Star Wars: The Last Jedi tops $1 billion worldwide
LOS ANGELES — Disney-Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi has cleared the $1-billion milestone in worldwide grosses in less than three weeks.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi pulled in $120.4 million globally on the New Year’s Eve weekend with $52.4 million at 4,232 domestic venues and $68 million internationally during the Friday-Sunday period.
The Last Jedi is now the eighth highest-grossing domestic movie of all time with $517.1 million — only $15 million behind last year’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in the seventh spot. On the worldwide chart, it’s now 24th with $1.04 billion, edging Universal-Illumination’s Despicable Me 3. The tentpole’s international total, currently at $523.2 million, will see a significant jolt when it opens on Jan. 5 in China, its final market.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi has also topped Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, which grossed $504 million in North America, for the top spot among 2017 releases domestically. It’s the fourth 2017 title to go past $1 billion worldwide, along with Beauty and the Beast at $1.26 billion, The Fate of the Furious at $1.24 billion and Despicable Me 3 at $1.03 billion.
The Last Jedi is also winning the domestic weekend box-office crown for the third time with $52.4 million, edging Sony’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which took in $50.6 million at 3,765 locations for the Friday-Sunday. However, Sony’s projection showed the Jumanji sequel grossing $16.5 million on New Year’s Day on Monday — well above Disney’s forecast of $13.2 million for The Last Jedi. Should those numbers hold, Jumanji would edge Jedi over the four-day period with $67 million, winning by $1.4 million.
Jumanji has been The Last Jedi’s biggest competitor by far since it opened on Dec. 20. The action-comedy should wind up with an 11-day domestic total of $186.3 million by the end of Monday. The action-comedy, starring Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, has a $90-million budget. It’s also performed impressively in international markets with $107 million through Dec. 28.
Jedi and Jumanji helped lift the entire North American box office for 2017 to $11.12 billion, down 2.3% from last year’s $11.38 billion and off slightly from 2015’s $11.14 billion, according to comScore. The gap for 2017 had been more than 6% at the end of the worst summer in a decade but performances by It, Thor: Ragnarok, Justice League, Jedi, and Jumanji closed most of that margin.
“With another $11 billion plus year on the books, the industry looks ahead to awards season and a 2018 packed with blockbuster titles and a hope for a year slightly less volatile than 2017,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with comScore.
Universal’s Pitch Perfect 3 led the rest of weekend’s domestic pack with a projected $22.7 million at 3,468 locations for Friday-Monday, lifting its 11-day total to $69.2 million. The comedy threequel, starring Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson, took in $13.1 million this weekend from 34 international markets for a foreign total of $28.6 million.
Hugh Jackman’s musical drama The Greatest Showman is finishing a close fourth with $20.3 million at 3,316 theaters forecasted for the four days. The Fox-Chernin Entertainment title showed the biggest gain in the top 10 movies from the Christmas Eve weekend with an impressive 73% surge. The domestic total should hit $53.8 million through Monday.
Fox’s second weekend of Ferdinand — the only film to open on the same weekend as The Last Jedi — followed in fifth with $15.1 million at 3,337 North American venues, giving the animated comedy $57.3 million in 18 days. Disney-Pixar’s seventh weekend of Coco finished sixth with a projected $8.8 million at 2,845 sites for a domestic total of $181.1 million and $539 million worldwide.
Rounding out the top 10 were: Coco ($8.8 million); Darkest Hour ($7.4 million); All the Money in the World ($7.2 million); Downsizing ($6.0 million); and, Father Figures ($5.5 million). — Reuters/AFP