Box Office Week: Star Wars: The Last Jedi has the second highest opening weekend of all time, opening at #1 with $220M, as well as opening to $450M worldwide. Meanwhile, Ferdinand could not compete with the worst Blue Sky Animation opening ever at #2 with $13.3M

RankTitleDomestic Gross (Weekend)Worldwide Gross (Cume)Week #1Star Wars: The Last Jedi$220,047,000$450,047,00012Ferdinand$13,325,000$19,518,39513Coco$10,025,000$448,210,89644Wonder$5,400,000$153,656,73855Justice League$4,170,000$633,956,3475Notable Box Office Stories:Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Disney had a lot to celebrate this week, from their historic merger with 20th Century Fox to what was always expected to be a massive opening weekend for The Last Jedi which achieved the highest highs it could... except always just a notch below The Force Awakens. The 8th film in the saga and 10th theatrical Star Wars film overall opened to #1 this weekend with a staggering $220M, the second best opening weekend of all time. Second best is what The Last Jedi has to settle for a lot this weekend, as the film constantly was just under TFA in terms of all time lists. First up on Friday it made $104M, second only to TFA's $119.1M making them the #2 and #1 best single day gross ever respectively. The there's the weekend gross where TLJ's $220M conquered previous #1 holders like Jurassic World, but couldn't match up to TFA's $247.9M, making TLJ the second highest grossing opening weekend ever. Then overseas the film scored $450M (despite not opening in China until January, though that country has not been too excited for Star Wars fare in the past) where for once it wasn't second on the list but rather fifth overall in terms of all time worldwide openings. So while the film is a downgrade from TFA it still shows that TFA was not a fluke and that the market is incredibly excited for the classic characters and the continuing story, with the extra $30M likely more do to the fact there was more hype for TFA than any film in history and TLJ is just the natural degradation of a franchise, similar to Age of Ultron. And let's note the film opened $70M higher than last year's Rogue One, showing there's not a Star Wars burnout yet and this particular saga has a huge power over audiences. But there's of course something more sinister on the horizon, a dark force known only by the name of...Star Wars Fans.Star Wars: The Last Jedi (cont.) - The Last Jedi was always going to open well, that much was certain, but unlike The Force Awakens which opened to good reviews and mostly positive audience reaction at the time, the divide between critics and audiences for this film has been huge. Currently on RottenTomatoes the film has a 93% rating from critics but a 56% rating from fans. IMDB scores are also down from TFA's and Rogue One's placement on their first weekend of release. Why many fans hate the film will be the source of literally 8 billion videos, podcasts, reddit threads and articles (hell just note that already TLJ's official discussion has 3x as many comments than Rogue One's) so instead I want to talk about the power of the internet in terms of box office. If there's one thing I hold true, it's that more often than not the internet thinks it's a lot more important than it is in terms of affecting box office. This isn't too say that the internet never kills a film's box office, just this year social media backlash destroyed the run of All Eyez on Me. But that was a much smaller film appealing to a devoted but fickle audience. This is the second biggest opening of all time, so for fan reaction to kill it would be something truly surprising. What adds mystery to it all is Cinemascore, the audience polling system that despite many flaws does seem to be one of the last ways to poll general audiences without fear of brigading from very vocal supporters/haters. And it seems general audiences just really really like Star Wars as the film scored an A on the service, the same score that The Force Awakens and Rogue One received and higher than all three prequels (all of the OT came out before Cinemascore existed). And the weekend seems to not show any immediate backlash affecting returns, as TLJ had a better Saturday drop than TFA (38.9% to 42.7%) and had a comparable but higher Sunday drop (11.3% to 19.9%, though Sunday's numbers are expected to be higher than reported). However there is a full weekend to get through before Christmas so let's discuss what we are dealing with in terms of legs.Star Wars: The Last Jedi (cont.) - The most likely range we are looking at in terms of second weekend drop is somewhere between The Force Awakens and Rogue One. The insane thing about TFA was that it opened like a summer movie but held like a winter movie, dropping just 39.8% for its second weekend. RO on the other hand functioned a lot more like a summer movie dropping 58.7% for its second weekend. It should also be noted that both films had the advantage of their second weekend falling on Christmas weekend, a luxury TLJ does not have. Plus three new wide releases come out next week including Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle which is tracking a lot better than expected. So we could potentially look at a drop even harsher than Rogue One. While RO's second weekend drop was sizable, it still had great legs the rest of its run. To figure out by the end of all this where TLJ will land, if it has the same hold as TFA we are looking at over $800M domestic, if it's more like RO then around $750M, and if it holds likes The Avengers or Jurassic World (the only other two films to open over $200M besides TFA and TLJ) we are looking at over $650M. Now for those wondering what's the worst scenario in terms of fan and audience backlash that really kills TLJ run we are looking at around $430M domestic, which I got from calculating the multiplier from Batman v Superman, still the worst legs ever for a film opening over $100M. It will be interesting to watch the weeks ahead, especially as the backlash becomes backlash to the backlash (which has already started) and the inevitable backlash to the backlash to the backlash begins and I give up the internet forever. Whatever happens it will be fascinating and like BvS the effects may not be known even until Episode IX. Cinemascore can fail us (previously mentioned All Eyez on Me had an A- on Cinemascore), RT audience scores can be brigaded, forums can be hiveminded, so it's hard to say where the overall, global audiences land. The numbers will speak for themselves though so now we just wait and see.Ferdinand - It's always fascinating the films that decide to go up against Star Wars, because often they are hoping at best to be overflow fillers. That might explain why despite carrying a pretty hefty budget of $111M, the animated film Ferdinand opened at #2 to just $13.3M. That marks the worst opening ever for Blue Sky Studios, the animation team mostly known for the Ice Age movies, but that feels almost expected when you tackle with the second biggest opening of all time. However all may not be lost when you compare Ferdinand to its closest peer in terms of release and content, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip. For those who don't remember, this was the brave soul that faced The Force Awakens head on and while that film secured the title of highest opening weekend ever, Road Chip managed to score a #2 opening with $14.2M, fairly close to Ferdinand's opening numbers. The notable thing about Road Chip is that while it opened low it basically repeated those numbers for 2 more weekends, dropping just 8% for week 2 and 3. That's sort of what Ferdinand is aiming for here, hoping to be the choice for very young kids who may not be old enough for a PG-13 Star Wars film. However Road Chip never passed its $90M budget domestically and it's hard to think that Ferdinand will be so lucky especially with Jumanji possibly taking up other kids markets. Blue Sky always expected a rough opening, but it's hard to say right now if they are going to quietly ride this low level until the end of December or if it's the start of a truly disasterous run.Oscar Movie Round-up - While everyone else was watching Star Wars a few people caught some of the Oscar favorites this week (probably after watching Star Wars) but things weren't looking up for everyone. First up is The Disaster Artist which after having great plays and expansions faltered this weekend as it added 170 theaters but dropped 58% to come in at #8 with $2.6M. That's a steep drop for a film just now hitting theaters and could either speak to its core audience just picking Star Wars instead this week or just burning through its audience rather quickly. Unless it makes a major turnaround it seems Lady Bird will become the highest grossing A24 film and stay that way. Meanwhile Shape of Water marked its last minor expansion before going wide next week. The film's theater count climbed to 158 to come in at #12 with $1.7M, a per theater average of $11,000. This marks a good potential for Shape of Water that audiences aren't too hesitant to see a mute woman fall in love with a fish man. Meanwhile despite Darkest Hour not having the all encompassing march to Best Actor many thought as Timothee Chalamet has been taking a lot of the wins away from him in critics groups, the film keeps expanding well, adding thirty theaters to come in with $855K, a per theater average of $10,119. Speaking of Chalamet Call Me By Your Name is finally starting its relentlessly slow crawl to expansion as after three weeks of per theater averages over $30L, the film got into the double digits of screens. This weekend it was in 30 theaters where it made $491,933, a per theater average of $16,398. The film is going to be adding a lot more theaters next weekend and is finally going wide on January 19th. Finally it seems I was right that audiences just aren't interested in Woody Allen this year as Wonder Wheel expanded to 536 theaters this weekend but only made $472,216 (notably less than CMBYN which is in 500 less theaters), a per theater average of just $881.Films Reddit Wants to FollowThis is a segment where we keep a weekly tally of currently showing films that aren't in the Top 5 that fellow redditors want updates on. If you'd like me to add a film to this chart, make a comment in this thread.TitleDomestic Gross (Cume)Worldwide Gross (Cume)BudgetWeek #Blade Runner 2049$91,252,390$257,652,703$150M10Thor: Ragnarok$306,375,120$841,775,120$180M7Notable Film ClosingsTitleDomestic GrossWorldwide GrossBudgetDunkirk$188,045,546$525,245,546$100MHappy Death Day$55,683,845$114,183,845$4.8MAmerican Made$51,342,000$134,866,593$50MTyler Perry's Boo 2! A Madea Halloween$47,319,572$48,332,370$25MAs always /r/boxoffice is a great place to share links and other conversations about box office news.Also you can see the archive of all Box Office Week posts at /r/moviesboxoffice. via /r/movies http://ift.tt/2kehQAq