Though Star Wars: The Last Jedi sparked a run of bitter and bad behavior from some longtime fans of George Lucas’ iconic film series, director Rian Johnson’s 2017 entry in Disney’s Sequel Trilogy has been doing well for itself on home video.
According to weekly refined numbers from entertainment industry website The Numbers, The Last Jedi is currently beating Marvel’s Black Panther in the Blu-ray release market in the United States. Whereas Panther has seen more than 2.5 million copies scooped up by those wanting to re-experience director Ryan Coogler’s maiden exploration of Wakanda, American audiences seem to be wanting more of the Skywalker saga, as Johnson’s film tops the chart with more than 3 million units sold across the country, leaving one to wonder, how could a movie with such a divisive reception beat a more positively reviewed piece from critics and fans on the sales charts?
After all, if those who disliked Star Wars: The Last Jedi are as massive a group as they claim, shouldn’t the figures for the film be lower? Well, we went looking for answers, and though representatives from The Numbers’ owner Nash Information Services LLC and prominent Last Jedi criticism campaign @RMTheLastJedi could not be reached for comment in advance of publication, critic and Singapore-based Save The Last Jedi from Poor Storytelling Facebook page administrator Christopher Minjoot believes the discrepancy between the divisive reception and sales of the film is a result of community sizes.
“I think it boils down to the size of the fanbase,” the 51-year-old said. “But you should never look at sales figures as an arbiter of good taste.”
Star Wars: Episode IX is currently in production with an expected release date of Dec 19th, 2019, while Black Panther 2 is not yet confirmed but is likely to be announced this month. Whether these films repeat the infantile reactions pre and post release that their predecessors received remains to be seen, but it’ll certainly be interesting to watch how things unfold for each franchise.