Rogue One’s Magical Run at the Box Office

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story crosses a box office milestone on its way to the 500 million/1 billion club.

Image courtesy StarWars.com

When Disney/Lucasfilm announced that there would be a Star Wars feature film that would deviate from the “Skywalker films,” there were a number of people that questioned its potential success. After all, aside from Darth Vader and a few bit players and cameos from familiar characters, this was a whole new plot line and a whole new cast. It was a true test of the loyalty and curiosity of the Star Wars fandom.

Well, fast forward to roughly a month after Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was released and its box office performance has certainly silenced the critics. At the time of this writing, Rogue One has brought in over $498.8 million domestically and $979.9 million globally. That domestic total makes it officially the top-grossing domestic movie released in 2016, passing another Disney movie, Finding Dory.

This weekend marked the first time Rogue One did not top the domestic box office chart since its release in December. It placed fourth behind Hidden Figures, La La Land and Sing. It will be interesting to see how it performs next weekend, one in which it will undoubtedly cross $1 billion global and $500 million domestic.

Talk about ending Disney’s record year at the box office with a bang!

Update 1/22/17: It’s official, Rogue One has crossed $1 billion! It ended this weekend with totals of $512.2 million domestic and $1.011 billion global.