Is there such a thing as the "Star Wars curse"? After playing Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy, Mark Hamill's acting career didn't quite take off in quite the same manner as Harrison Ford's. Later, Hayden Christensen faced similar struggles following his turn as Anakin Skywalker and the same can now be said for Daisy Ridley.
While Hamill has achieved "icon" status (as has Christensen based on the reception he's received from Star Wars fans in recent years), only time will tell whether that happens for Ridley and Rey Skywalker.
The actress will reprise the role in an upcoming movie from filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy set 15 years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker. In the meantime, Ridley's struggle to cement herself as a star outside of IP like Star Wars, Peter Rabbit, and Kenneth Branagh's Hercule Poirot movies sadly continues.
According to Deadline, her latest project, Neil Burger's The Marsh King's Daughter, failed to even crack the top ten this weekend at the North American box office. Earning only $849,000 in 1,055 theaters, it's completely crashed and burned.
A 39% score on Rotten Tomatoes has done little to help matters, but the blame for its poor performance can't be laid solely at Ridley's feet. The impressive cast includes names like Ben Mendelsohn, Garrett Hedlund, Brooklynn Prince, and Gil Birmingham, and The Marsh King's Daughter's dismal box office haul shows what sort of an impact the SAG-AFTRA strike is having.
With the cast unable to promote the project - we're betting this is the first many of you have even heard of it before today - projects like these are flying under the radar and struggling to find an audience.
Ridley, however, doesn't appear to have a huge amount of drawing power at the box office; neither she nor Tom Holland were able to help Chaos Walking make a significant impact back in 2021, for example. As a result, this could raise some questions about how wise it is to build an entire Star Wars movie around Rey.
It's far too late to pull the plug on that and it's important to note many fans are excited to see it and how the project potentially makes up for the sequel trilogy's many missteps. Still, we'd be shocked if Lucasfilm isn't planning to add more big stars - and even more familiar faces from the past - to increase interest.
Check out the trailer for The Marsh King's Daughter below.