Audiences seem to be loving Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker a lot more than the critics… at least some of the critics. It currently has a 57% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to an impressive 87% audience score. Despite this, its Thursday night estimates are in, and the final film in the Skywalker saga has rung up $40 million in box-office. That’s huge. For comparison, Avengers: Endgame had $60M (and went on to beat Avatar as the biggest film of all time), 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens pocketed $57M, and 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi earned $45M. Expectations are for Rise of Skywalker to do similar business to Last Jedi.
According to DEADLINE: “By the way, this anticipated level makes sense given that exhibition and Fandango were seeing advance ticket levels pacing with Last Jedi. That Rian Johnson directed movie saw its Thursday rep 43% of its $104.6M Friday on its way to the 4th highest opening of all time, $220M. Only seven movies have ever opened to north of $200M at the domestic B.O, all but one of them are from Disney; two of them, Force Awakens and Last Jedi, natch, debuted in December. While tracking has Skywalker in the $170M+ range, industry sources are projecting it north of $200M over the next three days.”
As far as that Rotten Tomato score, it’s interesting to note that Force Awakens scored 93% certified fresh and Last Jedi got 91% certified fresh. And we all know how divisive Last Jedi was…. many viewers consider it the worst of the saga.
