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.”
Yep - milked the franchise so hard and long the cow’s teats are terminally chapped.
My husband thinks it stupid that they had all this amazing technology that allowed for travel to distant planets, but they all used weapons that couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, especially the bad guys. It’s a good thing bad guys are such poor marksmen or Hollywood would never be able to make an action film of any kind.
Also the ridiculous mandelorian with his non removable helmet. What’s he got a ultrasonic toothbrush in there? What if his nose itches! LOL
I checked and every Star Wars picture has grossed less than the preceding one.
And why wear all the ridiculous heavy white storm trooper crap when a simple blaster goes right through it?
Great points! The whole Star Wars thing is really only for kids who won’t delve deeply into the nuts and bolts of the plot and the technology.
After “The Rise of the Jedi” and “Solo” I am sure a lot of fans wrote it off....
I saw it, it was better than the last one... but that was a low bar to beat... all in all MEH... they did mostly avoid the SJW crap of the last movie, thought they just couldn’t help themselves and stuck a lesbo kiss front and center for no other reason to do so in the closing scenes...
Even the second half of “Return of the Jedi” was to sell toys and pjs (Ewoks).
When George Lucas was running it, Star Wars was always aimed at kids. The problem for the fan is we expected it to grow up with us. I think that is why Lucas sold to Disney, as it was their tradition to make kid-friendly movies. Ironically, they decided that being SJWs was more important than being kid-friendly, and inserted non-kid-friendly concepts into the SW storyline.
"Moichandising! Moichandising! Where the real money from the movie is made!"
815.6 million worldwide so far. Not every movie has to break records to be successful
Disney will earn a profit, but it will barely earn more than a billion, after Force Awakens earned over $2 billion and Avengers Endgame earned nearly $2.8 billion.
I’ll likely watch it when it comes out on streaming. Hope the Obiwan series is good.
That, and also the Trump "Resistance" movement.
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