Box Office

A lot of fans simply left SW after TLJ, and a lot of casuals found the plot boring, without a «hook» for IX.

No wonder the hype was low.

Just like TLJ rode the audience success that was TFA, ROS will reap the failure of TLJ as a sequel.

Since ROS seems to do well with audiences based on the first audience reviews, we might have a movie that opens lower than TLJ, but gets better legs as people hear it is actually more fan friendly.

 

I was not going to see TROS because of the mess and boredom of TLJ.

My son persuaded me to go. So I went...thinking I would hate it.

Well I am glad I did go because it was brilliant. I hope others who thought the same as me after TLJ go and see it.

 

The hype never been so low. I actually don't know anyone who has seen it.

But Roz Weston's review convinced me to go.

 

My theater was pretty packed last night. Only seats that were available were the vry front seats that no one wants regardless what the movie. No one didn't dress up but AMC theaters hasn't exactly encourage it since you can't have helmets/mask and light sabers. All theaters aren't created equal.

 

Lots of anecdotal evidence being thrown around in here and very little facts. The Rise of Skywalker's opening night was almost the same as The Last Jedi. That suggests there was a ton of interest in the film. That's a good showing for a film that's getting pummeled by the critics.

What do audiences think so far? I'll compare the data we have to the night after The Last Jedi.

ComScore/Screen Engine:
TLJ: 5 stars
TROS: 4.5 stars D

Definite recommend:
TLJ: 82%
TROS: 76%

This suggests the film is a lot more popular fans than it was with critics. The recommendation numbers are worse than The Last Jedi, but better than Solo. The picture will be clearer this weekend when more information is gathered.

What we can read from this is there was plenty of interest in this film. How well it does in total box office will depend on how much people like it.

 

I saw somewhere that TROS made 40 million on Thursday. Supposedly that is the fifth highest opening. I’d say interest is pretty high

 

In my cinema, on the day of midnight release, it had 5 rooms with the movie, every sold out.

 

Purely anecdotally - theatre was nearly but not entirely full for a ten 45 showing. but i went to royal's version of an Imax 3d, so premium ticket and price. I did not see lines. I was in houston, so not a small town market. Expected a bit more of a crowd. I did notice a bit of a drop from TFA to TLJ, so this seems on par.

I think a star wars movie every year might be too much for disney to make a billion plus each outing. They would be wise to wait 2-3 years between installments or just be happy with a perfectly respectable 600-800 mil haul on "lesser" star wars films going forward.

I think this movie will have legs as it seems to be a crowd pleaser.

 

Our theater (which is pretty big) had multiple showings and most, but not all, of them were sold out. A lot of people were wearing Star Wars shirts. I was the only one in full costume ;-) I got a lot of thumbs ups and "that is so cool!" from people who saw me. I wish I had played it up more to the people who gave me compliments but I was feeling really self-conscious because I was the only person dressed up. When I saw TLJ several people were in costume. Again, anecdotal.

Three guesses as to who I dressed as ^_^

 

Elsa ?

 

The Cinamascore is B+. That's the worst ever score for a Star Wars film. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

Joker has a B+ and it was the best movie that I saw in 2019.

And they gave A- to Attack of the Clones....

How does they system works?

 

Hot Take: It seems media narratives can affect how people view a film....interesting.

 

It's just a survey of what people think. Joker having a low score isn't surprising. It's not really a crowd pleaser and it's fairly grim. FIght Club (which is a far better film that Joker) got a B-, but it's not a film for everyone. A Star Wars film getting less than a A- is not a good sign.

 

LOL. Since I was the only one dressed up, I didn't want the random dude I was sitting next to to think I was a total nut job. So, to break the ice*, before I took my seat I turned to him and said "this is the theater for Frozen 2, right?" :-D He chuckled.

*pun intended

 

Apparently it took in over 90 mil on Friday

https://movieweb.com/the-rise-of-skywalker-box-office-december-opening-record/

 

I don't think TROS is heading in a good direction at this moment, but maybe it will turn it around (I'm really not counting on that)?

The following takes the first day on box office record of TFA and TLJ and then factors what the percent drop each day thereafter is from the first opening day, and then finds the median of both films' percent change from the first opening day.
This value is then used on TROS' opening day to produce a median baseline of percent change from opening day onward.

That is to say, if we take the median of TFA and TLJ, and started with 90 million, what would day two look like with that as the starting point?

It looks like this.


There's a lot of room for error here because building off of one data sample as half of the seed is always going to be a sloppy projection, especially with human consumer behavior (we're assuming people are economically in the same pattern of behavior year over year when doing this).

That said....90 million doesn't give TROS a lot of legs to stand on and will require a lot of pick up from box office results going forward to pick up the pace.
As it stands, it's looking like it could end up like TLJ in the long-run. If it were to follow the middle ground between the two films, what's interesting is that it would earn more money per day than TLJ in several following days after the opening day, but would still end only just under a tie with TLJ.
That's how much of an impact this low opening day is.

We'll see better after the first weekend.

This estimate, however, is fitting in line with industry estimates which say about $190 million opening weekend (this model estimates $188 million).
For comparison, TLJ did ~$220, and TFA did just over $245 million opening weekend.

I loved the film, but monetarily, this is not a good start.

Cheers,
Jayson