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.”
Yeah I saw a video about the same theater having the exact same 94 seats presold for every screening the first 8 days. Definitely suspicious.
amen. yawn from here as well.
My husband has the same opinion. He was actually angry at how the original characters were treated in these films. So, I will never know how the trilogy ended; and, I'm not unhappy about that.
They didn't have much choice about killing Leia off. It was time for Harrison Ford to give up the spotlight and dying probably gave him a better moment than stick around longer would. And really, when was Mark Hamill anything much more than a weakling and failure. I don't love the new characters, but there was only so far they could go with the old ones.
One of the endings rumored to have been done but rejected for now.... was to blow up the Millennium Falcon and the two robots. I bet that will happen in some future film.
IMAX theater was basically empty in SM Cebu. And the movie was on a 3-day limited run only (20 to 22) as Christmas week, only the Metro Manila Film Festival plays nation-wide. No interest in the movie, I guess.
If I had known it would have turned out like this, I would have rooted for The Empire.
Sw9 goals:
- kill off all old characters so disney doesnt have to pay Lucas a percentage of the next films
- give a final middle finger to the old fan base
- entrench mary sue scripts as the new way these movies resolve
- put in unnecessary lesbian kiss that neither side was happy about
cant work out that way,
in sw8 luke had no idea han was dead, jedi don’t lie like that and he had no reason to.
Revenue from related merchandise has been declining. The trend is not their friend.
Disney killed the Star Wars franchise with SJW P.C. nonsense....
The last good Star Wars film was the Empire Strikes back. The original first 2 are the best. The Return of the Jedi would have been good had there not been Ewoks (Teddy Bears). That was simply a bridge too far and not believable.
Considering all the preposterous creatures in Star Wars (Jabba anyone?) Hatred of the Ewoks is odd to say the least.
People love to bash Return of the Jedi and Phantom Menace. I believe both were record setting successful. I can tell you PM was my daughter’s first SW film and her eyes were glued to the screen.
Yeah the Ewoks were teddy bears. They were great. Jabba was a slug and he was great too.
The reason would have been to protect Han from Kylo while Han was recovering.
Look at how awful their scripts/storylines have been.
Its far more likely a plot hole excused away after the fact. Plus it is incredibly lame it is almost better for their reputations to ve a plot hole rather than a deliberate decision.
Let me know when it comes to a real TV station. I don't consider "Pay Mickey Mouse and Friends more money" to be real TV.
You must love watching non-stop stupid commercials and fixed broadcast times.
I watched RISE OF SKYWALKER also...
I thought the movie was OK.
It was nice to see Billy Dee Williams again. By the way, he is 82 years old...
I might want to watch RISE OF SKYWALKER again on DVD.
About two women kissing...I don’t really remember the scene. It is a long movie after all...
I have seen all the Star Wars films in theater ever since Disney bought the rights...FORCE AWAKENS is probably the best Star Wars film made under Disney ownership.
You mean like with Amazon Prime or Netflix?
I actually don’t watch ANY OF broadcast tv, cable tv, or subscribed services. But I’m guessing Amazon Prime and Netflix have fewer entirely irrelevant and annoying commercials? No? How could they not have fewer than 55% of the entire time like the others can? The times I’ve seen relatives watching these there seemed to be few or no commercials during the shows.
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