Posted in: Movies | Tagged: box office, disney, HRL, justice league, puffinbottoms, star wars, star wars: the last jedi, The Last Jedi, Warner Bros

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Kicks off Opening Weekend with $45M Domestic, $106M Worldwide Thursday

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is off to a great start at the box office. Thursday previews for the highly anticipated movie earned $45 million at the domestic box office, the second largest ever, topped only by its predecessor, The Force Awakens. That puts the movie right on track to top $200 million for opening weekend, as previously estimated, but likely fail to top The Force Awakens' $247 million domestic opening weekend. Internationally, The Last Jedi picked up another $60.8 million, putting it at a worldwide total of just under $106 million heading into Friday night.

For analysis on this box office data, we spoke to world-renowned boxofficeologist, Professor Thaddeus T. Puffinbottoms.

"These numbers all but guarantee that Disney will end up taking the top spot at the box office this year, knocking Warner Bros. back down to second place," Professor Puffinbottoms told us, taking a cheap shot at Warner Bros for seemingly no reason. Bleeding Cool has heard the complaints of our commenters saying that we've been too negative about Justice League, and we're doing our best to keep a neutral tone when discussing the film's box office performance. Unfortunately, Puffinbottoms is his own man and we're unable to control what he says.

"$45 million on Thursday is more than half of what Justice League made in its entire opening weekend," the Professor continued, pointing out that Justice League made just $94 million across four days compared to The Last Jedi's one-day take. "That's got to be embarrassing to Warner Bros., especially considering that a more successful Justice League film might have helped the studio hold onto its lead for the year."

We tried to change the subject and get Professor Puffinbottoms to stop bashing Justice League, asking him if he thought The Last Jedi opening lower than The Force Awakens means that the Star Wars franchise is losing steam.

"Of course you're going to have a slightly lower box office for The Last Jedi," Puffinbottoms explained. "The Force Awakens was the first Star Wars film in a decade, which also gave people enough time to forget about how badly they hated the previews. But The Last Jedi is still doing huge numbers, higher than almost any other franchise. The Star Wars franchise will be just fine."

Phew! We got through that without any insults directed toward Warner Bros.

"Of course, Disney could have spiked those numbers if they'd shamelessly promoted the movie more based on it being Carrie Fisher's final appearance before her death," Puffinbottoms added. "Like Warner Bros. did with Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight."

Come on, dude!

"The Dark Knight wasn't even a good movie," Professor Puffinbottoms continued. "It was long and boring, and Ledger isn't even the best live-action Joker. He's like fourth or fifth, behind Cesar Romero and Jared Leto."

Now that's just uncalled for. You know what, we're going to have to conclude our analysis. We apologize to the DCEU fans who have been offended by Professor Puffinbottoms' outrageous comments, and we promise to make it up to you by signing that petition demanding a Zack Snyder cut of Justice League.

"It could use some real signatures," Puffinbottoms chimed in, getting the last word.

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