Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker bombed at the Chinese box office, coming in third place to martial arts movie IP Man 4, which features Rogue One actor Donnie Yen in the starring role. Over the past few years, China has emerged as the world's second largest film market, but the Star Wars franchise hasn't found much success there. For instance, The Last Jedi was pulled from Chinese theaters after only two weeks since it wasn't much of a draw in the country.
The Rise of Skywalker is the ninth and final film in the Skywalker saga, wrapping up the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy and the current trilogy of Star Wars films. While early estimates had the new film hitting similar box office figures to The Force Awakens, The Rise of Skywalker premiered in the U.S. this past week in the number one spot in the box office but still had the weakest U.S box office opening in the sequel trilogy. Overall, The Rise of Skywalker made an estimated $176 million domestically over the opening weekend, and it didn't get much of a boost in China.
According to Variety, The Rise of Skywalker had made around an estimated $12.1 million in China during its opening weekend, which was a far cry from IP Man 4's $43 million sweep. The Rise of Skywalker came in third place behind IP Man 4 and the second place opener, another Chinese film titled Sheep Without a Shepard, which made $22.3 million. Previous Star Wars films have had far better openings in China, with The Force Awakens making $126 million, Rogue One raking in $69.4 million, and The Last Jedi making a cool $42.6 million.
Donnie Yen stars as the main character in the IP Man franchise. Star Wars fans would be familiar with Yen's popular character Chirrut Imwe from Rogue One . Chirrut was a blind warrior monk who accompanied Jyn Erso and company on their fateful mission to retrieve the Death Star schematics from the planet Scarif. Although Yen's Rogue One character wasn't actually a Jedi, Mark Hamill praised Yen's' warrior monk character. Hamill said that Chirrut Imwe was beyond a doubt the best lightsaber fighter in the galaxy. Yen's role as IP Man is also a similar martial arts role, where he portrays the famous teacher who instructed Bruce Lee himself. The versatile actor will return to theaters worldwide in the live action adaptation of Mulan. Yen's Mulan character will act as a mentor figure to the titular famous Disney heroine.
While Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was certainly not a box office success in China by any means, Yen himself stated his belief that Star Wars films don't fare as well in China overall because audiences there didn't grow up with the films that way that American audiences experienced. Although the box office performance will certainly render no death knell for the Star Wars franchise domestically or overseas, the disappointing box office returns fell short of initial estimates worldwide. The film was billed as the grand finale for the Skywalker family, but ultimately it's definitely challenging to care as much if you didn't grow up with Luke and Leia from the start of their journey.
Source: Variety