As of today, Walt Disney’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi has earned $544.9 million after 20 days of domestic release, putting it at just over/under $550m at the end of its 21st day. If it cracks the arbitrary milestone at the end of its third week, as it enters its fourth weekend of release, it’ll be second-fastest film to pass said milestone, between Jurassic World (24 days) and The Force Awakens (11 days). It is still, by far, the second-fastest grossing movie in history behind The Force Awakens. And if it manages to hit $600m on Martin Luther King Day (or very soon after), it will still be the second-fastest movie to hit $600m.

Now, at some point, I’m guessing it’s going to start trailing the likes of Avatar and probably Titanic. At a glance, if it continues to play relatively close to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (and thus has about 20% left to go), we’re probably looking at a domestic total of between $640 million and $660m in North America by the time it wraps up. It will probably sail past The Avengers ($623m) and will end up right over/under Jurassic World ($652m) and Titanic ($658m). All that’s at stake for the next month is whether it ends up as the fifth-biggest grossing movie of all time or the third-biggest grossing movie of all time.

Oh, and it has $1.108 billion worldwide thus far, making it the 18th-biggest grosser of all time in around three weeks of global play. What’s amusing about the narrative concerning the film’s performance thus far, at least since Christmas, is that the film came under fire for performing exactly as I discussed in the run-up to its release. Without any furhter ado…

1. It is the most frontloaded live-action Star Wars movie of all time.

If it gets to $660 million, that’s a 3x weekend-to-final multiplier, which is below the Force Awakens (3.77x) and Rogue One (3.43x). Return of the Jedi earned $252m from a then-record $23m Fri-Sun/$41m Wed-Mon Memorial Day frame in 1983. The Phantom Menace earned $431m from a $64m Fri-Sun/$105m Wed-Sun debut. Attack of the Clones earned $310m (counting the IMAX reissue later that year) from an $80m Fri-Sun/$110m Thurs-Sun debut in 2002. Revenge of the Sith earned $381m from a $108m Fri-Sun/$158m Thurs-Sun opening in 2005. No, I’m not counting Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back because they platformed before going into wide release. No, I’m obviously not counting the “Special Edition” reissues.

2. It will earn around 30% less than The Force Awakens.

And yes, as predicted many times going way back to right when The Force Awakens ended its run, this second installment of a given Star Wars trilogy is going to end up at around 28-32% less than The Force Awakens. The Empire Strikes Back ($209 million in 1980) earned 32% less than Star Wars ($307m in 1977). Attack of the Clones ($310m, or $302m sans IMAX reissue in 2002) made 28% less than The Phantom Menace ($431m in 1999). I don’t think it’s a national emergency if The Last Jedi earns 29-33% less than The Force Awakens ($937m in 2015). That’s not Star Wars in decline, it’s Star Wars being Star Wars.

The uncommonly huge opening weekend for The Last Jedi (especially for the month of December) indeed blunted some of those December legs. Those folks who thrilled to The Force Awakens who wanted to see another Star Wars episode did so either over the opening weekend or (relatively speaking) over the holiday break. The lack of new-ness, the lack of Harrison Ford, the general decline in theatrical moviegoing, an over-performing Jumanji and the fact that Last Jedi isn’t as swashbuckling-ly crowd-pleasing as Force Awakens all created a scenario where the film would make around 30% less than Force Awakens while scoring that 70% retention rate noticeably faster than almost any other big December release.

3. The overperformance of The Force Awakens threatened to make The Last Jedi look like a disappointment.

And yes, that The Force Awakens obscenely over performed created a scenario where The Last Jedi doing about as well as cautious realists expected The Force Awakens to do made the latter look like a failure. When a first movie massively overperforms, a perfectly okay gross from the sequel can look disappointing in comparison. Sure, Universal’s Ted made a stunning $550 million worldwide, but that doesn’t mean Ted 2 is a loser for only making $218m on a $68m budget. Ditto Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, Warner Bros.’ The Dark Knight Rises, Lionsgate’s Now You See Me 2 or Universal’s Neighbors: Sorority Rising which performed about as well as we expected the originals to do. Just because “part 1” overperforms doesn’t mean we can expect “part 2” to play likewise.

4. The “as-expected” performance of Star Wars: The Last Jedi put Walt Disney and Lucasfilm on the defensive.

I would argue the divisive fan reaction, and the hyperbolic reaction to said word-of-mouth (the angry minority was treated as a critical majority) along with that Rotten Tomatoes user score that fueled a million “Has The Last Jedi killed Star Wars?!” think pieces, created a negative spin and a negative narrative to the Rian Johnson movie playing exactly how it was always going to play. The Last Jedi, love it or hate it, performed exactly as reasonably should have been expected. It’s a slightly frontloaded Star Wars sequel that performed realistically compared to its overachieving Star Wars predecessor. And, to be honest, the attempts to create a negative media narrative is also in tune with prior Star Wars releases.

To quote that other sci-fi franchise, what happened happened and couldn’t have happened any other way. And I can’t wait until Memorial Day when we can do this again with Solo: A Star Wars Story.