The box office for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is going to be very interesting to watch. Last night, early Thursday preview estimates had the film grossing about $43-44 million on the night, pretty much in line with the $45 million Thursday preview start of The Last Jedi but the official numbers are in and the film came in just a tad lower than that.
Disney has reported a $40 million Thursday night preview gross for The Rise of Skywalker. This is still a solid number but comes in $5 million below that start of The Last Jedi. Disney still gets some bragging rights and then some because this is the fifth-highest Thursday preview of all-time after April’s Avengers: Endgame ($60 million), 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($57 million) and 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($45 million) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($43.5 million). Did you notice that Disney has four of the five biggest Thursday preview launches? Don’t cry for them Argentina.
The Rise of Skywalker preview start also bests that of Avengers: Infinity War ($39 million) and December 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ($29 million). It should also be noted that exit polling last night was quite good for the film, even though some on social media think that’s because it mostly consists of the fanboy rush on preview night. We’ll know more when the CinemaScore is revealed but I suspect that will be pretty good as well given the reaction at my sold-out screening. Exits last night showed 4 1/2 stars and a 76% definite recommend with parents and kids under 12, who showed up at 16% combined, giving the J.J. Abrams-directed finale five stars. General audiences represented 89% of the crowd.
We’ll be updating the box office results on Star Wars and the other releases daily as December box office begins to heat up today through the new year. Stay tuned.
