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‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ Falls 59% in Second Weekend

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Dark Rey in 'Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.' (Photo Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.)

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s domestic earnings are down over $100 million as it exits its second weekend at the box office, from $177.38 million on release to $72 million now.

Over its first 10 days, that gives it a $361.8 million total, slightly under Star Wars: The Last Jedi’s $368 million ten-day-cume. That movie infamously also took a massive dip between weekends, from a $220 million opening weekend to a $71 million second weekend.

Worldwide, the film is recouping its $275 million budget with a $724.8 million international release. However, the domestic drop is enough to make it the 13th member of the “$100 million losers club,” alongside Star Wars: The Last Jedi, The Lion King, and all four Avengers films.

While such a loss might point to tepid fan reaction, it’s also worth noting just how many MCU movies are in this club alongside Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Though my Avengers: Endgame showing hooped and hollered while my Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker showing was dead silent, both films are conclusion stories in lore-heavy franchises.

Desire to see the ending as soon as possible, both to avoid spoilers and to take part in the social media conversation, could easily frontload audience turnout. Avengers: Endgame, for example, opened at $357 million and dropped to $147 million in its second weekend. While dealing with larger overall numbers than Episode IX, its $210 million loss between weekends is twice as large as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s $105 million, despite a generally more favorable response.

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Still, the more recent Star Wars films are no strangers to box office disappointment. Solo: A Star Wars Story famously released to such an underwhelming response in 2018 that Disney put all future Star Wars spin-off films on hold until further notice. Similarly, while Star Wars: The Last Jedi has its fans (raises hand), it divisive nature since its release has become borderline political. And finally, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s Metacritic score for critics is currently sitting at 54, slightly over Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace’s 51, with users actually ranking Episode I over Episode IX.

Although critical response does not necessarily guarantee box office failure, the unfortunate side effect of a stunted ending is its ability to throw everything that came before it into question. As a Last Jedi apologist, The Rise of Skywalker’s willingness to walk back what made that film interesting to me, as well as its done-better-before original plot elements, has me wondering what the point of the sequel trilogy is, and how much room for new stories this galaxy has left.

Regardless, the Star Wars films until now have been an overall boon for Disney. The house of mouse purchased Lucasfilm in 2012 for $4.05 billion, with the total gross for the four Star Wars films released before Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hitting $4.8 billion. Adding this most recent film to those earnings yields over $5.5 billion off movie tickets alone. So, even as the franchise’s films drop from weekend-to-weekend, Disney is already guaranteed profit. As senior comScore media analyst Paul Dergarabedian told CNBC, “This was one of the smartest acquisitions in history.”

However, for Star Wars fans, that “was” raises doubts. While Disney up to this point has been forced to release new Star Wars films to justify its Lucasfilm purchase, that motivation no longer applies. And as we saw with the response to Solo: A Star Wars Story, the studio has no qualms about canceling future projects in response to underperforming movies.

As audiences debate with themselves whether they still want to hear more from the galaxy far, far away, Disney is listening. And it is now free to respond however it wishes.

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