Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker brought a 42-year-old film franchise to an end, and that alone should have guaranteed success. Unfortunately, fans and critics alike didn't respond particularly positively to the Skywalker Saga finale, and a little too much fan-service backfired on Lucasfilm in a big way.
Moviegoers rejected The Rise of Skywalker (its B+ CinemaScore was a franchise low), and with a global opening weekend of $376.1 million, it was down 17% from The Last Jedi ($450.8 million) and The Force Awakens ($528.96 million). It did, however, manage to still earn over $1 billion worldwide, but how did that translate in terms of profit? Not overly well, unfortunately.
With a $275 million production cost and global costs of $627 million, Deadline reports that The Rise of Skywalker's net profit was $300 million. That's less than Rogue One: A Star Wars Story's $319.6 million, but much better than Solo (which ended up losing nearly $77 million).
The big screen future of the Star Wars franchise remains unclear, as a number of filmmakers are attached to a variety of standalone movies and trilogies. Things are looking brighter on the small screen thanks to Disney+, but it's clear Lucasfilm needs to go back to the drawing board following the response to The Rise of Skywalker.
What did you guys think about Abrams and Terrio's finale?