Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Eyeing $280M-$350M Worldwide Opening.

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According to recent projections, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is set to rock the global box office by potentially making upwards of $300M in a five-day period.

 

From Deadline:

Yeah, yeah, we already know Rogue One‘s opening isn’t going to be as high as Force Awakens a year ago, which pulled in an all-time global debut of $528.97M. Episode VII was propped by pent-up demand, and the latest film is a spinoff. Still, Rogue One with a frosh dramatis personae will kick off pretty damn high with a worldwide start over five days between $280M-$350M.

In the U.S./Canada, industry projections currently lie between $140M-$150M in 4,100-plus sites, with a heavier interest among men than women. Still the notion among distribution chiefs is that the latter sex will come along for the want-to-see in the days following the pic’s release. By comparison, Force Awakens opened in 4,134 locations. 400 Imax theaters will have the Gareth Edwards-directed Rogue One for four weeks around the globe. Of its theater count, Rogue One is comprised of 500 Premium Large Format screens (the largest PLF footprint ever for any release), 3,500+ 3D screens and nearly 200 D-Box locations. Even if Rogue One comes in lower, just over $100M, it would still rank as the second-best opening this winter month has ever seen since Force Awakens’ $247.96M all-time three-day.

Foreign opening projections for Rogue One are looking north of $140M, but there is consensus among non-Disney analysts it could be as high as $200M, which on average is a 25% difference from Force Awakens‘ $281M start.

If the film is able to make over $300M worldwide in its first few days of release, it will be the twentieth movie to accomplish that feat and the third one to do it in 2016 (with the other two movies being the superhero epics Batman Versus Superman: Dawn Of Justice and Captain America: Civil War). Aside from the United States and Canada, notable regions where the film opens in the same window include France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Australia, Germany, Brazil, India, Mexico, Italy, Spain, and Japan. South Korea and China are among the few regions where the film will open up later, in part to avoid local competition (and in the case of the latter country, a blackout on foreign films for the entire month of December).

 

While those projections might seem a little bit low for a Star Wars movie made in this day and age, bear in mind that there was a time when The Force Awakens was projected to open with a $175M domestic haul (which, while about $73M short of the actual result, still would have been a record-breaking opening). Not to mention that only two and a half weeks ago, projections placed Rogue One at a $130M opening – a $20M increase in expectations in that short a time span suggests that tracking is rising. If the trends hold true to audience attendance, then the opening might surpass these expectations. There are still room for surprises, and given that Rogue One lacks significant competition for much of its release window, it’s likely to have some fairly strong legs at the box office.

 

Stay tuned for a follow-up article that will discuss the likelihood of whether or not Rogue One could push Disney’s annual box office returns past the $3B mark.

 

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Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.

Grant Davis (Pomojema)

Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.

8 thoughts on “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Eyeing $280M-$350M Worldwide Opening.

  • December 11, 2016 at 8:12 am
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    Just so long as Disney is pleased enough to keep making experimental Star Wars movies!

    Had a crazy thought just now. Will there be a point we’re… bored of Star Wars? Like it stops being special. I mean we can only cover so much before we really start needing some pretty crazy unique ideas to keep it fresh. Once we’ve tackled Obi-Wan, Boba, Han and the other saga flicks…

    Will we get to a point that a fleet battle in space… or a light saber fight is no longer that jaw dropping? I mean right now we’re benefitting from the fact there was hardly any of that outside of a scant few movies with massive down times between them. Wont be long now until we maybe feel like… I’ve seen this all before?

    lol sorry for randomly trailing off. Right now I’m still totally hyped. Seems like the possibilities are endless. Just wonder how I’ll feel 5 Star Wars movies later about the 6’s trailers.

    • December 11, 2016 at 11:57 am
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      Yes. Star Wars will eventually be run into the ground and will no longer be an “event”. If they stick to the one movie-per year schedule, then it may take a while. If they do a Marvel and start slapping out more than one a year, I reckon the goose will be cooked a lot sooner than we’d like.

      • December 11, 2016 at 2:15 pm
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        They are 16 Marvel movies in and they are still successful and people go see them.

        • December 13, 2016 at 10:09 pm
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          Yep. it’s been almost a decade and they’re still going strong.

    • December 11, 2016 at 5:00 pm
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      They need to branch off and do an ancient Jedi/Sith origin trilogy. Enough with the Skywalkers after IX, Enough with the civil war era.

    • December 11, 2016 at 8:33 am
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      the hype is over 9000!

  • December 11, 2016 at 8:32 am
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    in related news, bob iger is getting a solid gold statue of himself made at disneyland… 😉

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