Can ‘The Last Jedi’ match ‘The Force Awakens’?
EPISODE eight of the intergalactic adventure opens in 40 countries worldwide between Dec 13 and 15. Pressure is mounting on director Rian Johnson, whose film follows “The Force Awakens,” the third biggest hit in movie history.
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” cleaned up at the box office in 2015. In the USA, the franchise’s seventh episode broke the record for the most successful opening weekend, grossing US$ 248 million, before working its way to the top of the box office leader board with US$ 936.7 million. Worldwide, the film grossed US$ 2.186 billion, making it the third highestgrossing movie of all time, behind “Avatar” and “Titanic.”
For “The Last Jedi,” experts expect US opening weekend grosses to top US$ 200 million. Currently, only three feature fi lms have achieved such a feat: “The Force Awakens,” “Jurassic World” ( US$ 209 million) and the fi rst “Avengers” movie ( US$ 207 million).
Facing audience fatigue?
However, this could prove more challenging for the eighth episode, mainly because it will be the third “Star Wars” movie to land in theatres in just two years — including the “Rogue One” spinoff — whereas “The Force Awakens” opened after a 10year break from the big screen. Naturally, audience excitement and anticipation levels cannot be the same. Even if “The Last Jedi” follows on directly from the previous episode and should answer some of the questions left up in the air, only keen fans of the franchise are expected to make the trip to theatres for the first screenings. For everyone else, the movie can probably wait a few days or even a few weeks.
Seeing out 2017 in style
And yet, “The Last Jedi” has all the makings of a hit, even if the records of its predecessor may seem out of reach. In comparison, in 2015, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” grossed US$ 191.3 million during its opening weekend in the US — less than the previous episode’s US$ 207 million. However, the film still went on to become the seventh highest grossing movie of all time with US$ 1.4 billion.
In any case, the next “Star Wars” movie has a good chance of taking the top spot in the 2017 worldwide box office ranking, currently held by another Disney film, “Beauty and the Beast.” With total grosses of US$ 1.63 billion, the live- action remake of the animated classic comes ahead of “Fast and Furious 8” ( US$ 1.235 billion) and “Despicable Me 3” ( US$ 1.032 billion) — the only fi lms to have grossed more than one billion dollars this year.
“Beauty and the Beast” is also the USA’s most-watched movie this year with grosses of US$ 504 million, including US$ 174.7 million from the opening weekend.