'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Dominating Christmas Box Office, But Audiences May Be Waning

‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Dominating Christmas Box Office, But Audiences May Be Waning

In just one week,Star Wars: The Last Jedipulled in $296 million at the domestic box office. With the Christmas weekend ahead of us, the sci-fi sequel will have no problem dominating the box office despite the onslaught of new releases that includeJumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Pitch Perfect 3, Downsizing, The Greatest ShowmanandFather Figures, not to mention a limited release of Steven Spielberg’s The Post.

However, it should be noted that even thoughStar Wars: The Last Jediis raking in plenty of cash at the box office, it’s not holding onto anywhere near as large of an audience asStar Wars: The Force Awakensdid. In fact, The Last Jedi is retaining even less of its opening day audience thanRogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Find out more about theStar Wars: The Last Jedibox office below.

Over the four-day weekend,DeadlinesaysStar Wars: The Last Jediis estimated to pull in $102 million from 4,232 screens. That number is a prediction based on how much the movie took in on Friday. That should take the total to over $400 million, and that’s just the domestic box office. Those are some great numbers, but the movie is still performing 28% behind its predecessor,The Force Awakens.

That’s not necessarily surprising since the return ofStar Wars with The Force Awakenswas such a big deal in 2015. At the time, it had been 10 years since we had a Star Wars movie, and The Force Awakens was the beginning of a new era of Star Wars. Of course, once some audiences got a taste of what this new trilogy was going to be like, they weren’t necessarily on board for more. Sequels frequently earn less than their predecessor, and that’s exactly what happened withThe Last Jedi.

However, what’s potentially worrisome is thatThe Last Jediisn’t holding onto as much of its opening day audience. Or asForbesreports,The Last Jedihas the worst daily holds numbers of anyStar Warsmovie ever. As of Wednesday, December 20, after six days of release,The Last Jedihad retained only 16 percent of its opening day gross. That’s lower than every otherStar Warsmovie across the board, evenRogue One. In fact, that’s even lower thanJustice League’s daily holds, which held on to 27 percent of its opening day gross on the sixth day of release.

One possible explanation is the lower daily holds numbers come from the fact thatThe Last Jedihas arguably been the most divisiveStar Warsmovie ever made. Fans are debating the movie all over the web (we’ve had articles arguing both for and against the success of the sequel), and that means less repeat viewers. It would certainly explain whyForbesreports the movie dropped 76.4 percent Friday-to-Friday. But even so,The Last Jedihad a smaller opening-to-day-eight drop than bothAttack of the ClonesandRevenge of the Sith, which dropped 78 percent and 81 percent respectively when they were released on a Thursday likeThe Last Jedi.

Again, let’s not forget that Wednesday saw the release of all those new releases we just mentioned, and even more people were seeing them this holiday weekend. WhenThe Force Awakenshit theaters, it didn’t have to contend with five new wide releases pulling at a variety of audiences with several family friendly options likeCoco, FerdinandandWonderstill available. ThoughThe Last Jediwill have an easy time beating all of them at the box office, all those movies are still making money (Jumanji: Welcome to the Junglewill take in roughly $60 million over the four-day weekend), which means less people will be seeingThe Last Jedi.

While the daily holds drop is certainly disappointing news to hear, this doesn’t mean thatThe Last Jediwon’t turn a profit for Lucasfilm and Disney. However, it could possibly mean that the future ofStar Warscould be on a little shakier ground than some thought. Some fans may wash their hands ofStar WarsafterThe Last Jediand opt not to see how the last chapter in the trilogy concludes. Then again, those who fell wronged byThe Last Jedimay return for Episode IX to see if J.J. Abrams can save the day, so to speak.

No matter what happens,Star Warsisn’t going anywhere anytime soon.Star Wars: The Last Jedidirector Rian Johnsonhas a whole new trilogy in the worksthat takes place outside of the Skywalker saga that will have unfolded over nine movies when all is said and done. Will audiences be as interested in the new trilogy as they are the three-trilogy saga that came before it? We’ll just have to wait and see.