One of the few achievements of the Disney sequel trilogy is that, in their awfulness, they make some people look at the Star Wars prequels and think to themselves that maybe they were not that bad, after all.
Do not let nostalgia fool you. They were awful, and they remain awful. They fumbled just about every big moment they were given. They managed to coax terrible performances out of very fine actors. They have aged terribly. If anyone tries to attempt some revisionist history around the prequels in your presence, slap some sense into them.
However, people do love retro screenings, and the 25th anniversary of The Phantom Menace is upon us. So this weekend you may have had flashbacks to a time of drowning in Jar Jar Binks merchandise and waiting eight hours for your dial-up modem to download a teaser trailer. It returned to movie theaters.
Much as it pains us to report this, the return of The Phantom Menace to theaters appears to have been a massive success, thus proving that modern Star Wars fans have no taste.
The Star Wars prequel stormed to second place at the US box office. It pushed Challengers into third place, and came in only just behind The Fall Guy, with an $8.5 million weekend gross.
In terms of re-releases, it places it as the second most successful re-release of all time, between the curious cultural vacuum that is Avatar (202 – $10 million) and the lady-fuelled Titanic re-release (2023 – $7 million).
It also pulled in another $6 million overseas, taking the total to $14.5 million. This also placed it above the 40th-anniversary re-release of Return of the Jedi which grabbed $5.1 million domestically in 2023.
This is basically free money for Disney right now, and with Aliens and The Mummy also recently having a limited re-release, it might be a trend we see more of.
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