Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s Real Budget Is Way Bigger Than You Think

Disney's real bill for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker just landed, and it's a whopper. Years after the movie hit theaters, the final tally quietly crept higher thanks to some very nerdy accounting quirks in the UK. Here's where it shook out.

What Disney actually spent

• Total cost: $593.7 million, up by $10.1 million from the last reported figure
• Ranking: third most expensive movie ever, behind The Force Awakens and Jurassic World: Dominion
• Global box office: about $1.077 billion
• Release: 2019

Why we even know this

Movie budgets in the U.S. are usually buried inside studio financials, so you rarely get a clean number. The UK is different. If a production spends enough there, it can get up to 25.5% of qualifying UK costs reimbursed, as long as at least 10% of the movie's core costs are incurred in the country.

To access that incentive, studios set up a UK company for each film, and that company has to file official financial statements. Those filings come out in stages and on a delay, starting in pre-production and continuing long after the movie is in the rearview. That staggered release is why, years after the premiere, The Rise of Skywalker's cost just ticked up by another $10.1 million to reach that $593.7 million total.

Quick refresher on the movie

The Rise of Skywalker, aka Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker, wrapped up the sequel trilogy that started with 2015's The Force Awakens and continued with 2017's The Last Jedi. J.J. Abrams co-wrote, produced, and directed the finale, with the core cast of Daisy Ridley as Rey, Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron, and John Boyega as Finn, among others.

It's streaming on Disney+ if you want to revisit the big finish that cost Disney just shy of $600 million to put on screen.