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Box Office: Hollywood Is Betting That 'Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker' Performs Like 'The Dark Knight'

This article is more than 4 years old.

Today is August 20, 2019, meaning we are four months out, not counting the Thursday previews, from the domestic debut of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Or, depending on what kind of nerd you happen to be, it's also the domestic opening day of Cats. Yes, #Youcanseethemboth, but Tom Hopper's live-action adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is noteworthy in that it is the biggest movie ever to open alongside a new Star Wars movie. It will be preceded by Jake Kasdan’s Jumanji: The Next Level on December 13 and followed on Christmas Day by Blue Sky and Fox's Spies in Disguise.

Baring a fluke of implausible proportions, J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will rule over the year-end holiday season, at least in North America and presumably abroad as well. However, the overseas box office battle, with the caveat that all these films can "win" if they perform to financial requirements and expectations, is more complicated. Each of these three films, including one from Disney itself, is a bet on being able to share the Christmas box office pie and a bet that maybe, just maybe, overseas audiences won't be as teary-eyed over the end of the Star Wars saga as we Yankees might be.

If you're someone for whom Star Wars has been a defining cinematic franchise, The Rise of Skywalker will be akin to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Avengers: Endgame and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. But if you're someone who doesn't put Star Wars on a pedestal, then it will mean about as much to you and yours as did The Maze Runner: The Death Cure or Fifty Shades Freed. To those who now view Star Wars as just another big-budget action fantasy franchise, Cats or Jumanji 3 might be, to them, the bigger year-end event.

Force Awakens earned $1.131 billion overseas in late 2015/early 2016, including $164 million in the United Kingdom and $124 million in China. Last Jedi earned $712 million overseas (probably what Hobbs & Shaw will earn in total), but just $42 million in China and $111 million in the UK. That’s normal for a Star Wars sequel. Revenge of the Sith jumped a whopping 38% overseas ($468 million) from Attack of the Clones ($338 million) partially to not having Spider-Man to contend with. I’m mostly confident that Rise of Skywalker will play on a similar playing field to The Last Jedi or even take the standard 25% sequel-to-threequel domestic jump.

I'm less sure that overseas will follow suit. If overseas audiences care about the end of the Skywalker Saga anywhere near as much as they cared about the end of Marvel’s Infinity Saga, then super-duper. Pitting Cats and Jumanji: The Next Level alongside Star Wars IX is a two-fold game. First, they are going with what has worked in the past, with Universal pitting a kid-friendly musical like Sing ($572 million) against a Star Wars movie like they did in 2016 and Sony opening the third Jumanji movie in the same general area where the last one earned $404 million domestic and $962 million worldwide.

Second, they are betting that there may be an opening outside of North America. In the summer of 2008, Universal opened Mamma Mia! concurrently in North America alongside Space Chimps and The Dark Knight. One of those two movies shattered the opening weekend record with a $158 million bow and legged out to $533 million domestic while becoming the fourth film ever to top $1 billion worldwide. Right alongside Chris Nolan's acclaimed Batman/Joker thriller, the ABBA jukebox musical opened with $27 million and legged it to $144 million while earning $609 million worldwide. That was more than Iron Man ($585 million) that summer.

The Meryl Streep/Amanda Seyfried musical romance also earned just $4 million less overseas ($465 million) than both The Dark Knight and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The Dark Knight still has the biggest domestic percentage (53%) of its total of any $1 billion grosser. Like the Star Wars films, the Batman franchise has tended to slant domestic even as overseas box office has become a bigger part of the overall equation. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle earned $557 million overseas in late 2017/early 2018. Heck, Tom Hopper's big musical of Christmas 2012, Les Misérables, earned $444 million worldwide including $293 million overseas.

One thing that helped Les Miz (a three-hour, emotionally-wrenching musical melodrama) was the 2012’s year-end mega-movie, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, was (comparatively) a "for fans only" blockbuster. The fans showed up ($1 billion worldwide, $718 million overseas, almost identical to Last Jedi's overseas grosses), but there was room for Lincoln, Les Misérables and Django Unchained. If The Rise of Skywalker plays "for Star Wars fans only," especially overseas, well, that’s where Blue Sky's Spies in Disguise comes in. It’s Disney’s insurance against any Star Wars downturn, as was (ten years ago) Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel opening just days after Avatar.  

Fox wasn't sure that folks would show up for James Cameron's original, mega-budget sci-fi epic. Thus, they had a sequel to the successful Alvin and the Chipmunks waiting at the ready. It was win/win strategy, as Avatar earned $2.789 billion worldwide while Alvin 2 earned $441 million. Fox/Disney are playing the same game a decade later. If Star Wars under-performs overseas, the Will Smith/Tom Holland toon, about a super spy who gets turned into a pigeon, will be there to snap up at least some otherwise disinterested family moviegoers. And, yes, Sony’s Jumanji: The Next Level and Universal’s Cats will be there to fill the void.

If Jumanji: The Next Level holds the line compared to Welcome to the Jungle and/or Cats pulls in Mama Mia! numbers outside of North America, while The Rise of Skywalker takes a notable (and/or catastrophic Jurassic Park III-level) drop outside of North America, it may be a closer race overseas. The Rise of Skywalker could play like Revenge of the Sith (+25% domestic and +38% overseas compared to Attack of the Clones and top $1.7 billion worldwide. The most likely scenario is (of course) that all four of these movies make big bucks over the holiday season, with some left over for Greta Gerwig’s Little Women to boot.

Nonetheless, just as Disney demanded comparatively draconian terms for domestic theaters two years ago because they knew Last Jedi might drop more overseas than in North America, they dated a Will Smith toon on Christmas just in case Rise of Skywalker was a "for fans only" affair with a strong domestic-tilt. And while it makes perfect sense for Cats to go at Christmas (the holidays are when musicals kick butt) while Sony’s Jumanji threequel tries to make lightning strike twice, it will be fascinating to watch both how The Rise of Skywalker is received overseas and how that performance plays off the competition.

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