In a country seemingly obsessed with “Fast and Furious” and Marvel films, it’s pretty mind-boggling that China just doesn’t give a shit about The Force, Reylo, Sith, Jedi, or the debate over ‘The Last Jedi.’ Long story short, while “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” dominates the box office in most of the world, the film barely registered in China.
According to Variety, ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ has, so far, pulled in an estimated $2.2 million in China during its first day. You read that right. I didn’t miss a decimal. Just over two million dollars in one day. This just proves that, as the Skywalker Saga comes to an end, Disney has a lot of work ahead of itself if it wants to somehow figure out how to make Chinese people care about “Star Wars.” Right now, one Chinese ticket seller is predicting a total box office of $18 million for the film. Not for the weekend, but for the entire run of the film. Oof.
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In the US, however, according to Deadline, ‘Rise’ has pulled in an estimated $44 million to $48 million just in the opening night “preview” sales. That’s roughly on par with ‘The Last Jedi,’ but still behind ‘Force Awakens’ and, of course, “Avengers: Endgame.” That being said, though it’s only pulling in ‘The Last Jedi’ numbers, this has to be seen as a win for Disney and Lucasfilm, as ‘Rise of Skywalker’ has been getting hammered by critics and has become one of the most debated films of the year…even before the general public sees it. So, the fact that people are still coming out in droves to support “Star Wars” is a win for the studio. We’ll just have to see how well this excitement carries the film over the weekend and the upcoming Christmas holiday season.
But back to China for a moment, the performance of ‘Rise of Skywalker,’ though shocking based solely on the numbers, is not surprising when you consider the way the previous films in the Sequel Trilogy have played in the Middle Kingdom. Not only has “Star Wars” struggled to come close to the performances of other franchises in China, the series has been on a steep decline since 2015.
“The Force Awakens” pulled in a Chinese total of $126 million, with a debut of $52.3 million. Not terrible by any stretch. But that’s just when the wheels began to fall off. “Rogue One” (starring Chinese legend Donnie Yen) managed a debut of $31 million and a lifetime total of $69 million.
But hey, that’s just a spin-off, so that’s not fair to compare, right? Okay, fine. Let’s look at the 2017 performance of ‘The Last Jedi.’ The Rian Johnson-directed film debuted to a terrible $28.7 million and ended its run in China with a dismal $42.6 million. That’s less than the three-day total that ‘Force Awakens’ earned just two years prior.
Oh, and ‘Solo?’ The less said, the better. That film debuted with just under $10 million and ended its run with a little over $16 million in China.
If you want to put this in the most basic terms, it appears that China gave ‘The Force Awakens’ a shot, just to figure out what this whole “Star Wars” thing was about (the country famously never had a true roll-out of the previous six films in theaters). Needless to say, JJ Abrams’ film didn’t excite the audiences out there and we’ve seen the films just, pardon my language, shit the bed over the last four years, culminating in a truly embarrassing performance in 2019.
Look, China isn’t the be-all, end-all for box office, but when you have films like ‘Endgame’ and the aforementioned “Fast and Furious” franchise pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars, it’s difficult for Disney to come to terms with the fact that one of its prized IPs is destined to be a failure. If Lucasfilm wants to change things up in the future, maybe something completely different is needed if the studio wants to make “Star Wars” work in China. Because this whole Skywalker thing isn’t doing it.
