National Cinemedia, Inc. (NCMI)

[Harry Winston]

This is the first part of a Forbes article that was published today.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has a shot at besting Avengers: Endgame's $60 million Thursday preview gross.

While I saw Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker last night, I wrote this post prior to that viewing. Moreover, the movie is under embargo until tonight at midnight, so any details about Rey’s father (Baby Yoda can get it), the shocking and gruesome surprise death (Baby Yoda, noooo!) or the secret mastermind behind the First Order (Baby Yoda, we believed in you!) will have to wait. That said, with the presumption that (regardless of what I ended up thinking) the reviews will be some variation of “fine,” because all four of Disney’s Star Wars movies have earned good-to-great reviews, I wanted to talk about the one box office record that the ninth Star Wars episode might break. I’m talking about the unadjusted record for Thursday preview grosses.

While no one expects this upcoming J.J. Abrams-directed Star Wars sequel to open as well as the last J.J. Abrams-directed Star Wars sequel, it is possible that the film could break at least one viable box office record. To wit, Star Wars: The Force Awakens shattered Thursday preview gross records four years ago with a stunning $56 million in advance-night ticket sales, with previews starting at 7:00 pm. The Last Jedi scored a whopping $45 million two years later, while Avengers: Infinity War earned $39 million in April of 2018. And, of course, last April, Avengers: Endgame crushed all comers in virtually every short-term weekend box office record imaginable, earning $60 million on Thursday alone toward an eventual $156 million Friday and $357 million Fri-Sun opening weekend gross.

Now, there is almost no chance that Lucasfilm’s The Rise of Skywalker is going to open with $156 million on Friday or $357 million over its Fri-Sun frame, especially with the weekend leading straight into a holiday break period. Point being, if folks don’t necessarily want to rush out and see it over the weekend, it’s not an imposition to just wait until Monday or Tuesday when the kids are out of school and/or relatives are over for Christmas before taking in a showing. As I’ve said many times, I’d expect a smaller opening weekend than The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi but potentially longer legs than The Last Jedi (2.8x $220 million = $620 million) if not The Force Awakens (3.77x $248 million = $937 million).

It's going to be a warm and wonderful quarter for National Cinemedia. The stock price might even go over $9/share, which didn't happen in the period before the last earnings announcement. The reason for that is simple. The last quarter didn't have any blockbuster movies in it. There weren't any large audiences for any one movie in that quarter, but this quarter is different.

Frozen II, plus the sequel to Jumanji, plus the last Star Wars movie? We're looking at at least $9/share!!