Early Weekend Wrap-Up: Last Jedi Defeats Competition / Last Year with $220.01 million
December 18, 2017
The Last Jedi was expected to dominate the weekend box office. In fact, we predicted it had 50/50 chance to earn more than the entire box office earned this weekend last year. It managed that feat, with about $10 million to spare, earning $220.01 million. This is the second-best opening weekend of all time, behind only The Force Awakens and was only 11% below the record-setting debut. The good news continues, as the two films also earned similar reviews and both films earned an A from CinemaScore, so The Last Jedi should earn similar legs. If this is true, then it will pull in over $800 million domestically.
Internationally, the film pulled in $230.8 million, compared to $281 million for The Force Awakens. This means The Last Jedi opened 18% behind the earlier film internationally, which is a little weaker than its performance domestically. I really thought those two numbers would be reversed. Overall, The Last Jedi’s worldwide debut was $450.8 million, which is the fifth-biggest international opening of all time, and third if you only include films that didn’t open simultaneously in China. To put this into perspective, the film likely cost around $450 million to both make and advertise. There’s no way Disney isn’t over the moon with these results.
One final note, the user reviews scores on sites like Rotten Tomatoes are terrible. My advice is to ignore these numbers. There has been a concerted effort by a tiny fringe to Metabomb these numbers as a protest against Social Justice Warriors. If you don’t know what that means, then I’m so jealous of you. Your life is much better off not knowing. I’ve seen the evidence of this and I would link to it, but it comes from sites so unsavory that just going to those sites will probably get you on government watch list.
We will tackle the rest of the weekend chart after the final numbers for all studios have been released.
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi Comparisons
Filed under: Weekend Wrap-up, Star Wars Ep. VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars