Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker | Entertainment News, Photos, and Videos

The movie Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is now available on Digital HD, a few days earlier than originally planned.

While Disney has not made an official announcement about the early release, it seems the studio likely dropped the film early in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Disney announced on Friday night that Frozen 2 will be added to the streaming service Disney+ this weekend, three months earlier than planned, to provide “families with some fun and joy during this challenging period.”

You can now purchase The Rise of Skywalker in HD for $19.99 on Apple TV and iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Vudu, FandangoNow and Movies Anywhere. It’s also available in 4K Ultra HD for $24.99. The movie will get a physical DVD and Blu-ray release on March 31 and you can start renting the film on demand that day.

One of the Star Wars actors just had a baby last month and he named his newborn daughter after Chewbacca!

Billie Lourd briefly played her late mother Carrie Fisher‘s classic character, Princess Leia, in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalke.

The filmmakers behind the movie revealed that while most of Carrie’s appearance in the final Skywalker saga film was done through unused material, there was one scene that required a little help. (Warning: spoilers ahead.)

PHOTOS: Check out the latest pics of Billie Lourd

At one point in the film, there is a flashback scene of Luke training Leia with lightsabers. ILM visual effects supervisor Patrick Tubach confirmed to Yahoo that Luke is played by a digitally de-aged Mark Hamill, while Billie played her mom.

“Billie was playing her mother. It was a poignant thing, and something that nobody took lightly — that she was willing to stand in for her mom,” he said.

He also said J.J. Abrams asked Billie to take on the role, and they filmed a few seconds for the scene. Her face was then replaced by her late mother from the original trilogy.

“It was an emotional thing for everybody to see her in that position. It felt great for us, too. If you’re going to have someone play [Fisher’s] part, it’s great that it’s [Billie] because there are a lot of similarities between them that we were able to draw from. The real challenge was just making the Leia footage we had to work with fit in that scene.”

READ MORE: Billie Lourd Remembers Mom Carrie Fisher on the Anniversary of Her Death With a Beautiful Song (Video)

Kelly Marie Tran‘s screentime in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is a mere 76 seconds out of the movie’s 2 hours and 35 minutes- and now a writer is speaking out about why.

Chris Terrio, who co-wrote the film, opened up about the character of Rose Tico’s reduced role in the film.

“One of the reasons that Rose has a few less scenes than we would like her to have has to do with the difficulty of using Carrie Fisher’s footage in the way we wanted to,” Chris shared with Awards Daily.

“We wanted Rose to be the anchor at the rebel base who was with Leia. We thought we couldn’t leave Leia at the base without any of the principals who we love, so Leia and Rose were working together … As the process evolved, a few scenes we’d written with Rose and Leia turned out to not meet the standard of photorealism that we’d hoped for. Those scenes, unfortunately, fell out of the film.”

He went on to explain the situation: “The last thing we were doing was deliberately trying to sideline Rose. We adore the character, and we adore Kelly — so much so that we anchored her with our favorite person in this galaxy, General Leia.”

READ MORE: Kelly Marie Tran’s Screen Time in ‘Rise of Skywalker’ Was Timed & It’s Quite Shocking

Kelly Marie Tran reprises her role as Rose Tico in the new movie Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and there has been some criticism with the storyline her character was given in this film.

Now, the amount of screen time that Kelly was given has been revealed.

A reporter at Slate timed Kelly‘s screen time while watching the film and discovered that she is only on screen for 76 seconds out of the movie’s 2 hours and 35 minutes.

In The Last Jedi, Kelly was introduced to the Star Wars universe and she was on screen for 10 minutes and 53 seconds. That film was just three minutes shorter than The Rise of Skywalker.

People have criticized Kelly‘s lack of screen time in The Rise of Skywalker, especially after she was the subject of racist tweets, which led her to leave social media.

The new movie Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker features a same-sex kiss during a celebration scene at the end of the movie and now director J.J. Abrams is explaining why he included the moment.

“I just felt like in this one scene of celebration, it felt like an opportunity to show – without it being, you know, heavy-handed or too loud of a deal – it was sort of part of the whole experience to see a same-sex couple have a moment together that was explicitly saying in the Star Wars galaxy, you know, everyone is there and is welcome,” he told MovieZine.

“It doesn’t matter what your sexual preference is, doesn’t matter what your race/species, whether you’re organic or synthetic, Star Wars is for everyone and knowing that there hadn’t been a representation like that – it doesn’t take away from anyone, it just shows that Star Wars is for all of us,” he added.

READ MORE: ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ Same-Sex Kiss Cut Out in Singapore

The numbers are in, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is big!

The final film in the Skywalker saga is estimated to bring in around $179 million at the box office in its opening weekend, according to Deadline on Sunday (December 22).

The movie is on track to come in about $14.7 million lower than industry predictions earlier in the weekend.

The movie’s opening will mark the third best opening ever for December. Only Disney has ever brought in over $100 million in its 3-day opening weekend during the month. And it’s very possible the movie will continue to bring in the big bucks in weeks to come.

“What we’re watching organically this weekend are all the faithful Star Wars fans showing up Thursday and Friday, with the moderate ones yet to come. There’s a big belief by rivals that business will continue to explode for Star Wars after Dec. 25th, on its way to $600M domestic or higher,” Deadline reported.

The Rise of Skywalker has a B+ CinemaScore, which is the lowest ever for a Star Wars live-action movie. It also has a 86% fresh audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

READ MORE: ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ Earns $90 Million on Opening Day

The new movie Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is obviously going to be number one at the box office this weekend, but how much money will it make?

The film launched in theaters on Friday with $90.2 million, according to Deadline. This number includes the $40 million that the movie earned during Thursday night preview showings.

The Rise of Skywalker is on track to earn about $193.7 million for the three-day opening weekend. In comparison, The Force Awakens opened to $247 million and The Last Jedi opened to $220 million.

Also opening in wide release this weekend are Cats and Bombshell, which are both stumbling at the box office.

Cats is on track to earn just $7.6 million for the opening weekend while Bombshell will make about $5.8 million.