Coming into opening weekend, Disney’sStar Wars: The Last Jediwas expected to put up thebiggest opening weekend of the year, and it did just that, exceeding expectations along the way. Box office analysts had put theStar Wars: The Last Jediopening weekend at just north of $200 million, but the estimates today reveal that it earned an impressive $220 million, more than enough to become the biggest opening weekend of the year, besting the $174.7 million debut put up by another Disney movie,Beauty and the Beast. Still, it fell just short of the domestic opening weekend set byStar Wars: The Force Awakensin 2015.
The $220 million opening weekend is still much higher than projections, with manybox office analystspredicting a $200 million domestic debut, and $425 million worldwide. The movie ended up exceeding both those projections, with $220 million domestic and an additional $230 million in foreign markets for a worldwide total of $450 million, the fifth highest global opening weekend in history. One of the main reasons that tally isn’t higher is because one of the only global markets it didn’t open in this weekend was in China, the second largest box office market in the world behind the U.S., where it will debut on January 5. Regardless, its debut is still most impressive.
While the movie was certainly beloved by critics, with a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score, the movie was much more divisive among fans than most expected. Despite the acclaim from critics, the movie posted a rather dismalRotten Tomatoes audience scoreof 54%, which was even lower thanJustice Leauge. Still, that didn’t stop the audience from coming out in droves, even though it was wildly expected to come in far lower than the $247.9 million opening weekend record thatStar Wars: The Force Awakensput up. Regardless, the fact that it came in $20 million over its projections is a feat and a win in and of itself.
The top 10 is rounded out by theanimated comedy Ferdinand($13.3 million),Coco($10 million),Wonder($5.4 million),Justice League($4.1 million),Daddy’s Home 2($3.8 million)Thor: Ragnarok($2.9 million),The Disaster Artist($2.6 million),Murder on the Orient Express($2.4 million) andLady Bird($2.1 million). Also arriving in limited release this weekend is A24’sThe Ballad of Lefty Brown, which earned just $6,115 from two theaters for a paltry $3,058 per-screen average, and GKids’Birdboy: The Forgotten Children, which took in $5,684 from four theaters for a dismal $1,421 per-screen average. No data was released for Magnolia’sPermanent, Vertical Entertainment’sBeyond Skylineand Well Go USA’sThe Thousand Faces Of Dunjia.
Next weekend will be the final major weekend of the year, with Sony’sJumanji: Welcome to the Jungleand 20th Century Fox’sThe Greatest Showman on Earthopening on Wednesday, December 20, Paramount’sDownsizing, Warner Bros.‘Father Figuresand Universal’sPitch Perfect 3arriving on Friday, December 22 and Sony’sAll the Money in the World, which replaced Christopher Plummer for Kevin Spacey at the last minute, the only wide release arriving on Christmas Day. Be sure to check back on Tuesday for the finalbox office predictionsof the year. Until then, take a look at the top 10 estimates, courtesy ofBox Office Mojo.
