[Source: starwars.com]
All the world was a buzz when the official trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi was broadcasted and uploaded onto YouTube. As a result, many forms of social media, particularly Twitter and Instagram, exploded with reposts and retweets of the film’s preview. On that day alone, the trailer accounted for millions of cumulative posts, likes, shares, and comments within hours and averaged millions of view per hour. These staggering statistics exemplify the thrill and eagerness behind the release of the film.
Similarly to previous highly anticipated film in the Star Wars franchise, tickets were available for pre-order after the release of the trailer and despite the movie release dates being months away, an immense number of people invested their money on tickets. According to IMAX, there was over $6 million dollars in advance ticket sales in the United States and Canada. As a matter of fact, Fandango, a popular movie sales site, crashed and suffered website issues due to the overload of people who attempted to access the site for tickets. According to Fortune Magazine, the pre-order sales for Star Wars broke records.
Historically, Star Wars’ widespread popularity goes back to when the first, original movie was released in 1977. According to Forbes, “The fact that Star Wars hit such a chord precisely [was] because it was an original [that] was unlike anything that was currently available in the marketplace…It wasn’t a comic book adaptation, a film based on a popular novel, or a live-action feature film adaptation of a popular television show.” Instead, Star Wars involved a unique and original storyline involved with a futuristic society. This characteristic of Star Wars is why it appeals to people of all ages and has become an important part of modern popular culture.
[Source: starwars.com]
The storyline continues as the fans, new and old, continue to swarm the internet and theaters to see what happens next.
