The Rise of Skywalker brought in an estimated $373.5 million around the world, higher than Disney’s conservative estimate of $165 million, lower than many expectations but still strong enough to post the 17th biggest opening ever worldwide behind The Force Awakens in 4th place with $528,966,675 and The Last Jedi in 8th position with $450,821,889. Rolled out in 98% of its marketplaces around the world, internationally the film brought in $198 million, with $26.8 million in the UK, Germany ($21.8m), France ($15.2m), Japan ($14.6m), Australia ($12.6m), China ($12.1m), Spain ($7.6m), Mexico ($7.4m), Brazil ($5.9m), Italy ($5.9m), Russia ($5.8m) and Sweden ($4.6m).
Domestically it posted the 3rd highest opening ever for December with $175,500,000, behind The Force Awakens on $247,966,675, The Last Jedi with $220,009,584 and ahead of Rogue One on $155,081,681.
With a $175.5 million three-day debut, Disney’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker delivered the third largest December opening of all-time. While the performance tops the studio’s conservative, $165 million opening, many, including BoxOfficeMojo, expected the film to top $200 million for the weekend and the slide to $175.5 million is a bit below where expectations were just yesterday, when it appeared the film would open anywhere from $190-195 million after Friday estimates. The slide began following the film’s opening day, which was pretty much on par with recent Star Wars releases, which saw preview grosses making up 44% of the film’s opening day. However, it is the only Star Wars release of the five released by Disney thus far, to see the Friday gross make up over 50% of the film’s total opening weekend, which brings into question what kind of impact word of mouth will have on the film’s final gross.
While The Force Awakens and Rogue One saw multiples that came in at 3.78x and 3.43x respectively, The Last Jedi and Solo could only muster multiples finishing at 2.82x and 2.53x respectively. That said, the four previous Star Wars releases saw multiples averaging 3.14x, which would give The Rise of Skywalker a $551 million domestic run, which is hardly a small number, but it does show a downward trend for the brand following the massive performance for The Force Awakens in 2015. Of this weekend’s audience, 59% were male and 64% of the crowd was aged 25 or older, all of which pretty much lines up with the last four Star Wars releases, though the film’s “B+” CinemaScore is the first Star Wars film outside of 2008’s animated Clone Wars to receive a CinemaScore outside the “A” range.
Now the question turns to whether or not The Rise of Skywalker is looking at The Last Jedi numbers ($1,332,539,889 globally, $620,181,382 domestically), Rogue One numbers ($1,056,057,273 globally, $532,177,324 domestically) or if it can break the billion dollar barrier. Only 2 films with bigger opening weekends than Rise failed to break the billion (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) so the signs look good for a final tally somewhere between Rogue One and The Last Jedi, but despite that it now seems likely that The Rise of Skywalker will be the first trilogy-ending Star Wars episode not to outgross its predecessor. Let’s hope word of mouth and repeat viewings are enough to propel the film forward.
