The Rise of Skywalker took 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 that Star Wars fans 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.
Before The Rise of Skywalker opened in theaters, early Star Wars 9 box office estimates saw the movie making just under The 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 a Star Wars movie since Disney took 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 with The Last Jedi and tried to flip the script, Star Wars fans revolted after criticizing J.J. Abrams for playing it too safe. Now, Abrams is back to playing it safe and fans, curiously, don’t seem to mind. Regardless, The Rise of Skywalker is 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 for The Rise of Skywalker.
As it stands now, The Rise of Skywalker will 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 the Chinese market wants nothing to do with Star Wars 9, which is completely normal for the Star Wars franchise 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. Deadline was the first to report on The Rise of Skywalker early weekend box office tracking.
