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Looking Back At ‘Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker’s Strange, Lucrative, Disappointing Box Office Journey

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Due to the coronavirus pandemic, we could now officially be standing on the other side of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s box office run. While there’s a decent chance the movie comes back for a summer stint, Rise of Skywalker now exists on streaming platforms and people may be apprehensive about going to the theater—which means the current box office numbers may be final.

Which I thought provided an interesting chance to look back on what was ultimately a very strange box office showing for the biggest franchise in movie history. A Star Wars movie is all but guaranteed to dominate the worldwide box office—and mind you, Rise of Skywalker did dominate. But it wasn’t without plenty of scares and bizarre results.

And, ultimately, a disappointing finish.

Which might seem odd to say, considering Rise of Skywalker finished with $515.2 million domestically (which ranks 14th on the all-time domestic box office list) and $1.074 billion worldwide (which ranks 32nd on the all-time global list). But based upon the amount of screens on which the movie showed? And considering that ticket prices were higher in 2020 than they’ve ever been? And when you take into account how well every other Star Wars movie has performed up to this point? Things get...a little dicey.

So here’s a breakdown of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s strange, lucrative, arguably disappointing domestic box office run between December 2019 and March 2020.

The Opening Week

On Dec. 20, 2019, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker made its theatrical debut. Premiering on 4,406 screens (the sixth-widest opening for a PG-13 movie ever), the latest Star Wars sequel accrued $177.4 million on opening weekend—the 12th-highest domestic total of all time. And by week’s end, the film had achieved the seventh-biggest first week ever with $289.8 million.

There is, however, a catch: those first-week totals were far eclipsed by the other two Star Wars sequels. And while some may argue that the third film in a series is almost always destined to perform worse, the difference in revenue between Rise of Skywalker and the other two sequels widens quite a bit after we account for ticket price inflation.

The Force Awakens opened to a $248 million weekend back in 2015, and The Last Jedi opened to a $220 million weekend in 2018. And after inflation, The Force Awakens’s opening jumps to $268 million in 2020 dollars. Meanwhile, The Last Jedi’s three-day rises to $226.3 million.

Then we have the first-week totals. After inflation, The Force Awakens’s first week jumps from $390.9 million to $423.4 million, and The Last Jedi’s escalates from $296.6 million to $305.1 million.

But there’s more: Rise of Skywalker opened in 4,406 theaters, while The Force Awakens only premiered in 4,134 theaters and The Last Jedi debuted in 4,232 venues. So when we look at per-theater performance and ticket price inflation? It really highlights how much worse Rise of Skywalker performed.

So with all those provisions in place, Rise of Skywalker’s opening week per-theater average stood at just under $66,000. On the other side, The Force Awakens’s per-theater average during opening week rose just above $102,000, and The Last Jedi’s came to $73,000.

And keep in mind: we’re only comparing Rise of Skywalker with the latest Star Wars projects. Rise of Skywalker opened in 1,300 more theaters than The Phantom Menace—a movie that would go on to accrue over $800 million after inflation. So obviously the per-theater difference between Rise of Skywalker and past Star Wars films is vast as well.

We’ll compare Rise of Skywalker to the other Star Wars films more in depth as the article goes on.

The Opening Month

The first four weeks of Rise of Skywalker’s theater stint saw its domestic total rise to a whopping $483.6 million. At the time, that made the film the 17th-highest-grossing movie of all time.

But perhaps the biggest moment to note came during the movie’s second weekend. After a $72.4 million second-weekend showing, Rise of Skywalker became the eleventh movie to ever join the $100 Million Losers Club. Meaning the movie earned at least $100 million less on its second weekend than it did on its first weekend.

Now, that’s not always a bad thing. If a movie makes close to $200 million on its first weekend, then the odds of making $100 million less on the second weekend goes up. We saw that happen in 2019 with Avengers: Endgame (which opened to a $357.1 million weekend) and The Lion King (which had a $191.8 million opening).

But things were different with Rise of Skywalker, as its $177.4 million opening was the lowest total to ever join the club (after accounting for ticket price inflation). And some more bad news to boot: that 59.2% drop between Weekend 1 and Weekend 2 is actually the fourth-worst second-weekend showing ever for a film in the $100 Million Losers Club.

And things only got worse as the opening month wore on. On Rise of Skywalker’s third weekend, the film mustered just $34.5 million for an 81% drop from opening weekend—the third-worst showing ever for a movie that made at least $175 million in its three-day debut.

On the fourth weekend? The movie’s $15.2 million total represented a 91.5% drop from opening weekend, which tied Avengers: Endgame for the biggest fourth-weekend drop ever. The only difference is that Endgame’s total stood at $771.4 million after four weekends, while Rise of Skywalker was situated at just $478.3 million.

Despite those bottom-tier weekend totals, the weekday performances consistently kept the latest Star Wars sequel from complete disaster. For example, during that opening week in theaters, Rise of Skywalker pulled in $112.4 million from weeknight showings—the third-highest total of any movie ever (before accounting for ticket price inflation, of course).

In total, the Rise of Skywalker’s first 30 days in theaters produced $489.1 million. After accounting for ticket price inflation, that turned out to be the third-worst first month of any Star Wars movie made since 1999.

Here’s how each Star Wars movie ranks after 30 days (and after accounting for inflation):

  1. The Force Awakens ($913.5 million)
  2. The Last Jedi ($614.2 million)
  3. The Phantom Menace ($570.3 million)
  4. Rogue One ($535.2 million)
  5. Revenge of the Sith ($498 million)
  6. The Rise of Skywalker ($489.1 million)
  7. Attack of the Clones ($425.3 million)
  8. Solo ($207.1 million)

The Closing Months

By the end of January, Rise of Skywalker’s slow and steady downfall resulted in a massive drop in theater count. On Jan. 17, the film had lost 1,221 theaters from the previous week. And on Jan. 24, it lost another 258.

And by the beginning of February? The film was only showing in 2,202 theaters—which is just 50% of what Rise of Skywalker started with. By comparison, The Force Awakens—which also opened at the end of December—had only lost 38% of its theaters by Feb. 1, 2016.

Just 14 days into February, Rise of Skywalker would see its theater count drop below 1,000. On its first sub-1,000 weekend, the movie barely managed $1 million, which resulted in a $1,401 per-theater average.

Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the movie’s run ended early. Rise of Skywalker saw its final weekend in theaters (for now) from March 13-15, when it pulled in a mere $76,411. By its final day in theaters (March 19), the movie’s grand domestic total stood at $515.2 million.

And while that total does stand as the 14th-highest ever at the U.S. box office, it sinks down to 88th place after accounting for ticket price inflation. That puts Rise of Skywalker behind films like Rocky, Lady and the Tramp and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The kicker? That final $515.2 million total for Rise of Skywalker actually ranks behind every single Star Wars movie besides Attack of the Clones and Solo:

  1. A New Hope ($1.669 billion)
  2. The Force Awakens ($1.013 billion)
  3. The Empire Strikes Back ($919.2 million)
  4. The Return of the Jedi ($881.3 million)
  5. The Phantom Menace ($846.2 million)
  6. The Last Jedi ($633.3 million)
  7. Rogue One ($566.3 million)
  8. Revenge of the Sith ($555.9 million)
  9. The Rise of Skywalker ($515.2 million)
  10. Attack of the Clones ($500.1 million)
  11. Solo ($219.9 million)

Now we await the following months when Rise of Skywalker could potentially make some sort of comeback. But for now, it’s hard to argue that the latest Star Wars sequel didn’t quite live up to expectations.

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