

Stay on target… Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is nearly at $1 billion worldwide at the end of its fourth weekend. The movie should cross that benchmark before this time next week.

The latest numbers for the closing chapter of the sequel trilogy – courtesy of Deadline – put the movie at $989.5M worldwide, with $478.1M coming from the United States and $511.4M coming from other regions. A little over $10M away… So close! Provided that the weekday holds are decent enough, the movie should cross the threshold by Thursday, if not earlier. The movie has gained $71.5M overall ($28.1M domestic, $43.4M internationally) since last weekend.

As expected, the movie’s weekday grosses took a sharp downturn after the holidays wrapped up, while the movie’s weekend performance remains pretty close to expectations. The numbers on The Rise of Skywalker are certainly interesting to look at, since the movie started off with a bit of a disadvantage of opening on the weekend before Christmas, unlike The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and The Last Jedi, which all opened two weekends ahead of the holiday. Families being busy with last-minute shopping is suggested to be a reason why the movie came up short of what some theater chains were anticipating (though this was still ahead of Disney’s own expectations). And it’s absolutely worth noting that Lucasfilm sold The Rise of Skywalker as being about the movie’s younger cast as opposed to hyping up the involvement of biggest names from the original trilogy – which may be why its final total may be closer to Rogue One, which similarly emphasized new characters (besides happily marketing it with Darth Vader as much as reasonably possible), than The Last Jedi. Had it opened a week earlier, The Rise of Skywalker would have crossed a billion by now.

With this in mind, the film ultimately held better on its second weekend than its predecessor, which also gave the movie the franchise’s second-best daily totals for the weekdays after opening weekend, only behind The Force Awakens. In the days since, the pacing has fallen behind The Last Jedi thanks to that movie’s holiday grosses coming into play (with that extra week of play in December being a big deal). Still, it looks like The Rise of Skywalker will reach the billion-dollar mark a bit faster than Rogue One, and Rogue One had an additional week of holiday play. Another holiday weekend later in the month will help the movie boost its overall numbers.

With the arrival of 1917, which has managed to perform above expectations due to award season buzz and great reception from its limited release last month, this marks the first weekend The Rise of Skywalker fell from the number one spot at the box office. And while Jumanji: The Next Level is not performing quite as competitively with The Rise of Skywalker as Welcome to the Jungle did with The Last Jedi (again, post-holiday weekdays saw a decline), it’s still working as counter-programming for families. While it won’t be topping The Last Jedi, The Rise of Skywalker will still serve as a feather in the cap of Disney in an absolutely groundbreaking year, as the movie becomes Disney’s seventh billion-plus grosser after Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, Aladdin, Toy Story 4, The Lion King, and Frozen II. The next theatrical Star Wars film is scheduled to arrive in December 2022, starting a new saga of storytelling, with some reports suggesting a director announcement could happen later this month.