Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Tops Christmas Day Box Office

Star Wars recently brought the nine movie strong Skywalker saga to a close with The Rise of Skywalker, and it's no mystery as to why this film has been one of the stronger box office releases in the franchise yet. Although it's been fairly divisive among dedicated fans of the franchise, it's still had very much the huge impact on the box office that one would expect from a new Star Wars entry. According to new numbers and listings from Box Office Mojo, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker dominated the Christmas Day box office with $32 million USD over the Wednesday holiday.

The estimated $32 million earned brings the current domestic total for the film to over $258 million, and that's expected to grow even more as we officially head into the second weekend of release. This is the second biggest Christmas Day showing behind the seventh entry, The Force Awakens.

Currently, The Rise of Skywalker is up on Rotten Tomatoes with the second-worst critics score for a live-action Star Wars movie, earning a surprising 55%. However, the film is fairing better with audiences and currently has an 86% audience score. ComicBook.com's own Patrick Cavanaugh called the movie "a mixed bag of delights and frustrations that largely succeeds" and gave it a 4 out of 5 rating.

This clash between audience and critical reaction certainly isn't surprising given the divided response to the previous film, The Last Jedi, and there's going to be a lot of back and forth between the two responses for quite some time. But regardless, there's still going to be a huge demand for the newest film and it's clearly going into its second weekend stronger than ever. With The Rise of Skywalker being the biggest film in theaters for the next couple of weeks, expect it to sit at top of the box office for much longer than just the holiday!

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker stars a returning Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong'o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Billie Lourd, and Greg Grunberg. New cast members include Naomi Ackie, Richard E. Grant, Keri Russell, and Dominic Monaghan, and the returning veteran actors are Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams, and Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor. According to Abrams, Leia is featured in the film using unreleased footage of Carrie Fisher from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.