'Rise Of Skywalker' Falls From 'The Last Jedi' With A Truly Disappointing Box Office Debut For A 'Star Wars' Film

When is $175 million not a lot of money? Well, when you’re Disney and you release the final film in the “Star Wars” series that dates back to 1977. Brace yourselves, box office fans, because we’re about to talk about some #DisneyProblems. [Yes, we’ll be talking about “Cats” and other films, but that will be after the “Star Wars” deep dive.]

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There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” would be the #1 film worldwide this weekend. No, not even the batshit crazy “Cats” would sniff anywhere near the debut of JJ Abrams’ latest film. And even though we’re talking about some massive financial numbers, it’s important to remember the relativity involved with the latest box office debut for “Star Wars.”

In its first three days of release (including $40 million from Thursday night “previews), “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” has pulled in an estimated $175.5 million at the domestic box office. Sure, that number is the third-best in December and any other studio would be doing Force-fueled backflips with a total like that. But we’re talking “Star Wars” and Disney, which means $175.5 million is nothing short of disappointing. Honestly, this is pretty much a worst-case scenario for the trilogy-capper that was supposed to be the “Star Wars” equivalent of “Avengers: Endgame.”

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Relative to the two other “Episodes” released by Disney since the studio purchased Lucasfilm (and thus, “Star Wars”), ‘Rise’ is by far the worst opening, falling well short of ‘The Last Jedi’ ($220 million) and 2015’s ‘The Force Awakens’ ($248 million). Obviously, ‘The Force Awakens’ was the first new “Star Wars” film in ages and the first sequel film since 1983, so it’s not fair to compare ‘Rise’ to those numbers. However, ‘The Last Jedi’ was only released in 2017 and was pretty divisive upon its debut (much like ‘Rise). So, falling almost $45 million behind that film is startling.

READ MORE: Rian Johnson Takes To Twitter To Defend Luke Skywalker’s Actions In ‘The Last Jedi’

Disney will, of course, play damage control and talk about how the studio only predicted about $160 million and this film is going to benefit from the upcoming holidays. All of that is true, but that is also the exact same situation facing the previous two films, as well. Sadly, for Lucasfilm and Disney, the best comparisons we have for how ‘Rise’ will fare over the coming weeks are the two previous films in the same franchise.

Globally, the news is pretty startling, as well. ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ pulled in an estimated $198 million internationally, well below predictions that had the film launching in the $250 million range. We talked about this on Friday, but China is really the story here. While “Star Wars” has consistently been on a downward trajectory in the Middle Kingdom since 2015, ‘Rise’ debuted to only $12.1 million over its first weekend. That’s just flat-out terrible.

Again, when you look at the total worldwide gross for ‘Rise,’ the picture becomes even clearer. Through the first weekend, ‘Rise’ earned only an estimated $354 million around the world. Since we’ve already said that the best comparisons are with ‘The Force Awakens’ and ‘The Last Jedi,’ when you compare the $354 million to ‘TFA’s’ gross of $529 million and ‘TLJ’s’ worldwide debut of $451 million, it’s clear that ‘Rise’ is on a trajectory that should be worrisome for Disney, to put it mildly.

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To better put this worldwide debut in perspective, other films to beat ‘Rise’ globally in their debuts include “Beauty and the Beast” ($357 million), “Frozen II” ($358 million), “Black Panther” ($371 million), and “Iron Man 3” ($371 million). And those are just films released by Disney. We’re also talking about films that ‘Rise’ should have easily beat like “Spider-Man 3” ($382 million…back in 2007!), “Transformers: The Dark of the Moon” ($382 million…in 2011), and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” ($423 million).

Now, there’s nothing Disney can do about this weekend. The reviews, the discussion, and the analyzing are already happening. The studio just has to look forward to the holidays and hope for the best. Unfortunately, this is also something that might worry the Mouse House. The CinemaScore for “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” is only a B+. Obviously, that’s not a terrible score for most films, but for “Star Wars,” this is also concerning. You have to remember that CinemaScore is determined based on real audiences on opening night. And who was out there checking out “Star Wars” on opening night? The diehards.

Previous CinemaScores for “Star Wars” films paint a pretty clear picture — ‘The Force Awakens’ (A), ‘Rogue One’ (A), ‘The Last Jedi’ (A), and ‘Solo’ (A-). Even films that are generally thought of, by most fans, as disappointing (‘Solo’) has at least scored an A-. If ‘Rise’ only scored a B+, that means there’s a clear disturbance in the Force. And it makes the upcoming week crucial for the film’s box office future.

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Some numbers to keep in the back of your head, moving forward, are the global grosses for the Disney-era “Star Wars” films:

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” – $2.07 billion
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” – $1.33 billion
“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” – $1.06 billion
“Solo: A Star Wars Story” – $393 million

Obviously, ‘Rise’ is going to easily beat ‘Solo.’ It’s already almost there. So the wheels haven’t completely fallen off and the sky isn’t falling right now for the franchise. And $1 billion is all but a guarantee, so “Rogue One” will likely be beaten as well. The real question is — but by how much?

If ‘Rise’ doesn’t have the legs of typical “Star Wars” films, we could be looking at a final worldwide total closer to ‘Rogue One’ than ‘Force Awakens.’ Hell, ‘Rise’ might have an uphill battle to reach ‘The Last Jedi.’ If that’s the case, there’s really no way to spin the fact that this final Skywalker Saga film is a disappointment, from all angles, critically and financially.

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This leaves the future very much in limbo. If Lucasfilm views ‘The Last Jedi’ as a disappointment for how it divided the fans, and that was supposed to be “fixed” in ‘Rise of Skywalker,’ then what does this box office mean? Is this just proof that fans are somehow cold on “Star Wars?” Are casual fans just done with the franchise? Should there be a massive overhaul in storytelling moving forward to try to attract China and those people who don’t care about Skywalkers and Jedi? Or should Lucasfilm retreat and continue to make prequels and side stories featuring known characters? Needless to say, there are going to be some interesting decisions made by Kathleen Kennedy and Co. in the weeks ahead.

Speaking of “interesting decisions,” it’s time to talk about what should have been the biggest disappointment of the weekend — “Cats.”

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After months of being the butt of memes and jokes, director Tom Hooper unleashed his “Cats” on the public. [Although, it appears the film that people rushed out to see on opening night was…unfinished?] Debuting in almost 3,400 locations, “Cats” pulled in a dismal $6.5 million at the domestic box office. With a reported budget of around $95 million (though, with films that include extensive CGI work that was literally being fixed after the debut, it’s hard to know the real total), a debut of $6.5 million is embarrassing.

Now, Universal will likely talk about how “The Greatest Showman” also debuted soft and ended up having an incredible holiday run and pulled in $174 million domestically after everything was all said and done. But make no mistake — “Cats” is no ‘Showman.’

“The Greatest Showman” was nothing short of a phenomenon with audiences, earning an A CinemaScore and becoming one of the most buzzed-about films of that season. “Cats,” with its horrendous C+ CinemaScore, shows that audiences agreed with critics (19% on Rotten Tomatoes) and have pretty much decided the Hooper-directed musical with hardly a plot to speak of and creepy effects is just not good. If Universal wants to try to generate some interest, the studio should really lean into the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” of it all and try to promote “Cats” as something that can be enjoyed by a rowdy crowd (on some sort of substance) instead of the awards contender that the studio hoped it would be.

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Though not nearly as disappointing as the other films mentioned already, “Bombshell” also gained its wide release (after only being in select theaters last weekend) and didn’t exactly light up the box office. The awards contender about the Fox News/Roger Ailes sexual misconduct scandal earned $5 million in its first weekend of wide release. Though in only 1,500 locations, the film probably should have done something closer to double-digits instead of only $5 million. However, this is definitely the type of film that will earn audiences throughout the holidays and into 2020, as these adult dramas tend to have better legs than “event” films.

As we approach the upcoming week, all bets are off as far as what’s going to happen. Will ‘Star Wars’ rebound with families hoping to venture out to the galaxy far, far away over the holidays? Will theaters continue to get crowded with debuts of films like “Uncut Gems,” “Spies in Disguise,” and “Little Women?” We’ll find out soon enough.

Here’s the entire domestic top 10 for December 20 to December 22:
1. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – $175.5M (Debut)
2. Jumanji: The Next Level – $26M ($102M Overall)
3. Frozen II – $12M ($387M)
4. Cats – $6.5M (Debut)
5. Knives Out – $6.1M ($90M)
6. Bombshell – $5M ($5.5M)
7. Richard Jewell – $2.6M ($9.5M)
8. Queen & Slim – $1.85M ($37M)
10. Black Christmas – $1.8M ($7.2M)
10. Ford v Ferrari – $1.8M ($102M)