Anna Daniels
When it comes to fielding harsh takes on Rise of Skywalker, Cannavale is far from alone. Critics have generally been underwhelmed with the film, saddling it with a Rotten Tomatoes score of only 56%. One could make the case that critical reception doesn’t always mean a whole heck of a lot when it comes to tentpole genre films, but one could also make the case that it’s rather unthinkable that only one Star Wars feature — the widely maligned first entry in the prequel trilogy, 1999’s Star Wars: The Phantom Menace — has scored lower.
Fans’ response has been divided; the flick currently sports an 86% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, but only a B+ CinemaScore, a franchise worst. (via The Wrap) In addition, the movie’s stateside opening weekend box office take fell well short of the other two films in the sequel trilogy; it garnered $175 million dollars, nothing to sneeze at, but still far below the totals of The Force Awakens ($248 million dollars) and The Last Jedi ($220 million dollars).
All of these things considered, it’s probably for the best that Disney will be hitting the pause button on the franchise for just a bit. The next Star Wars movie isn’t due to hit screens for three years, during 2022’s holiday season; it’s unknown at this time whether that film will be the first entry in Last Jedi director Rian Johnson’s planned trilogy (which may or may not even be happening), or perhaps the flick that Marvel mastermind Kevin Feige has been tapped to produce.
At any rate, it’s safe to say that Rise of Skywalker is not shaping up to be the universally beloved, pop culture-dominating event that the House of Mouse was hoping for. As Cannavale well knows, though, there’s a silver lining for the galaxy far, far away: everybody sure loves The Mandalorian, and in terms of dominating pop culture, ol’ Mando and his adorable little sidekick Baby Yoda are certainly picking up some of that slack.
Written by: Looper
