During ESPN’s Monday Night Football game, Star Wars fans were gifted the final Rise of Skywalker trailer and access to pre-sale tickets ahead of the December release. The poignant and thrilling tease for the epic conclusion to the Skywalker Saga certainly did its job of selling fans, because the movie sold 45% more tickets in the first hour of pre-sales than Avengers: Endgame on Atom Tickets, thus breaking a massive record.
That’s right, The Rise of Skywalker now holds the best record for most sales in the first hour! And just the mention of a movie beating the recently-crowned highest grossing movie of all time, Avengers: Endgame, creates some serious buzz for the upcoming release of the latest Star Wars movie. The ticketing site also crowned The Rise of Skywalker the most anticipated movie of the fall season, per a poll.
Following a jaw-dropping previous trailer that debuted at D23 over the summer, the final Rise of Skywalker trailer tugged at the heartstrings of fans with a memorable moment between C-3PO saying goodbye to his “friends” and a voiceover of the late Carrie Fisher saying “Always” amidst some incredibly stunning visuals to get excited to see on the big screen.
It sent tons of fans running online to nab their opening night tickets, beating out the Marvel fans who jumped on Atom Tickets (and nearly broke the internet) to find out what happened after Infinity War’s cliffhanger the year before. Of course, Endgame went on to become the behemoth of box office behemoths with a $357 million global opening weekend and a $2.79 billion gross, beating out Avatar’s decade-long record as the highest-grossing movie of all time.
What does this mean for The Rise of Skywalker’s box office potential coming into December? Well, The Force Awakens is still the fourth highest-grossing movie of all time. It started its run with $247 million and went on to make $2.06 billion worldwide. Star Wars movies have not beat out The Force Awakens’ earnings since. The Last Jedi made $1.33 billion worldwide and Rogue One $1.05 billion – both titles have a spot of Atom Ticket’s best first-hour pre-sale top five list at spots four and five, respectively.
So Star Wars hasn’t been up to Endgame's level, but there are a couple things to keep in mind for The Rise of Skywalker. It’s the conclusion to the Skywalker Saga, which has been in 40 years in the making. Even the most casual Star Wars fans will want to be a part of this cinematic event first and before the spoilers roll in. J.J. Abrams is back as writer/director, and he’s much more popular among fans than Rian Johnson was. The lost footage of Carrie Fisher will also entice fans curiosity. And let's not forget Palpatine’s curious inclusion. There’s a ton of buzz here!
It’ll be exciting to see how The Rise of Skywalker fares next to Endgame with its release. Could it top its opening weekend? It will certainly contribute to Disney’s huge haul of earnings in 2019!
See The Rise of Skywalker on December 20!
