As one of the final movie releases in 2016, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is still trailblazing in theaters worldwide as 2017 kicks off. Along with receiving a lot of positive reviews, the first Anthology spinoff has been making a killing at the box office, and not just domestically. In fact, after crunching the numbers, it's clear that the latest Star Wars movie has actually surpassed each of the Original Trilogy movies on the international charts.
Walt Disney Studios announced (via Coming Soon) that Rogue One collected an additional $110 million globally over the weekend and on Monday domestically. From a commercial perspective, that makes it the fourth most successful entry of the Star Wars franchise, ranking behind The Force Awakens (#1), The Phantom Menace (#2) and Revenge of the Sith (#3). Currently Rogue One has accumulated a little over $800 million worldwide and is also the #2 domestic release of 2016, passing by Captain America: Civil War and ranking behind Finding Dory. Rogue One's debut also helped push Disney over the edge to cross the $7 billion mark in one year, the first studio to ever do so.
Before anyone gets the wrong idea, this information isn't saying that Rogue One is better than any of the original Star Wars movies from a critical perspective. That's up for the individual viewer to decide, although for me, it still doesn't top either A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back. However, money-wise, this is a tremendous accomplishment, especially when you consider that this is the Star Wars movie that's neither connected to a main trilogy nor Skywalker-centric. Even with all the worries of how a Star Wars spinoff movie would perform and concerns about the reshoots that occurred over the summer, Rogue One has made quite the name for itself. It's also further proof that since being absorbed into the Disney family, the Star Wars franchise has found a comfortable home in December.
Taking place shortly before A New Hope, Rogue One follows Felicity Jones' Jyn Erso and her team of Rebel operatives as they attempt to find Jyn's father, Galen (played by Mads Mikkelsen), and steal the Death Star plans from the Empire. Rogue One was a one-and-done tale for its main characters, but the Star Wars fun is by no means over. At the end of the year, the main saga will continue with Star Wars: Episode VIII, and following that will be the next Anthology entry, the young Han Solo movie. Whether either of these movies or the ones following after will be more financially successful than Rogue One remains to be seen, but as we've learned over the last year, this franchise still has the magic dollar touch.
You can check out Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in theaters now, and click here to read our review of the movie.
