It’s been just a few days sinceThe Last Jedihit theaters, bringing in a whopping$220 million domesticin its opening weekend, with just over $450 million worldwide. Released concurrently with the movie itself was the new bookThe Art of Star Wars: The Last Jediby author Phil Szostak, from Lucasfilm Ltd. and Abrams Books, and in case you haven’t gotten to pick up this book yet, a new concept art illustration poses some rather interesting questions. It seems that, at least at some point during the development process, the villainous Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) had gone bald after the events ofThe Force Awakens.
The new images comes courtesy of Games Radar, which speculates that the decision to makeKylo Renbald may not have had anything to do with a specific direction the story was taking, but merely because the concept artist may have been solely focused on Kylo Ren’s costume, and simply didn’t have the time or the inclination to create Kylo’s flowing black mane. Then again, the artist in question did create the fresh stubble on his bald head to indicate that he had recently shaved his head, so perhaps there was once a specific reason for him to shave his head. It’s possible that he did so after being defeated by Rey (Daisy Ridley) towards the end ofStar Wars: The Force Awakens, as punishment, but that has not been confirmed.
Games Radar also has another piece of concept art fromThe Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, featuring thespace horses known as Fathiers, who are seen tearing through the casino planet known as Canto Bight, depicting one of the movie’s most destructive scenes. A number of wealthy gamblers are seen trying to escape from all of this chaos, including a wealthy Rodian, although it isn’t clear if these same characters were used for the actual scene in question. Still, this illustration offers an early glimpse at one of the movie’s most unique and visually distinct scenes, and perhaps one of the movie’s most destructive scenes.
The $220 million opening weekend forStar Wars: The Last Jedicurrently stands as the second best debut of all time, behind the $247.9 million tally put up byStar Wars: The Force Awakensback in 2015. The$450 million global debutis the fifth best of all time, behindHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2($483.2 million),Jurassic World($525.5 million),Star Wars: The Force Awakens($529 million) andThe Fate of the Furious($541.9 million). What’s interesting is thatThe Fate of the Furiousonly earned $98.8 million domestically, and a whopping $443.2 million internationally.The Last Jediwill get a big boost at the international box office when it opens in China, its last international market, on January 5.
WhileThe Last Jediwas certainly embraced by critics, the movie made headlines for itsRotten Tomatoes user reviews, which were lower than theJustice Leagueuser review score. However, there was a recent report that claimed many of these user reviews were generated by bots, and not actual moviegoers. It will be interesting to see how the movie fares in its second weekend, where it faces some actual competition for the first time, including Sony’sJumanji: Welcome to the Jungleand 20th Century Fox’sThe Greatest Showmanon December 20, Paramount’sDownsizing, Universal’sPitch Perfect 3and Warner Bros.‘Father Figureson December 22 and Sony’sAll the Money in the Worldon Christmas Day. Take a look at this new artwork fromStar Wars: The Last Jedibelow, courtesy ofGames Radar.
