Is Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker A Billion Dollar Disaster?

by Andrew Pollard
Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker
LucasFilm

Whether The Rise of Skywalker manages to topple The Last Jedi’s box office total of $1.3 billion remains to be seen. Considering the backlash that The Last Jedi received in some quarters, many were wondering how that would affect The Rise of Skywalker – particularly as some partly blamed The Last Jedi for the disappointing numbers taken by Solo: A Star Wars Story as the Alden Ehrenreich-starrer limped to a $390 million box office return.

As the Rise of Skywalker seems certain to pass the $1 billion mark, there’s no doubt that there is clearly still an audience for Star Wars. From here on out, there has to be some major decisions made by Disney, however.

Moving forward, the Star Wars movies will be venturing forward into a world that is not reliant or driven by the Skywalker Saga. That in itself is a big moment for the franchise. But add on the fact that the Star Wars fan base is now more fractured than it’s ever been, and the small matter of Disney having to not solely rely on Christmas releases designed to exploit the free time that that period offers up to so many, and this could be just the beginning of an extremely bumpy ride for the Star Wars franchise.

Advertisement
Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.