A movie making a billion is still a very big deal, no doubt, and Rise of Skywalker is likely going to start making a profit (I should put quotes around it considering how Hollywood accounting tends to work) very soon, but it’s all about those certain points of view.

Making Rogue One money domestically (between 510-540) and settling around the 1bil mark (970-1.05) worldwide is a huge haul for 2019’s box office. That domestic would put Rise of Skywalker at #3 for the year, behind Avengers: Endgame (The #1 film of all time) and The Lion King remake. That’s a success by most metrics.

It’s only when you acknowledge that the final episode of the sequel trilogy will fall about $100 mil short of its predecessor (never before happened in Star Wars history), and might end up making just barely more worldwide than the first episode did DOMESTICALLY (and that worldwide number might only be good for #9 on the 2019 ww list, under JOKER) that you start to get a sense of how much goodwill got eroded by this movie. No matter what happens from this point forward, this film is going to be the worst reviewed film in the ST, and the lowest-earning as well.