Friday’s numbers at the U.S. box-office had “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” soaring past Disney’s own projections of $160 million and headed for $193 million for its opening weekend tally.
Those numbers have been revised downward today with Saturday’s numbers in and the film cooling off a little faster now that the hardcore fans are done. Estimates have now been pulled back to a $176 million haul – still the third biggest of the year, third biggest of December and the twelfth biggest of all time. Internationally, ‘Rise of Skywalker’ took in $198 million for an estimated global debut of $374 million – again down on rosy early estimates of $450 million for the weekend.
The revision downwards is potentially due to audience reviews. While online polls on aggregate sites paint the film as high as ‘Force Awakens,’ actual exit polls taken at the cinema of audience members tell a slightly different story with the movie earning an official CinemaScore of ‘B+’ – the lowest CinemaScore for any live-action film in the entire franchise.
All but “Solo” of the recent Disney films scored an ‘A’ while “Solo” and the prequels trilogy snagged an ‘A-‘. The original trilogy wasn’t around in the time of CinemaScore. ‘Skywalker’ isn’t the lowest SW film overall to get one though, that honor goes to Dave Filoni’s 2008 “The Clone Wars” animated feature which snagged a B-.
“Jumanji: The Next Level” snagged $26.1 million in its second weekend, bringing it to a $101.9 million domestic and $311.9 million worldwide haul so far. Solid numbers, but it’s unlikely to catch up to the last movie’s $962.1 million. Disney’s “Frozen II” held onto third in its fifth week, falling to $12.3 million for a domestic total of $386 million and a worldwide haul of $1.1 billion.
The other big news was “Cats”. Estimates early last week had it pegged at a $15-17 million opening, that number slipping to a dismal $8.5 million when Friday’s box-office came in. With Saturday’s numbers collected, it’s gone even further down – falling to $6.5 million. International isn’t helping out either, the film taking just $4.4 million for a $10.9 million worldwide total opening weekend – a disaster no matter how you paint it. With its awful critical reviews and terrible C+ CinemaScore from audiences, this pussy will be put down very soon.
Lastly, “Bombshell” expanded to a wide release this weekend, jumping to sixth place behind “Knives Out” and taking in $5 million.
Source: Box-Office Mojo
