Star Wars 8 trailer yields disappointing results compared to The Force Awakens

Following the release of the trailer for ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ during the Star Wars Celebration earlier this month, could it be that fans are suffering battle fatigue?

Analysis of the number of views the trailer has had so far show that it is significantly down from its predecessor ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’.

The debut teaser for ‘The Force Awakens’ pulled in 55 million views in its first 24 hours online, while the first proper trailer scored 122 million views in the same time frame back in 2105.

But thus far, views for the ‘The Last Jedi’ are trailing significantly – since its debut on April 14, it’s received just over 31 million YouTube views in total.

For perspective, the recent release of the trailer for the remake of Stephen King’s ‘It’ saw an astonishing 197 million views in just 24 hours.

Prior to that, the record holder was ‘The Fate of the Furious’ with 139 million, and ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ at 136 million, all in the first 24 hours.

There are other factors to put in play, of course, with Facebook plays – as seen here – of ‘The Last Jedi’s trailer throwing another potential 29 million views on the running tally, but it would appear that numbers are significantly down for that first 24 hours, a benchmark that, for better or worse, the mega-movies are now being measured by.

Box office analyst Paul Ferrer noted the apparent disparity of interest in the trailer too.

A Wiki page listing the most-viewed trailers in a 24 hour period puts ‘The Last Jedi’ way down in 15th place with 43 million views in the first 24 hours, compared to the 112 million views in the first 24 hours for the main trailer for ‘The Force Awakens’.

Though it’s a complex area to measure, even with some room for manoeuvre with the figures, the first trailer for ‘The Last Jedi’ can’t have been considered a triumph for Disney.

That it was released on Good Friday may have had an impact, and that the action only really began in its last third – it also had a sturdy 23,322 thumbs down votes on YouTube at the time of publishing.

Perhaps fans simply weren’t that into it.

That’s not to say they won’t love Rian Johnson’s movie, of course.

We’ll see for ourselves on December 15.

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