When Disney started releasing new Star Wars movies in the back half of the 2010s, things got off to about as strong a start as anyone could have hoped. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a record-breaking sensation, setting new all-time marks at the box office while also earning the franchise’s most positive reviews in decades. A year later, spinoff Rogue One: A Star Wars Story proved Star Wars could go beyond the Skywalker Saga for compelling cinematic stories, telling an emotional tale of sacrifice during war. Similar to The Force Awakens, Rogue One was very well-received and earned over $1 billion worldwide. Today, some even consider it to be Disney’s best Star Wars movie.
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This is all to say, Star Wars was riding high when Star Wars: The Last Jedi was gearing up for its premiere in December 2017. The promise of a significant role for an older Luke Skywalker combined with continuing arcs for the newcomers introduced in The Force Awakens made The Last Jedi one of the most anticipated films of the year. Of course, just about everyone knows now that The Last Jedi proved to be extremely polarizing, dividing audiences (and breaking Star Wars fandom) with its bold creative choices and storytelling approach. Regardless of where one falls on the Last Jedi debate, there’s one undeniable fact: the film cleaned up at the box office.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi Is One of the Highest-Grossing Movies of All Time
While The Last Jedi‘s box office figures pale in comparison to its predecessor (which was a perfect storm of hype that will probably never be replicated), it still did very well for itself. It ended its run as the highest-grossing film of 2017 both domestically ($620.1 million) and worldwide ($1.3 billion), and currently ranks as the 22nd highest-grossing film in history (unadjusted for inflation). The Last Jedi easily recouped its $300 million production budget and turned a profit.
This commercial performance is impressive when one considers the fan reactions. The Last Jedi is critically acclaimed (91% on Rotten Tomatoes), but the audience scores tell a different story. For every fan who thought The Last Jedi was the radical reinvention Star Wars needed to stay fresh, there were viewers who thought writer/director Rian Johnson had fundamentally destroyed the sequel trilogy and the Skywalker saga itself. Usually, when responses run this varied of a spectrum, it doesn’t bode well for a film’s box office prospects. Mixed word of mouth can be a death knell, but The Last Jedi held strong even as it faced some notable competition early during its run.
After opening with $220 million at the domestic box office and $450.8 million globally (the eighth-biggest ever at the time), The Last Jedi showed off its legs. It earned $99 million domestically over an extended Christmas weekend, beating out high-profile new arrivals like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Pitch Perfect 3, and The Greatest Showman. All of these titles went on to achieve box office success, but The Last Jedi reigned over them all, maintaining the No. 1 position on the charts until its fourth weekend in the United States, where it fell to third. The Last Jedi remained in the top 10 for six weekends.
Star Wars doesn’t always abide by typical box office rules (The Force Awakens‘ domestic record of $936.6 millon may never be broken), but it would have been reasonable to expect a polarizing film to have a steeper drop off. A huge opening was always a given considering the popularity of the Star Wars brand, but there have been plenty of instances where a movie falls off after a big debut because the word of mouth simply isn’t there. In the case of The Last Jedi, the big takeaway could be that general audiences (the demographic responsible for propelling these tentpoles past the $1 billion mark) weren’t concerned with heated online debates about whether or not Luke Skywalker was ruined. They were just happy to have a big new Star Wars movie to check out over the holiday season, and they largely enjoyed what they saw. There were plenty of other options that could have put more of a dent in The Last Jedi‘s early dominance, but audiences opted to go back to the galaxy far, far away.
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