Posted on 12/22/2019 8:46:49 AM PST by EdnaMode
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s opening weekend will land south of both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, according to domestic box office estimates Disney sent out this morning.
The Rise of Skywalker’s first weekend pulled in $175.5 million in North America, $90 million of that from the Thursday night early-bird showings and then Friday’s full premiere. Though it’s an estimated total, $175 million is still short of the top 10 among domestic opening weekends all time, behind 2016’s Captain America: Civil War.
It’s also not in the same tax bracket as Skywalker’s trilogy predecessors — The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi both took more than $200 million in their debut weekends, good for third and fourth in that (domestic) category, all time. At this point, the opening weekend top 10 is largely an intramural competition, with Disney films accounting for 13 of the top 14, and six of those in the last two years.
But $175.5 million still makes The Rise of Skywalker the third-highest grossing Star Wars movie after its first weekend in the United States, comfortably in front of Revenge of the Sith, which earned $108.4 million from its 2005 debut.
Internationally, The Rise of Skywalker added $198 million to its gross (for $373.5 million worldwide), helped by $26.8 million and $12.1 million from same-day premieres in the United Kingdom and China, respectively. By comparison, The Force Awakens scored almost $500 million ($494 million to be precise) in its first weekend worldwide, while The Last Jedi took in $437.5 million. Notably, China waited about a month after both movies’ launch date before they premiered in that country.
Disney started out the weekend by tamping down industry-watchers’ expectations, offering a $160 million estimate for The Rise of Skywalker’s domestic box office even as other third parties projected $200 million or more.
The comparatively depressed box office haul could reflect any number of audience trends, ranging from fatigue with the 42-year-old franchise; last year’s underwhelming Solo: A Star Wars Story ($148 million opening weekend worldwide, $84.4 million U.S.) ; a critically tepid, if not thumbs-down, response to director J.J. Abrams’ vision for the franchise; or the querulous chatter of a divided fan base on social media.
Rotten Tomatoes currently gives The Rise of Skywalker a 54% rating among critics (meaning percent of positive reviews), which is low enough to get the green splat icon. Moviegoers, however, give it an 86% (meaning ticket buyers who gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars, or more). Metacritic’s aggregation of 59 scored reviews also lands The Rise of Skywalker at a 54; Metacritic readers rate it a 50, evenly dividing more than 1,000 user reviews between positive and negative.
“There’s certainly a palpable sense throughout The Rise of Skywalker that the creators are trying to revisit and pay off every satisfying battle and memorable moment from Skywalker Saga history all at once,” says our spoiler-free review. However, “the film feels clumsy, hurried, and above all, like an admission of creative defeat.”
The critic's reactions are just...precious. ‘Abrams repudiated the brave choices...’ - umm, shouldn't you be angry at the director who outright ignored the plot sketch? You know, a big part of the 4 billion Disney paid for Lucasfilm and the rights to Star Wars?
So you get stuck with 2 movies worth of plotline jammed into one. And that sucks. But yep, once he'd completed the task that Rian Johnson should have done, the movie hits its stride and many great callbacks happen (including the medal which is long overdue.)
All in all, it's worth seeing at least once on the big screen. I didn't feel ripped off buying tickets (though $25 for popcorn and soda, bah, don't get me started on that...)
Since the cannibal chipmunks really.
I’m guessing Rian Johnson will never get to helm a Disney made movie again after the way he single handedly demolished their $4B franchise for the sake of his own vanity. They’ll scapegoat him because they’ve gone on record supporting the head of Lucasfilms (who decided Star Wars was her own personal platform to sweep away the patriarchy) way too many times to give her any blame.
The problem with these new movies is that, even before you get to the merits of the story, is that they are TOO LONG!
Two and a half hours is simply too much to sit thru without an intermission. At the last Star Wars movie I found myself asking silently “Is it over yet?”.
Snore
That was the weakest hiding a spoiler ever! I think.
Jon Favreau is in charge instead of some lib chick.
That’s why it’s good.
The moment I realized that they did not have the original cast on screen at any point was when I said “F this”.
Incompetent idiots.
Saturday 11am show in Philadelphia was mostly empty. I do not believe the stories of doing at all well.
What!? Hey, I tried, I tried!
I didn’t just toss it right out there, but I did think that it is a scene worth mentioning.
Some friends told me similar. CP3O had some stand-out moments, and the humor was pretty good.
Otherwise meh, but passable.
Pervert cuck sjw garbage.
What SHOULD have happened is when Han Solo was stabbed by his son and falling to his “death” they should now reveal Luke could not let his old friend die and flew below to save him - Just as Han saved him in Empire Strikes Back.
But I’ve been able to see “better” stories ever since the first 3, which in my mind proves the weakness of all the rest. Though I came to accept Phantom Menace.
Keep in mind that the mediocre box office figure is inflated, by Disney buying hundred of tickets to its own movie. They were caught doing this with Captain Marvel also.
That could’ve worked, and would also fit right in with what occurred in Rise, wherein several times a major character appeared to expire, and then literally two scenes later, PSYYYYCHE, anh they were fine all along.
They want the emotional pay off, but not the consequence of it.
Character death fakes are a pretty common device, but they were way overused in Rise IMO. 3 times I can think of.
I went too and didn’t like it. The story is messy and characters are primitive. A lot of people left the theater after about a half into the movie. Worst of SW easily.
I swallowed hard there, but when the two Jedi snuck aboard separate ships and somehow found each other later and then realized that they had to take submarines through the planet core to get.... done and done forever.
BoxOfficeMojo shows a bad trend on their weekend estimates. Saturday gross is about half the Friday gross. Saturday SHOULD be higher. This indicates that word-of-mouth is not good.
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl3305145857/?ref_=bo_da_table_1
Dec 20, 2019 Friday $90,000,000
Dec 21, 2019 Saturday $47,500,000
Dec 22, 2019 Sunday $38,000,000
The only Star Wars I have ever seen was the Original one in the 70’s.
The Force Awakens was pretty good. Better than I expected. The Last Jedi was mediocre but my expectations weren’t that high. Way too much hype.
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