Star Wars is one of the most successful franchises ever. That alone should come as no surprise. However, if you look more closely at the numbers, the first movie is particularly impressive, as no other installment can match it to this day.
Do you want to feel old? Then listen up: Next year, Star Wars will celebrate its 50th anniversary. In 1977, A New Hope was released and marked the beginning of George Lucas’s star saga, which has continued without him since the purchase by Disney in 2012.
While the mouse company has significantly increased the pace of releases with movies and series, the commercial era under Lucas was more successful. A New Hope made so much money that the film holds an impressive record within the franchise. Even though George Lucas himself initially believed it would be a flop.
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What is the record? The website Finance Buzz took a closer look at the numbers. These figures only refer to the USA, but are unlikely to change much globally.
Not taking inflation into account, Episode 4 grossed around 460 million US dollars. Inflation-adjusted, that amounts to a whopping 2 billion US dollars in revenue by 2026 and over 1.9 billion in profit. With an inflation-adjusted budget of around 80 million, that results in an increase of 2,400 %.
Included in this calculation are also re-releases. According to the report by Finance Buzz, A New Hope was in theaters three times in the USA.
For comparison: the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, only achieved an increase of 1,008 % (4 re-releases). The budget of 92 million US dollars stands against revenues of “only” 1 billion.
These numbers decline the closer we get to the present. The last film of the Skywalker saga, The Rise of Skywalker, only reached an increase of 87 %. Solo even made a loss of nearly 80 million US dollars.
Interestingly, Episode 4 can also shine in another category: On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a critic score of 93 %, which only The Force Awakens and The Empire Strikes Back can match.
The record of A New Hope being broken in the future is unlikely to happen within Star Wars. Given rising production budgets and overall costs, it will be challenging to replicate such high profits. No film since the Disney acquisition cost less than 165 million US dollars, compared to the initial 80 million, that is a significant jump.
The record of A New Hope reinforces the film’s status as an absolute classic and shows that it is an indispensable part of film history. Which episode do you think deserves the number 1 spot? Feel free to let us know in the comments. In our MeinMMO ranking, we judged quality: All 15 Star Wars movies ranked
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