‘Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker’ Hits $1 Billion At Global Box Office
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalkerhas Force-d its way to $1 billion at the worldwide box office, making it the fifthStar Warsmovie to cross that threshold and cementing it as the secondJ.J. Abrams-directed film on the list of billion dollar grossers. But as you might have imagined, this movie crossed that milestone significantly more slowly than the previous two entries in the Skywalker saga.
In its 28th day of release, Disney and Lucasfilm’sStar Wars: The Rise of Skywalkerbox office totals ticked above $1 billion, making it the seventh Disney movie of 2019 to break that barrier. But some Disney executives are probably breathing a small sigh of relief, because if this moviedidn’thit a billion, it would almost certainly be viewed as a massive catastrophe. It’s already slightly embarrassing that the much-hyped “final entry in the Skywalker saga” took longer than bothThe Force AwakensandThe Last Jedito hit $1 billion. (ComingSoonreminds us thatForce Awakenstook just 12 days, whileLast Jeditook 19 days to achieve it.)
A billion isn’t what it used to be. There was a time, nottoolong ago, when hitting that mark was essentially reserved for only “perfect storm” situations. But now there are 46 movies that have made more than a billion dollars globally, and that list includes films likeMinions,The Fate of the Furious, and last year’s live-action version ofAladdin. That’s not exactly top-tier quality company – but of course, box office success should never be used as a metric to judge quality anyway.
I can’t help but wonder how this latestStar Warsfilm might have performed if Colin Trevorrow, who was attached to direct before Abrams was brought on to replace him, was allowed to make his version of the movie. Details from his scripthave begun to leak out, painting a much different picture of what this story could have been, and since this is a mega-franchise in which every aspect of it is constantly being put under the microscope by fans, I imagine we’re going to be spending the next few years learning additional tidbits of how things may have differed under alternate circumstances. It’s a fascinating thought experiment that will clearly never have a definitive answer – in other words, it’s the perfect thing forStar Warsfans to spend loads of time arguing about while we wait to see what Kathleen Kennedy and Co. have in store for the future of the film franchise.
