Friday Estimates: Star Wars is Going to have a Green Christmas
December 21, 2019
Despite earning weaker-than-expected reviews, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is going to have no trouble topping my prediction for the weekend, as it earned an estimated $90 million on Friday, putting it on pace for $190 million over the full weekend. Granted, not everything is rosy, as the film only managed a B plus from CinemaScore. That’s not fatal, but it certainly won’t help its legs. On the other hand, the lack of direct competition and the Christmas break will certainly help it sell many more tickets over the next two weeks.
By way of comparison, The Last Jedi earned $104.7 million on its first Friday, and $220 million for the weekend. The Force Awakens made $119.1 million on its first day, and $248 million for the weekend. Those were always going to be tough numbers to beat, and $90 million is still the 8th-biggest day in box office history.
Jumanji: The Next Level is also doing better than expected with $7.1 million on Friday, while Sony is projecting just under $25 million for the full weekend. This would be enough to get the film to $100 million by the end of business on Sunday and put it in a great position to thrive over the Christmas break. It isn’t possible to fully accurately compare this result to that of Welcome to the Jungle, as the two films don’t line up perfectly with the Christmas break and we will have to wait till next weekend to be in a better position to project the film’s final tally.
It looks like Frozen II will also top predictions after earning $3.3 million on Friday, putting it on pace for between $12 million and $13 million over the weekend. The film will hit $400 million shortly, but not this weekend.
Cats isn’t living up to lowered expectations, as it only managed $2.62 million on Friday and Universal is projecting an $8 million debut as a result. Furthermore, its reviews are a disaster and the film only managed a C plus from CinemaScore, which is the kind of rating you see for horror movies, not musicals. On the positive side, there’s no direct competition coming out. On the negative side, no amount of legs will save the movie, as theater owners won’t be excited to keep this film around much longer than they are contractually obligated to do so.
Bombshell is also missing expectations with just $1.86 million over the weekend, putting it on pace for just over $5 million. The film’s reviews are good, but not great and it is too small of a release to get a CinemaScore. Additionally, another Oscar contender, Little Women, is coming out on Christmas Day, so that film could steal some of this film’s ticket sales. We will soon find out.
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Filed under: Friday Estimates, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Frozen II, Jumanji: The Next Level, Little Women, Cats, Bombshell