Well, it looks like Walt Disney's initial weekend estimates for Star Wars: The Last Jedi were pretty accurate. The Lucasfilm sequel indeed earned $220 million at the North American box office over its first three days, which is the second-biggest domestic launch of all time, behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($248m three years ago). And it indeed made $230.8m overseas in 54 markets, not including China where it opens on Jan. 5, 2018. That's a $450.8m global debut. #CanThisFranchiseBe... ah, nevermind.
That's the fourth-biggest global launch of all-time, behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II ($483 million in 2011), Jurassic World ($525m in 2015), The Force Awakens ($529m in 2015) and Fate of the Furious ($542m in 2017), although it's in third place if you remove China which opened day-and-day with Fate of the Furious and Jurassic World. It's the ninth-biggest overseas launch, but we all knew that Star Wars was going to be a comparatively bigger deal in North America than overseas.
The film earned just 11.2% less on its respective opening weekend than The Force Awakens, which is a smaller drop than even The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (-12.9%) from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. With the understanding that The Last Jedi was destined to be the first pure Star Wars sequel to open less than its predecessor (it's like the Star Trek: Insurrection of Star Wars!), this is a solid hold. Here's a crazy factoid: the two biggest global openings of 201 8 were both "part 8" sequels where the last film's prime villain at least flirts with redemption despite A) being a mass murderer who is introducing slaughtering scores of civilians and B) killing a fan-favorite character named Han. Fortunately, Jigsaw (ie: Saw 8) contains no such elements.
Rian Johnson's sci-fi sequel earned a $45 million Thursday preview (the second-best behind Force Awakens' $57m preview gross), a $104.787m Friday (the second-best, behind Force Awakens' $119m opening day), a $64m Saturday (the fourth-biggest, behind Force Awakens, The Avengers and Jurassic World) and an estimated $51.3m Sunday (the fourth-biggest behind The Avengers, Jurassic World and Force Awakens).
If you want to play the inflation game, The Last Jedi had the third biggest opening weekend (behind The Force Awakens and The Avengers), the second-biggest Thursday preview and the third-biggest Thursday gross (behind The Force Awakens and the opening days of The Matrix Relaoded and Revenge of the Sith). It had the second-biggest Friday/opening day/single day, the eighth-biggest Saturday (behind Shrek 2, Iron Man 3, Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man, The Force AwakenJurassicsic World and The Avengers) and the seventh-biggest Sunday (behind Spider-Man 3, Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Dark Knight, Jurassic World, The Force Awakens and The Avengers).
The film snagged a 2.099x weekend multiplier, just slightly leggier than The Force Awakens (2.08x) and Rogue One (2.06x). That's one odd thing it shares with The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which was slightly leggier on opening weekend than Twilight before cratering after its debut. Of course, $220m x 2 is still $440m, and Bella didn't have them Christmas legs.
So however divisive the online word-of-mouth may be (I firmly believe that the Rotten Tomatoes user score was a result of trolling, but plenty of smart folks liked the movie noticeably less than I), it hasn't yet affected the domestic box office. Even if the online chatter represents mainstream consensus (and I should again point out that CinemaScore and PostTrak polling has been quite positive), the pre-Christmas weekend will still minimize the bleeding over the next few weeks.
Heck, if the film crashes and plays like Star Trek: Nemesis ($43 million domestic from an $18.5m debut weekend in 2002), we're still looking at a $512m domestic cume. And since A) this isn't Star Trek: Nemesis and B) there isn't a new Lord of the Rings movie opening on Wednesday, I think the realistic doom-and-gloom scenario is closer to I Am Legend. That Will Smith blockbuster opened with a $77 million opening weekend (biggest December launch ever back in 2007 and still the biggest launch for a pure star vehicle) but had to deal with the robust National Treasure: Book of Secrets ($44m) over Christmas.
Both films did great (I remain shocked that we never got a National Treasure 3), but I Am Legend earned "just" $256 million domestic giving it a mere 3.32x multiplier. That would be fine for any other time of the year, but it is still a lesser hold than the first two Hobbit movies, Tron: Legacy and pretty much every other big pre-Christmas December release in modern times. So yeah, I guess Sony's Jumanji, Universal/Comcast Corp.'s Pitch Perfect 3, Fox's Ferdinand, Fox's Coco, Lionsgate's Wonder and Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.'s Justice League could combine with the film's less crowd-pleasing elements, honest displeasure from some fans and the various factors that made The Last Jedi into less of an event than The Force Awakens, but that's still a $732 million domestic total.
What happens next is that we see how it holds up in its first series of weekdays. Christmas Eve isn't until Sunday but Christmas Day isn't until Monday, which may skew things a bit. But The Force Awakens fell 33% on its first Monday from Sunday while Rogue One fell 55% on its first Monday, so a Monday figure between $24m and $34m should be in the "safe zone." Although, of note, it will face big competition as early as Wednesday thanks to Jumanji and The Greatest Showman, with Downsizing, Father Figures, Pitch Perfect 3 and some big expansions like The Shape of Water dropping on Friday.
The last time Christmas was on a Monday was back in 2006, so if worst-case-scenario The Last Jedi performs like Eragon ($23 million debut/$75m domestic) then we're still looking at a $710m domestic total. Look, it's entirely possible that The Last Jedi will be more frontloaded than its predecessors due to it being more of a known factor, being less of a conventional crowdpleaser, divisive word of mouth, etc. But when you open with $220m in December just before Christmas, well, yeah, there is not much precedent for a bad domestic finish.
