Today is “Force Friday II,” which essentially means that a bunch of companies dropped their first wave of The Last Jedi toys and related merchandise into stories at 12:01 am last night. No word on whether or not you can get your new Porgs wet or feed them after midnight, but courage to the first soul who tempts fate.
Anyway, there certainly was no new The Last Jedi trailer, and kudos to Walt Disney on that note. Why get one huge day of Star Wars news when you can have two days of Star Wars news?But on this odd Star Wars-themed day, where fans celebrate where the real money from the movie is made, I wanted to take a moment to note something. I’ve written quite a bit about the legs for major openers, specifically in terms of Wonder Woman and the big openers that legged it out well past the debut weekend. And, at least over the last 15 years, few mega openers, or even movies that opened above $30 million, have been as leggy as Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace.
Yes, I know, we all allegedly hate The Phantom Menace. It destroyed our childhood, wrecked Star Wars, etc., etc. But it also made an unholy amount of money in the summer of 1999. It earned $431 million in domestic release (around $754m adjusted for inflation) and $924m worldwide (on a $115m budget) sans any kind of IMAX or 3D upcharges, which was the third-biggest domestic grosser (behind Titanic‘s $600m gross in 1997/1998 and Star Wars lifetime total of $460m) and the second-biggest global grosser (behind Titanic‘s $1.8 billion gross) ever at the time.
As George Lucas said when promoting Attack of the Clones (paraphrasing): “I made More American Graffiti, I know what happens when people don’t like a sequel, no one goes.” But audiences did go and see The Phantom Menace in theaters that summer. More importantly, at least to the conventional wisdom that folks hated the movie as much as the hardcore fan base did, that movie didn’t just snag a huge total box office sum 18.5 years ago. It played all summer long, becoming one of the leggiest blockbusters of the modern era.
Now there are two caveats going forward. First, the Liam Neeson/Natalie Portman/Ewan McGregor/Jake Lloyd sci-fi prequel opened on a Wednesday (with a then-record $28 million single-day gross), which slightly skews the multiplier in a positive direction. Second, at the time, theaters playing the anticipated summer blockbuster were required to keep the film in their higher-end auditoriums for longer than normal, which certainly played a role in its summer legs. But even absent that advantage, the film was incredibly leggy especially when you consider the film’s reputation as a kind of Hollywood disaster.
To wit, Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace earned $28 million in its debut Wednesday, which led to a $64.82m Fri-Sun and $105m Wed-Sun gross (in just 2,970 theaters). While the five-day debut was a record, its Fri-Sun gross was actually below the $74m Fri-Sun opening (of a $92m Fri-Mon Memorial Day bow) for…
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