Strong is not The Force in China for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker as it is currently performing horribly at the Chinese box office and is a complete disaster.
As of Friday, the flick is performing the weakest of the Disney Star Wars trilogy films and trails three Chinese movies, including IP Man 4.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker opened in China with previews on Wednesday and Thursday, and with Friday factored in, has made around $6 million.
For comparison, The Last Jedi brought in $9.5 million for its Chinese first Friday, and The Force Awakens brought in a whopping $32.1 million for its first Friday, but it has been downhill ever since.
Chinese don’t like Star Wars
It’s also estimated that Skywalker will bring in a total Chinese box office of $18 million, down considerably from The Last Jedi‘s $42.5 million and even more so from Force Awakens‘ $124 million — and will be less than TLJ and TFA’s opening box office numbers in the Middle Kingdom.
The reviews in China are also not that good and are worse than its predecessors as Skywalker has a 7.7 on online ticketing agency Maoyan versus 7.9 for The Last Jedi and 8.2 for The Force Awakens.
Stateside, Rise of Skywalker brought in around $40 million for its Thursday previews, about $5 million less than The Last Jedi.
The news of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker failing in China shouldn’t be that too surprising as the Chinese absolutely loathed The Last Jedi, just like most fans.
