The Last Jedi is now 2017’s biggest global earner

In the fifth weekend, The Last Jedi has passed Beauty and the Beast at the global box office to become 2017’s highest earning movie and the 10th highest of all time. More figures via Scott Mendelson at Forbes:

The sci-fi sequel earned another $11.25m (-51%) in its fifth weekend to set the stage for a 32-day total of around $595m by tomorrow. If it can get to $600m domestic before Friday, it’ll still be the second-fastest grossing movie between Jurassic World and The Force Awakens.

He speculates that the movie will end up making about $1.3B worldwide.

John Williams willing to return for Episode IX (and who’s going to tell him no?)

In an interview regarding his Oscar chances this year, composer John Williams says that he’s already told J.J. Abrams that he’ll return for Episode IX. “I would very much like to complete that,” he told Variety.

Williams is eligible for both The Last Jedi and The Post this year. He’s received 50 nominations over his career and won 5, including one for the original Star Wars.

Before IX, Williams will be contributing a theme for Solo.

What the hell is going on with Kylo Ren’s pants?

Here’s one of those sentences no one ever dreamed of typing: The Wall Street Journal is covering Kylo Ren’s high-waisted pants, complete with one of their classic stipple portraits. (And an official still from Lucasfilm. No more need for fuzzy pirated screenshots!)

It’s mostly about the #KyloRenChallenge meme, but we do get word from from the film’s costume designer:

“The world of Star Wars is not our world,” Michael Kaplan, costume designer for “The Last Jedi,” wrote in an email. “Kylo Ren is not some hipster in hip-hugging jeans. Think Errol Flynn swashbuckling coolness as a point of departure. Hide that navel!”

We get something of the history of high-waisted pants, and a Bruce Lee shoutout as well. I guess Kylo finally gets one up on grandpa Anakin in at least one area: His waistband.