Unsurprisingly, Star Wars: The Last Jedi crushed its opening weekend at the box office. But with weak audience reception, it may not be out of the woods yet.
Reports are in and the official estimate for Star Wars: The Last Jedi puts its weekend haul at about $220 million. Only behind its sibling, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, this gives it the second highest opening weekend in history as it nabs the spot from Jurassic World … but we’re talking domestically here. When you look at its combined overseas totals at $450 million, it takes the fifth spot. Which is still nothing to scoff at, but qualifiers are important when it comes to box-office numbers.
The world needed answers after The Force Awakens, so of course, The Last Jedi was going to punch it. I mean, the opening weekend success was built in already, coming from a studio that already knows how to get you to see a movie.
However, now that people have seen the movie and remain decidedly split on whether they like the franchise’s direction, The Last Jedi (and Rian Johnson, specifically) isn’t out of the woods yet. I’m not trashing the movie because I really liked it. But it made some questionable decisions that left a downright terrible taste in some people’s mouths, and oh yeah, didn’t answer a lot of questions we had after The Force Awakens.
As one reviewer put it (with a mild spoiler):
"Luke throws away the lightsaber Rey hands him from the end of the last movie / beginning of this one. Perfect symbolism for how Rian Johnson throws away everything JJ Abrams set up for him from the last movie. Why ask an audience to invest in story lines, then spend two years speculating, only to throw them all away?"
My favorite thing is that we’ve seen something like this (an audience revolt) happen before and it’s such an easy example to use because Batman v Superman was a notoriously awful film (though I liked it as well, so maybe the problem is me and my low bar). Everyone wanted to see two iconic superheroes go at it, but the film dropped 69 percent from one weekend to the next.
However, The Last Jedi has the power of the brand on its side as it and The Force Awakens become the only two films to haul in $100 million in one day. Plus, The Last Jedi earned an A Cinemascore as well.
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So before you congratulate Rian Johnson on his birthday, keep in mind that we may have even more to talk about next weekend as we wait to see whether The Last Jedi will end its box office run with the same success as The Force Awakens.