‘Last Jedi’ gives year’s box office a much-needed jolt
The Last Jedi is bringing the Force to the struggling
2017 box office — and just in time.
The stellar December performance of the eighth Star Wars film will inject about $500 million into this year’s totals, says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for industry tracker comScore.
That will be enough to propel the lagging North American box office to more than $11 billion, even if
2017 will finish down as much as 2.5% from 2016’s record haul of $11.4 billion.
“This shows what one enormous movie Death Star like The Last Jedi can do: It can change the fortunes for the box office year overnight,” Dergarabedian says. “We needed this movie to prevent a crushing defeat, and we needed it now.”
This marks the third year in a row that Star Wars films have provided significant year-end boosts, each time pushing the box office to previously unseen heights of $11 billion.
The Force Awakens’ $652 million haul in December 2015 allowed for the first $11 billion year. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’s $408 million in December
2016 drove the current record. “December had never been a hotbed for blockbuster openings until the newera Star Wars movies, which have redefined what’s possible,” Dergarabedian says. “The Last Jedi is no exception.”
Scott Mendelson, box office analyst for Forbes, says he was impressed by
2017 offerings from the start, with wellreceived movies such as January’s scary Split ($138 million), February’s socially topical Get Out ($175 million) and March’s Beauty and the Beast (the year’s current champ at $504 million).
But cineplexes were crushed by the lowest-grossing summer in 20 years
($3.8 billion), the first time the moviefriendly season hasn’t broken the $4 billion mark since 2006.
There were big-ticket summer clunkers such as Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets ($41 million) and the adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower ($51 million). Rrated comedies such as The House ($26 million) and Rough Night ($22 million) also tanked.
But Mendelson argues there were quality summer offerings such as Os- car-contending Dunkirk ($188 million). He speculates the season might have suffered an audience “hangover” from
2016’s “dreaded” summer of poor fare. Smaller movies had an impact and restored confidence in theater-going with modestly budgeted, critically admired, slow-burn hits such as comedy The Big Sick ($43 million) and heist film Baby Driver ($108 million).
“The films that clicked really stuck around,” Mendelson says.
Horror was a big contributor, too. The adaptation of King’s It ($327 million) led September to a record month. Annabelle: Creation ($102 million) and Happy Death Day ($56 million) joined Split and Get Out in a banner year when horror scored more than $1 billion.
An influx of major comic book movies also combined forces: Logan ($226 million), Justice League ($223 million), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
($390 million), Spider-Man: Homecoming ($334 million), Thor: Ragnarok
($309 million) and Wonder Woman
($413 million).
“Star Wars saved the day in 2017,”
Dergarabedian says. “But it couldn’t have without modestly budgeted horror movies and big-budget superhero movies.”
Final figures for the year are expected Jan. 2.