Remember during the events of A New Hope, when Luke Skywalker described the scope of the reward for rescuing Princess Leia? He leaned down to Han Solo and called it, "more wealth than you can imagine." Not to be outdone, Han responded that he could imagine "quite a bit." The Corellian smuggler may have had a lofty imagination, but it's doubtful that he could fathom the hype for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The numbers have started to roll in, and it seems that Rogue One may have an absolutely insane worldwide box office opening.
A new report from Deadline indicates that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is currently poised to absolutely dominate the box office when it debuts next week. Over the course of its first five days in theaters, the film is expected to rake in $280 million-$350 million when all is said and done. If it manages to open on the north side of $300 million, it will join the ranks of 19 other blockbusters to do so in history; we can only imagine that Disney has its fingers crossed for such an event to occur.
We should obviously note that this isn't quite as impressive as last year's release of The Force Awakens, which garnered an insane $529 million debut. However, The Force Awakens had the added benefit of being the first Star Wars film to hit theaters in a decade, and it also brought back an army of fan-favorite characters. Rogue One doesn't have that luxury. It's the first spin-off film to debut using Disney's new method of annual releases, and the fact that it pretty much relies entirely on brand new characters arguably makes its estimated gross even more impressive.
The success of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will undoubtedly have far reaching implications for the franchise as a whole. It will definitively prove that the Star Wars saga can survive without relying on familiar characters like Luke Skywalker, and likely embolden Disney and Lucasfilm to delve deeper into the greater Star Wars lore to pluck out other stories from the mythos. With annual Star Wars releases an increasingly likely possibility, we can pretty much count on the studio to bring us more obscure stories that consistently focus on new characters, tones, and styles.
2016 saw some awesome blockbusters debut in theaters, but the hype for Rogue One seems to indicate that it's going to be the biggest one yet. The standalone Star Wars movie will blast its way into theaters on December 16. Stay tuned for more details!
Check out the final trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story on the next page to get yourself even more pumped for the upcoming standalone Star Wars movie -- if that's even possible...
