Ever since its release back in the summer of 1977, Star Wars has become a global juggernaut. At the current time of writing, there have been 11 movies, with nine part of the Skywalker saga and the other two, Rogue One and Solo, spin-offs. Whenever a new blockbuster comes out it's usually destined to be a huge box office hit, getting the better of many other excellent films in the process.
Star Wars has edged out some pretty tough competition over the years - and not just to the number one spot. So here are ten classics that have been beaten, according to Box Office Mojo.
10 Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
While Star Wars: A New Hope was the biggest movie of 1977, there was another sci-fi movie that went somewhat under the radar. Close Encounters of the Third Kind accumulated $116,395,460 that same year and, with Steven Spielberg at the helm, told the story of Roy, an electrical lineman, who encounters a UFO.
John Williams was also involved, doing the music, and it earned a five-star review from Empire. Their review dubbed it 'a thrilling vision of first contact with extraterrestrials' and it's become a cult classic in the time since. A sequel was originally in the works, only for plans to change.
9 9 To 5
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back released in 1980 and, with its twists and turns, soared to the top of the box office standings. The revelation that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father was the biggest talking point of that year, often being the source of conversation in many bars across the world. And the soundtrack to 9 to 5 was probably heard playing in the background as people talked things over.
Dolly Parton produced a memorable performance as Doralee Rhodes, with the film about three secretaries who decide to get revenge on their loathsome boss. The music is arguably the highlight and can still be heard in many shops and nightclubs today.
8 The Matrix
After a 16-year hiatus, Star Wars returned in 1999 with the release of The Phantom Menace. No movie was ever going to stand any chance of topping the box office charts that year, with the first installment of George Lucas' prequel trilogy prompting worldwide attention. So that means that several other classics were unlucky to lose out.
Among them is The Matrix. Keanu Reeves plays super-hacker Neo, who is then taken out of his comfort zone to fight against powerful computers who have constructed his entire reality. It was a good start to the franchise, though the two sequels that followed split opinion within the fanbase.
7 Toy Story 2
Toy Story was immensely popular upon hitting theatres back in 1995. Children (and some adults too) became instantly besotted with the characters of Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and Co - meaning a sequel was always inevitable. And Pixar delivered the goods in 1999, with the movie taking home the bronze medal that year.
It builds on the solid foundations of its predecessor, giving fans laughs, tear-jerking moments, and a plethora of new characters including Jesse, Bullseye, Stinky Peter, and Emperor Zurg. The movie is also one of the rare examples where the second film is just as good as the first. Unfortunately, it failed to live up to the numbers of The Phantom Menace.
6 The Sixth Sense
Forced to settle for second on the podium 21 years ago, The Sixth Sense boasted a stellar cast including Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, and Donnie Wahlberg. It followed Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist, who begins treating a young boy. As you'd expect from the name, however, this child is far from normal.
Instead, he acts as a medium of communication between Malcolm and the spiritual world. The Willis movie scored an impressive 86 percent with Rotten Tomatoes, who claimed it had 'all the style of a classical Hollywood picture, but all the chills of a modern horror flick.' There's been talk of a sequel for years, but nothing official yet.
5 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Attack of the Clones was unable to break into the box office top three in 2002. However, Revenge of the Sith atoned for that mistake three years later by scooping second in the table - behind only Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. While the other two movies of the prequel trilogy hadn't been universally popular, many fans simply had to see Anakin Skywalker's transformation into Darth Vader.
So that meant The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was forced to accept the third place. It was a creative, imaginative, and faithful re-telling of C. S. Lewis's novel and helped spark James McAvoy's successful career. Two follow-up movies, Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, released in 2008 and 2010 respectively.
4 Jurassic World
Much like The Phantom Menace in 1999, nothing was going to stop The Force Awakens from blitzing records across the world in 2015. Star Wars had seemed over for a decade but Disney decided to kickstart the sequel trilogy by bringing back beloved characters such as Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo while also adding Rey, Finn, Kylo Ren, and Supreme Leader Snoke to the character roster.
Yet it wasn't the only big franchise that returned after some time in the shadows. Jurassic World also hit screens and made a huge $1,670,400,637 worldwide, with $652,270,625 coming domestically. Even after all these years, it was apparent the chance to see dinosaurs wreaking havoc was too good for many people to turn down.
3 Finding Dory
The first Star Wars spin-off movie released in 2016 in the form of Rogue One. It would have been crowned champion that year but Captain America: Civil War took home that mantle instead. However, it did make more money than Finding Dory, the sequel to the 2003 hit Finding Nemo.
Pixar got things right with the movie, which saw Ellen Degeneres reprise her role as Dory and Albert Brooks come back as Marvin. It's a poignant affair, with the reunion between Dory and her parents particularly hard-hitting. Whether it gets a third film in the future, meanwhile, is something only time will tell.
2 Spider-Man: Homecoming
Star Wars: The Last Jedi took the box office by storm in 2017, despite it splitting opinion amongst both fans and critics alike. The chance to see Mark Hamill in a central role as Luke Skywalker was a big selling point and he didn't disappoint, producing a performance drastically different from anything fans saw during the original trilogy. So that perhaps explains why Spider-Man: Homecoming didn't rank higher in the charts.
This was a good first solo movie for Tom Holland's version of Peter Parker, with the British actor bringing charm to the title and establishing himself as a more-comedic Spidey than Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield. A reunion with both previous incarnations of the character is seemingly on the cards for Spider-Man 3, something that's generating much excitement at the current moment in time.
1 Toy Story 4
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker brought the saga to an end in 2019. And that was the same year another franchise, the Toy Story franchise, finished as well. Fans had thought they'd seen the last of Woody, Buzz, and Co. when Toy Story 3 hit theatres in the summer of 2010. But Disney, determined to give them an even sadder ending, decided to alter things.
It may lack the happy notes of previous installments, but it's still enjoyable nonetheless. This definitely seems like the last we've seen of the beloved characters yet another return one day can't be entirely ruled out...
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