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<p>NEW YORK &#8212; The Force was a little less strong with &#8220;Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.&#8221; J.J. Abrams&#8217; Skywalker finale couldn&#8217;t match its recent predecessors on opening weekend, but it still amassed a $175.5 million debut that ranked as the third largest weekend of the year.</p><p>&#8220;The Rise of Skywalker&#8221; came in with worse reviews than any &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; movie except for 1999&#8217;s &#8220;The Phantom Menace,&#8221; which famously heralded the debut of Jar Jar Binks. &#8220;The Rise of Skywalker&#8221; has a 57% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences, too, were relatively lukewarm to the movie, giving it a B+ CinemaScore.</p><p>That response may have muted what could have been a record-setting weekend. While Disney had cautiously estimated about a $165 million opening, analysts had pegged &#8220;The Rise of Skywalker&#8221; for around $200 million.</p><p>&#8220;The Rise of Skywalker&#8221; pulled in $374 million worldwide, according to studio estimates Sunday. The film was especially lackluster in China, where all &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; films have struggled. It grossed $12.1 million in the world&#8217;s second largest movie marketplace.</p><p>Though it proved divisive with fans, 2017&#8217;s &#8220;Last of the Jedi,&#8221; directed by Rian Johnson, opened with $220 million and ultimately grossed $1.3 billion worldwide. Abrams&#8217; own &#8220;The Force Awakens&#8221; set a then-record in 2015 with a $248 million debut and sold more than $2 billion in global tickets.</p><p>With the coming holiday period, &#8220;Rise of Skywalker&#8221; is poised to dominate the year&#8217;s most lucrative week of moviegoing. Cathleen Taff, distribution chief for Disney, called it a great start.</p><p>&#8220;With critics, we&#8217;ve seen that our movies have received lower scores than not but that they continue to do business because they&#8217;re great quality movies for the moviegoer,&#8221; said Taff. &#8220;Audiences are generally responding really positively to the film.</p><p>&#8220;We know that people are very passionate about &#8216;Star Wars&#8217; and have very strong opinions about it. And we&#8217;re fine with that,&#8221; added Taff. &#8220;We think it&#8217;s inspiring to see so many people who want to prompt a discussion around a film.&#8221;</p><p>Such expectations did not await Tom Hooper&#8217;s adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber&#8217;s &#8220;Cats.&#8221; The much ridiculed big-screen musical, featuring infamous &#8220;digital fur technology,&#8221; scratched out just $6.5 million in ticket sales, sending Mr. Mistoffelees (and Universal Pictures) home licking their wounds.</p><p>The $100 million production, featuring an ensemble including Jennifer Hudson, Judi Dench, James Corden, Idris Elba, Ian McKellen and Taylor Swift, came in behind projections and opened in a distant fourth place. The movie drew an 18% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes and a C-plus CinemaScore from audiences.</p><p>&#8220;Even modest opening in this extraordinary lucrative corridor can prove very kind to films,&#8221; said Jim Orr, chief of distribution for Universal. He anticipates the film&#8217;s strongest demographic &#8212; older moviegoers &#8212; will be most available over the holidays. &#8220;Our scores from those who are 55 and up are very good and very encouraging.&#8221;</p><p>Holdovers &#8220;Jumanji: The Next Level&#8221; ($26.1 million in its second weekend) and &#8220;Frozen 2&#8221; ($12.3 million in its fifth weekend) both surpassed &#8220;Cats.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;Rise of Skywalker&#8221; culminated a tumultuous period in &#8220;Star Wars,&#8221; finishing off both a trilogy and nine-film cycle begun 42 years ago by George Lucas. In 2012, Disney acquired Lucasfilm for $4 billion. While its stewardship of &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; has drawn enormous box-office proceeds, &#8220;The Rise of Skywalker&#8221; had its work cut out in trailing both the much-debated &#8220;Last of the Jedi&#8221; and the 2018 dud &#8220;Solo: A Star Wars Story.&#8221;</p><p>In November, Disney chief executive Bob Iger told investors that &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; will go &#8220;into a hiatus&#8221; after &#8220;Rise of Skywalker.&#8221; The next &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; movie, which is to be set outside the Skywalker saga, isn&#8217;t scheduled for release until 2022. &#8220;Game of Thrones&#8221; makers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss recently pulled out of planned &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; trilogy.</p><p>Lately, &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; has also been a hit on the small screen, too. &#8220;The Mandalorian&#8221; helped launch the Disney Plus streaming service. To make way for &#8220;Rise of Skywalker,&#8221; the latest episode of &#8220;The Mandalorian&#8221; debuted on Wednesday, instead of Friday.</p><p>But Disney can still make considerable demands on theaters for &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; films. Disney charges theaters 65% of ticket sales, or about 10 percentage points more than standard, for &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; releases, and requires a run of four weeks.</p><p>Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore, said &#8220;Rise of Skywalker&#8221; could only be painted by others as a disappointment because of the franchise&#8217;s and the studio&#8217;s extraordinary track record. The film will likely become Disney&#8217;s seventh $1 billion release of the year (a record) and give the studio seven of the top 10 films of the year.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s time to devote a lot of attention to the streaming environment for &#8216;Star Wars&#8217; and then come back with a vengeance,&#8221; said Dergarabedian.&#8221; There&#8217;s a lot of lessons to be learned and certainly from this latest installment.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;Rise of Skywalker&#8221; helped improve the shortfall at the box office compared to last year, but ticket sales are still running 4.6% behind 2018, according to Comscore.</p><p>In its national expansion, the Lionsgate Fox News drama &#8220;Bombshell&#8221; underperformed expectations with $5.1 million in 1,481 theaters. Rian Johnson&#8217;s &#8220;Last Jedi&#8221; follow-up, the starry whodunit &#8220;Knives Out&#8221; continues to do strong business for Lionsgate. After $6.1 million in its sixth weekend, it has grossed $185.6 million globally.</p><p>Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">This image released by Lucasfilm shows Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, left, and Daisy Ridley as Rey in a scene from &quot;Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.&quot; (Lucasfilm via AP)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/web1_124204209-0ced0f6e656f44fdb7d182cb8ae07079.jpg</photo0><caption0>This image released by Lucasfilm shows Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, left, and Daisy Ridley as Rey in a scene from &quot;Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.&quot; (Lucasfilm via AP)</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/web1_124204209-5fe3f08b87f84275b7ab4100b530db92.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">This image released by Disney/Lucasfilm shows Daisy Ridley as Rey in a scene from &quot;Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.&quot; (Disney/Lucasfilm Ltd.)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/web1_124204209-5fe3f08b87f84275b7ab4100b530db92.jpg</photo1><caption1>This image released by Disney/Lucasfilm shows Daisy Ridley as Rey in a scene from &quot;Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.&quot; (Disney/Lucasfilm Ltd.)</caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/web1_124204209-0203e779484c4d9dba8c193f69a7a4e2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">This image released by Disney/Lucasfilm shows, from left,  Joonas Suotamo as Chewbacca, Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron, Daisy Ridley as Rey and John Boyega as Finn in a scene from &quot;Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.&quot; (Disney/Lucasfilm Ltd. via AP)</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/web1_124204209-0203e779484c4d9dba8c193f69a7a4e2.jpg</photo2><caption2>This image released by Disney/Lucasfilm shows, from left,  Joonas Suotamo as Chewbacca, Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron, Daisy Ridley as Rey and John Boyega as Finn in a scene from &quot;Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.&quot; (Disney/Lucasfilm Ltd. via AP)</caption2><photoCredit2></photoCredit2></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jake Coyle</p><p>AP FilmWriter</p></bylineMeta></div>

‘Rise of Skywalker’ opens with $175.5 million; ‘Cats’ flops