Last night was a huge night for geeks, nerds and dweebs everywhere, and you all showed in both full force and full make-up to catch early shows for STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI. The movie will surely make a ton of space dollars (and earth dollars, I guess) as everyone watches and rewatches the film for the next month, and the early Thursday night shows got things off to a wild start by bringing in an estimated $45-50 million.
Deadline got the exclusive from a source that STAR WARS pulled in the massive amount from it’s early Thursday night shows, making it the second highest-grossing preview night of all time, below only THE FORCE AWAKENS’ $57 million preview night. Keep in mind Disney has yet to put out the official number, and though the number could come in a bit lower than projected, chances are the number could even balloon over the $50 million range.
Bringing in around the estimated $45M would place it in line for a $200M+ opening, with some analysts projecting it will come in anywhere between $185M-$210M. This would mean it may not have the second-largest opening ever (behind FORCE AWAKENS’ $247M), having to fight off JURASSIC WORLD and THE AVENGER’s openings ($208M and $207M). Even if it opens on the lower end of expectations, that will still be a massive amount of money for a movie, coming in above ROGUE ONE’s $155M, which was also astounding.
We all knew THE LAST JEDI would bring in the money, and so far, it’s not disappointing. Seeing how the movie fares today and going into the weekend will be the most interesting, as well as gauging fan reactions. STAR WARS movies are pretty much impervious to bad reception, but if fans don’t like it as much as FORCE AWAKENS it could weaken its legs as it plays through the coming weeks and months. But, in STAR WARS terms, the means it will make $1.9 billion instead of $2 billion.
THE LAST JEDI is in theaters now!