was this anticipation that China would add so much

money to the bottom line that it could have propelled "The Force Awakens" to be the biggest worldwide reforming film of all time.

That didn't happen because China just didn't generate the kind of box

office that a lot of people might have thought, not knowing the history of the "Star Wars" films in that country.

"Furious 7" made $390 million in China, a whopping 25% of its total box office haul.

"Transformers: Age of Extinction" took in $320 million from China, 28% of its global gross.

For comparison, "The Force Awakens" made less than 6% of its total global ticket sales from China.

Globally, the film made more than $2.06 billion.

Had "The Force Awakens" fared better in China, it could have surpassed "Titanic" to become the second highest

grossing film of all-time and made a run for the top spot currently held by "Avatar."

While "The Force Awakens" doesn't have the same ticket sales comparisons as other Hollywood flicks in China,

it still had the best performance of any "Star Wars" film previously.

This was due in part to Disney's massive marketing campaign in China

ahead of the release of the seventh film the "Star Wars saga," which

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スターウォーズが中国で失敗した理由 (Why Star Wars Failed In China)

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