8 Years Ago, Star Wars’ Most Divisive Film Ever Broke the Box Office

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When Disney revived the Star Wars films in the late 2010s, the initial reception was incredibly strong. The Force Awakens was a massive hit, breaking box office records and receiving the most positive reviews the franchise had seen in decades. The following year, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story demonstrated that the Star Wars universe could successfully expand beyond the Skywalker family, delivering a moving story about wartime sacrifice. Like The Force Awakens, Rogue One was a critical and commercial success, earning over $1 billion globally, and is now considered by some to be Disney’s best Star Wars film.

When Star Wars: The Last Jedi was released in December 2017, the Star Wars franchise was incredibly popular. Fans were excited about seeing an older Luke Skywalker return and continuing the stories of the new characters from The Force Awakens. However, The Last Jedi turned out to be very controversial, sharply dividing audiences and creating a lot of disagreement within the Star Wars community due to its unexpected creative decisions. Despite the debate, the film was a huge financial success at the box office.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Is One of the Highest-Grossing Movies of All Time

Although The Last Jedi didn’t make quite as much money as The Force Awakens (which benefited from an incredible amount of excitement that’s unlikely to happen again), it was still a huge financial success. It was the highest-grossing movie of 2017 in both the US ($620.1 million) and worldwide ($1.3 billion), and currently ranks as the 22nd highest-grossing film of all time (without adjusting for inflation). The movie easily earned back its $300 million production cost and made a substantial profit.

Despite the strong differences in opinion among fans, The Last Jedi performed very well in theaters. While critics loved the film (giving it a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes), viewers were much more divided. Some fans praised it as a bold new direction for Star Wars, while others felt it ruined the entire sequel trilogy and the Skywalker family story. Usually, such a wide range of reactions would hurt a film’s box office numbers, as negative word-of-mouth can be damaging. However, The Last Jedi proved resilient and maintained strong ticket sales even with new movies also being released.

Following a strong opening weekend with $220 million in domestic ticket sales and $450.8 million worldwide (making it the eighth-highest grossing opening ever at the time), The Last Jedi proved to be a long-running hit. It earned $99 million domestically over the Christmas weekend, performing better than new releases like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Pitch Perfect 3, and The Greatest Showman. While those films also went on to be successful, The Last Jedi stayed on top, holding the No. 1 spot for four weeks before dropping to third place. It remained among the top ten highest-grossing films for a total of six weeks.

While Star Wars often defies typical movie business expectations – The Force Awakens earned a massive $936.6 million domestically, a record that might never be beaten – it was reasonable to assume a divisive film would see a quicker decline in ticket sales. A strong opening weekend was guaranteed due to the Star Wars name, but many movies fall off quickly after a big debut if audiences don’t like them. However, The Last Jedi suggests that general moviegoers – the ones who help films reach the $1 billion mark – weren’t bothered by the intense online debates about Luke Skywalker. They simply wanted to see a new Star Wars movie during the holidays, and most of them enjoyed it. Despite other potential blockbusters being released, audiences continued to choose The Last Jedi, returning to the Star Wars universe.

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2025-12-18 04:15