Not surprisingly,Star Wars: The Last Jedilooks like it’s going to have an enormousdebut at the box officenext month. New tracking numbers for the latest entry in the Skywalker saga have arrived and the movie is expected to bring in $200 million or more on its opening weekend. That’s not going to be enough to bestStar Wars: The Force Awakens, but it’s still a huge number and one that proves interest inStar Warsis as strong as ever.
Interest inStar Wars: The Last Jediis tremendously high as fans have many questions, given what happened inThe Force Awakens. As such, the movie is going to likely have the biggest opening weekend at the box office of any movie in 2017. Currently, that record belongs toDisney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast, which brought in $174.8 million on its opening weekend back in March.Beauty and the Beastalso remains the highest-grossing movie of 2017 overall, with a grand total $1.26 billion worldwide.
Star Wars: The Force Awakensset an all time record in 2015, bringing in $248 million on its opening weekend. It’s unlikely thatStar Wars: The Last Jediwill reach that number, even if projections go up. But considering thatThe Force Awakenswas the firstStar Warsmovie to come out in a decade, it’s not likely thatDisney and Lucasfilmwill be able to replicate that kind of hype again. No matter how you look at it, $200 million is a truly massive opening.
IfStar Wars: The Last Jedi, which arrives in theaters on December 15, does indeed cross the $200 million mark on its opening weekend, it will be only the fourth movie in history to do so. In addition toStar Wars: The Force Awakens,Jurassic World($208.8 million) did so in 2015 andThe Avengers($207.4 million), was the first to cross that benchmark in 2012. As far as how it stacks up againstRogue One: A Star Wars Story? The standalone brought in $155.1 million last December, so it looks like the power of Luke Skywalker is still very strong, as fans are quite eager to seeThe Last Jediget some significant screen time.
Reactions toStar Wars: The Last Jedihaven’t made their way online yet, but all signs indicate that director Rian Johnson has made something special. Disney and Lucasfilm have already given the director an entire new trilogy ofStar Warsmovies that will take place outside of the Skywalker saga.Varietynotes that Disney has yet to comment on the tracking, but they’re probably going to keep a bit quiet until the movie gets a bit closer to release.
