'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Has Disney Executives Worried The Film Won't Live Up To Its Own Hype

Disney is betting big on “Star Wars” after spending $4 billion on the Lucasfilm creation in 2012. Despite the latest film being expected to make a lot of money at the box office when it debuts in December, the Mouse House is hoping to lower people’s expectations for how much money “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” will make.

Following “Star Wars: Episode VII,” Disney has plans to make a new movie in the franchise each year. There will be a new trilogy of movies as well as the standalone “Anthology” movies beginning with “Star Wars: Rogue One.” However, it all has to start with the successful launch of the J.J. Abrams-directed movie “The Force Awakens.” Luckily, with such a recognizable franchise, no one is too worried about the movie being a flop.

CNBC cites senior media analyst at Rentrak, Paul Dergarabedian, who claims that “The Force Awakens” will definitely break box-office records, thanks to its prime placement in the calendar year.

“I think, most certainly, it’s going to break the all-time December opening weekend record,” he said. “We’ve never had a movie in North America open with over $100 million in December and this will happen with the next ‘Star Wars.’”

However, despite expectations, it seems now that Disney is worried that it’s setting itself up to be too big of a giant and won’t be able to meet its own hype. To help with that perception, Disney Chairman and CEO, Robert Iger, is clearly hoping to lower expectations.

“As enthusiastic as we are for what we know of the film, we have not seen a ‘Star Wars’ film — an original one — since 2005,” he said at the company’s quarterly earnings call (via Entertainment Weekly). “And there are markets around the world that are less familiar with 'Star Wars' than, say, the United States, for instance.”

In order to meet the public's expectations of the film being one of the highest grossing movies of all time, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” would have to beat the current frontrunner, 2009’s “Avatar,” which earned more than $2.78 billion worldwide. Meanwhile, “Titanic” and “Jurassic World” sit in second and third place, with $2.18 billion and $1.56 billion, respectively.

Watch the trailer for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" below:

Do you think “Star Wars” still has the juice to shatter expectations and box office records? Comment below or tweet your thoughts to @TylerMcCarthy.

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