Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker arrives at last this weekend, bringing with it the end of the Sequel Trilogy. Putting the question of how fans will react to it aside, there’s also been a lot of speculation about how it’ll fare at the box office. The last SW movie to hit theaters was Solo, and we all know how much that underperformed. According to the latest predictions, though, Episode IX is set to earn a Death Star-sized haul this weekend.
Deadline reports that J.J. Abrams’ second directorial effort in the franchise is due to rake in around $450 million across the globe on its first weekend of release. If this is accurate, Lucasfilm will likely be very pleased seeing as it’s exactly on par with The Last Jedi‘s own opening, which totaled $450.8 million. This is a fair amount less than what The Force Awakens kicked off to back in 2015 – a whopping $528.9 million – but that was always going to be a one-of-a-kind situation.
Diehard fans who didn’t care for it have often slammed The Last Jedi for putting people off Star Wars in the wake of Solo‘s disappointing gross, but it’s looking like there’s no truth in this whatsoever, what with TROS on course to earn virtually just as much as Rian Johnson’s middle installment. Sure, an extra boost of cash given that this is the finale of the Skywalker saga wouldn’t go amiss, but the second movie bringing in around about the same as the last one matches up with how things went down with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi back in the day.
Going back to the fans’ reactions for a moment though, and early reviews from yesterday’s premiere have been positive to mixed, with some critics blown away by what they saw and others hinting at some issues they had with it. Thankfully, we’ll be able to make up our own minds on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker when it arrives in theaters later this week.