After a confirmed $198.8 million international box office bow for Disney/Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker this past weekend, the Monday grosses have pushed Episode IX to $226.8M offshore. Globally, the JJ Abrams-directed flying Stormtroopers have hit $433.4M through yesterday.
While the initial overseas weekend session was off 16% from Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Skywalker looks to be closing the gap on the previous installment. It’s now about 12% down including Monday’s take. It is early to read the tea leaves given the varied holiday release pattern between the two films. We’ll know more throughout the seasonal corridor and into the early part of 2020. Still, no reason to think this last Star Wars pic won’t cross $1 billion worldwide.
On Monday, Skywalker added $28M from its 52 material offshore markets. This represents 17% of the first weekend. The Last Jedi did about 12%, though it had extra days pre-Christmas so is not apples-to-apples.
Currently, the top five markets on this saga-ender are the UK ($32.1M), Germany ($26.1M), France ($19.7M), Japan ($16.5M) and Australia ($14.2M). This is a traditional pattern for the space epic — each of these markets is typically within the top-five ultimates. Note that the UK closes its cinemas on Christmas Day, so the rankings could possibly shift by Thursday when we’ll next report.
China, to no one’s surprise, remains indifferent to the Resistance’s plight. The gross there through Monday is $12.9M.
More to come this week…