The Rise of Skywalkertook in over $90 million on Friday alone, making it the sixth best opening day of all time. However, the threequel is now on track to have the third highest grossing December opening weekend in box office history. This is quite the feat considering thatStar Warsfans are divided on their feelings for the movie. Thursday night previews even brought in an impressive $40 million. Many are excited that J.J. Abrams used as much fan service as humanly possible to put an end to the Skywalker Saga and others aren’t into it at all.
BeforeThe Rise of Skywalkeropened in theaters,early Star Wars 9 box office estimatessaw the movie making just underThe Last Jedi’s $220 million debut. However, once the negative early reviews started to pour in, those estimations dropped just a bit. Earlier this week, the estimates fell down to the $160 million to $190 million range. Now, it appears that the sequel will slightly exceed that goal with about $193+ million. This is obviously nothing to be upset about, since many franchises would kill for that kind of domestic opening.
Additionally, this will be the third best opening for aStar Warsmovie sinceDisneytook over Lucasfilm in 2012. When it comes down to it, most sequels tend to fall off at the box office when compared to the first installment, but this franchise is a bit different than others since hardcore fans tend to treat it like a religion. The sequel trilogy, as a whole, has been criticized since the start, with many feeling that everything has been a rehash to cash in on nostalgia.
When Rian Johnson took some chances withThe Last Jediand tried to flip the script,Star Warsfans revolted aftercriticizing J.J. Abramsfor playing it too safe. Now, Abrams is back to playing it safe and fans, curiously, don’t seem to mind. Regardless,The Rise of Skywalkeris not going to beat the numbers of the previous movie, though it could in the long game if the sequel is able to keep up over the next few weeks. Had Johnson’s installment left off on a cliffhanger, like Marvel Studios recently did, there might have been a bigger turnout forThe Rise of Skywalker.
As it stands now,The Rise of Skywalkerwill obviously take the number one spot at the box office this weekend and will more than likely do so next weekend too. As far as the global numbers, we’ll have a better idea about that tomorrow morning, though we already know that theChinese market wants nothing to do with Star Wars 9, which is completely normal for theStar Warsfranchise in that region. So, the sequel will make a little less than originally estimated, but it’s still breaking new ground at the box office for the franchise and the month of December.Deadlinewas the first to report onThe Rise of Skywalkerearly weekend box office tracking.
