‘Star Wars’ Box Office: ‘Last Jedi’ And ‘Rise Of Skywalker’ Were Christmas Openers With Summertime Legs

Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story got big boosts (and longer legs) from its Christmas release date, but The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker merely got protection from front-loading.

In unadjusted domestic grosses, Revenge of the Sith was the first Star Wars movie to earn $100 million or more in its initial Fri-Sun frame, opening with $108 million in the Fri-Sun portion of a $158 million Thurs-Sun debut weekend. That included a then-record $50 million single-day gross via that opening Thursday (along with a then-record $16 million in midnight preview grosses). The Force Awakens of course opened with a record-smashing $248 million in its mid-December launch 10.5 years later, with Rogue One opening with $155 million the next December, The Last Jedi opening with $220 million the December after that and then The Rise of Skywalker earning $177 million in its domestic debut this past December. What’s interesting is how the last two December Star Wars “episodes” legged closer to summer titles.

This isn’t going to be me whining about what I didn’t like about the ninth Star Wars episode, and let me direct you to Luke Thompson and Donna Dickens’ worthwhile defenses of the film. If J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio have grown tired of my cranky criticisms, let them know that I like both Star Trek Into Darkness and (the longer cut of) Batman v Superman more than most people. I like Dead Silence more than Saw, Bringing Out the Dead more than Taxi Driver and Escape From LA more than Escape From New York, so maybe I’m the problem. Anyway, I did notice something interesting when I was compiling that “least leggy $100 million openers” essay from Friday. Namely, that none of the recent Star Wars movies were on it.

The two weeks of Christmas-to-New Year’s holiday offers untouchable legs for wide releases, with two weeks of weekdays that play like weekends. That’s why movies like Jumanji: The Next Level leg out to $318 million domestic from a $59 million debut, or why Aquaman can swim to a $335 million domestic total from a $72 million launch. It’s part of how Titanic, Avatar, the Lord of the Rings movies and those Hobbit prequels earned top-tier grosses with “very good” opening weekends. It was a trade-off. Your Hobbit movie might “only” open with $84 million, but it would leg out to $304 million domestic. Ditto even Rogue One, which opened with $155 million and ended up with $532 million. Even Cats could earn 4.1x its $6.6 million weekend for a (still terrible) $27 million cume.

The Force Awakens was a classic case of having your cake and eating it too. I figured from the moment it was moved from May to December of 2015 that Avatar’s domestic record might fall, but I was still impressed. Not only did it shatter the overall opening weekend record ($248 million from a $119 million Friday), it opened 2.95x higher than the previous biggest December launch (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey). And thanks to strong reviews, a comparative lack of competition, strong audience word-of-mouth and the film’s lightning-in-a-bottle existence as a straight-up sequel to Return of the Jedi with compelling new younger characters, it legged out to $938 million. That was a terrific 3.7x domestic multiplier, still among the leggiest for a $100 million launch (behind Shrek 2 and Wonder Woman).

Be it a season with little kid-friendly competition (save for Universal and Illumination’s Sing, which earned $271 million from a $56 million Wed-Sun launch), its existence as a direct prequel to A New Hope or the sadly timely nature of its “rebellions are built on hope” messaging, Rogue One earned 3.5x its $155 million weekend in December of 2016. That was right alongside the first two Hobbit movies (3.6 x $84 million in 2013 and 3.5 x $73 million in 2013) and slightly above the likes of Sherlock Holmes (3.3 x $62 million in 2009) and I Am Legend (3.2 x $77 million in 2007) and just below the likes of The Force Awakens and Tron: Legacy (3.9 x $44 million in 2010). But that combination of “summer opening and Christmas legs” didn’t quite last.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi opened in December of 2017 amid rave pre-release reviews, a divisive online post-release reaction (with the caveat that it earned an A from Cinemascore) and unprecedented Christmas competition for a Star Wars movie. Realizing that they couldn’t just let Disney have the holiday season unopposed, Sony launched Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Fox debuted The Greatest Showman over the Christmas weekend. The Jumanji sequel opened with $35 million Fri-Sun/$55 million Wed-Sun and then pulled Avatar-worthy legs for a $404 million domestic finish. The musical P.T. Barnum flick did the unthinkable by opening with just $8.8 million Fri-Sun/$13.5 million Wed-Sun and then legging out to $184 million. That made it the leggiest wide release since Titanic 20 years earlier. Poor Last Jedi ”only” earned 2.8x its $220 million debut.

That was one of the least leggy December releases of all time, and the least leggy (at the time) $200 million-plus opener. However, it was A) still a $620 million finish and B) still a 2.8x multiplier. By any standard other than Christmas, 2.8x multiplier for a major blockbuster opener would have been pretty terrific. That was about equal to The Dark Knight Rises ($448 million from a $160 million debut in 2012) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($259 million/$95 million in 2014). Ditto The Rise of Skywaler, which earned “just” 2.9x its $177 million opening weekend ($515 million), which was concerning considering mixed reviews and the failure of its non-Jumanji competition (Cats, Richard Jewell, Bombshell and Spies in Disguise). Nonetheless, Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker were only front-loaded by December standards.

The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker are tenth and eleventh among the most front-loaded wide release in recent history during the month of December. But both films, obviously aided by the holiday period, were still leggier than (for example) the last two Avengers movies ($679 million/$258 million in 2018 and $858 million/$357 million in 2019). Both recent Star Wars sequels had legs just over/under Beauty and the Beast ($504 million/$174 million in 2017) and The Lion King ($543 million/$191 million in 2019). Yes, the Christmas week prevented Rise of Skywalker from pulling in mere Captain America: Civil War-legs ($409 million/$179 million in 2016), but so too did the lag between Last Jedi’s opening weekend and the official start of the holiday period (Christmas was day 11) kneecap that film’s post-debut legs.

A 2.8x multiplier is on the higher end of “very good” for the MCU (think Thor and Spider-Man: Homecoming) but “not great” compared to almost every other “big” Christmas release. While The Force Awakens and Rogue One played the zeitgeist for Hobbit-worthy legs, the last two December Star Wars movies proved to be unable to have their cake and eat it too. They got the massive opening weekends, still far bigger than anything else to open in December, but still had to settle for legs that looked more like a mid-June release (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’s 2.81x from a $148 million launch in 2018) than even the 3.3x-ish likes of Eragon and I Am Legend. Christmas provided a boost to The Force Awakens, but merely provided protection for its sequels.