Star Wars: The Last Jedi will earn $220 million at the domestic box office this weekend, according to Disney’s Sunday morning estimate. After starting out with the second-biggest day of all time on Friday (a monstrous $104.787 million, including $45 million in Thursday previews), the film looks to be holding on well through the weekend. Saturday’s estimate is $64 million, off 39% from Friday, compared to The Force Awakens’ decline of 43% on its second day. Disney is projecting a decline of 20% on Sunday, while Awakens dropped 11%, which suggests caution on their part, and the possibility of a final opening weekend a little higher than their current projection.
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December 16th, 2017
The Last Jedi topped last night’s estimate, earning $104.78 million on Friday. It is only the second film to reach the century mark during its opening day. It is still 12% lower than the $119 million The Force Awakens opened with, but if it has the same legs, it will earn $218 million during its opening weekend. The reviews are practically identical and both films earned an A from CinemaScore, so having similar legs is more likely. Sequels usually have shorter legs, but The Last Jedi had better growth from Thursday previews to Friday’s numbers, so this could be a good omen. Maybe it will earn $220 million during its opening weekend.
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December 15th, 2017
Disney is really on top of the The Last Jedi hype train sending updated tracking of its opening day. Instead of aiming for $94 million to $99 million, the studio is aiming for $99 million to $104 million, putting on pace to be only the second film to earn $100 million during its opening day. Furthermore, CinemaScore released their final rating and it was a solid A, exactly what the reviews would suggest. The studio expects the film to make $205 million to $215 million over the weekend, which is close enough to our prediction that I’m happy.
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December 15th, 2017
We expect Star Wars: The Last Jedi to have an opening weekend box office total almost exactly in the middle of The Force Awakens and Rogue One. Since those two films earned $57 million and $29 million respectively during their previews, The Last Jedi would need $43 million to be on target. According to Disney it pulled in $45 million last night, making it the second-best Thursday preview of all time. (The Force Awakens is number one, while Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II was pushed into third place with $43.5 million.) That’s not a lot above where we needed it, but does make $210 million for the weekend more likely. Additionally, the reviews remain impressive at 93% positive, while the average score given by the critics so far is 8.2 out of 10. There were some grumblings that the audiences were less impressed; however, this appears to be internet buzz and not reflective of the real world. We don’t have the full ComScore grade yet, but they reported 90% positive results last night, as well as 82% in the “Definitely recommend” category. That’s simply fantastic. We will have a better picture by this time tomorrow when the Friday estimates arrive and we can compare legs with the previous two Star Wars films.
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December 14th, 2017
2017 is behind 2016’s pace by over $400 million and and this weekend is the last chance it has to cut that deficit by any real margin. This weekend, Star Wars: The Last Jedi debuts and it is practically a guaranteed monster hit. Rogue One made just over $400 million in the 2016 calendar year, while The Force Awakens earned just over $650 million. The Last Jedi is widely expected to earn somewhere in-between those results. In the meantime, there is one other wide release, Ferdinand, which is the textbook definition of counter-programming. The studio is just hoping it doesn’t get lost in the crowd. This weekend last year, the total box office was $211.57 million. I give The Last Jedi about a 50/50 chance of topping that by itself.
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December 12th, 2017
It was a good weekend at the box office, relatively speaking, as most films in the top five beat expectations. Granted, this was mostly by tiny amounts, but it added up. We still fell 20% compared to last week to $84 million. This is 1.2% higher than the same weekend last year and we were expecting a similarly close loss, so this is a surprise victory. The year-over-year numbers are almost identical to last week, with this year down by 4.1% or $420 million when compared to last year. Right now 2017 has pulled in $9.79 billion, while 2016 had a running tally of $10.21 billion.
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December 11th, 2017
The Golden Globes nominations are the second major Awards Season set to come out. Sort of. (WGA announced the nominations for TV, radio, etc., but not their theatrical nods.) It is still very early in the year, so it is hard to say if there are any real snubs, or if there are any real favorites. The Shape of Water led the way with seven nominations, while The Post and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri were right behind with six a piece.
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December 9th, 2017
Coco surprised no one by earning first place on Friday. It earned $4.27 million, giving it a running tally of $121.48 million after 17 days of release and putting it on pace for $19 million over the weekend. Good news: This is a little better than expected. Bad news: Next weekend could be a mess, as the film will not only have to deal with monster competition, but direct competition as well. If it can avoid being demolished at the box office next weekend, then it will stick around in the top ten for the rest of the year. Even if if does get demolished, it still has a shot at $200 million domestically, but it will be close.
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December 1st, 2017
The box office was mostly as expected during November. Granted, Thor: Ragnarok over-performed and Justice League underperformed, but overall there were no real surprises. This means the month started slow, but we got a couple of wins in the end and that bodes well going into the final month of the year. That said, December is a weird month. There are five weekends, but only seven films that I’m sure are opening truly wide. Additionally, five of those seven films are opening Christmas weekend. I’ve never seen a month this lop-sided. There are no real wide releases the first two weeks of the month, so we will likely start slow again, but when The Last Jedi debuts, we should see explosive growth at the box office. It will open with more than any film last December made and that should help 2017 cut into 2016’s lead. 2017 won’t be able to close the gap entirely, but the month could do well enough to cut 2016’s lead to under $250 million. That’s my goal. If that happens, I will be happy.
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March 28th, 2017
Animated adventure with the voice of John Cena opens December 15 ... Full Movie Details.
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