The twelve month period that we will remember as 2017 is coming to an end, and just as it has for the last three weeks, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is on top. However, that's not the only interesting development of the last three days. Check out the full Top 10 below!
Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi isn't quite putting up the same numbers as J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens (one of the most successful blockbusters of all time), but it's going to be far from a money-losing endeavor. The movie dropped about 27% percent this week, but it still added a stately $52.4 million to the domestic total, which currently stands at $517.1 million. That stands as less than half of the global total, which actually crossed the $1 billion mark this weekend (one of 32 films to ever do so), and it also surpassed the international numbers of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. It's currently ranked third within the franchise overall, but should pass Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in the next week.
If you compare the numbers this week to the numbers from last week, though, you'll notice an interesting phenomenon. While Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Pitch Perfect 3, and Downsizing all saw their totals drop, seven out of the Top 10 actually saw their totals go up in comparison. In fact, the titles mentioned are the only three in the Top 18 to make less this week than last week. The fact that last Sunday was Christmas Eve surely had something to do with it, but it's still an interesting trend nonetheless.
Looking at the chart, it's clear that no movie benefited more from the post-Christmas bump than Michael Gracey's The Greatest Showman. Opening on December 20th, it received middling reviews from professional critics and didn't really rake in that much dough, its first Friday-Sunday yielding an underwhelming $8.8 million. As you can see, seven days made quite the difference for the feature. Perhaps riding on a wave of good audience buzz (it managed to get an A on CinemaScore), the circus-set musical maintained its position in the rankings, but made nearly twice as much money - going up by 73.4 percent to be specific. That's pretty big, and a step in the right direction as far as earning the $84 million budget.
There was only one new release this weekend, which was Ridley Scott's All The Money In The World. It got a four day head start opening on Monday, a.k.a. Christmas Day, but it didn't exactly to wonders business-wise. As you can see, it opened at number seven with a tiny $5.5 million take Friday-Sunday, and managed to make only $12.6 million overall. Putting that in context, it's about $4.4 million short of the original ransom for J. Paul Getty III. It's earned mostly positive reviews, and has received a solid B on CinemaScore, but it would appear the project may wind up having a bit of trouble pulling in the initial budget plus the cost of the reshoots with Christopher Plummer.
This upcoming week, of course, is the first of 2018, and will see the arrival of the year's first horror feature: Adam Robitel's Insidious: The Last Key. We'll be back next Sunday to see how the Top 10 shakes out, so join us again then!
