After just 17 days of release, Lucasfilm’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has overtaken Warner Bros.’ Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to become the UK’s highest-grossing movie of 2016.
So far, Rogue One has pulled in £50.7 million from its run in the UK, topping off a phenomenal year for Disney on these shores; in addition to Rogue One, both The Jungle Book and Finding Dory are among the top five highest earners of the year, having both grossed over £40 million each.
On Friday, Rogue One also smashed through the $700 million mark worldwide and will have overtaken Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’s $750.2 million when the dust settles on this weekend.
UPDATE: And the final weekend numbers are now in, with Rogue One having pushed its worldwide haul to $774.9 million by close of play on Sunday.
SEE ALSO: Ben Mendelsohn says there’s an “enormously different” version of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
From Lucasfilm comes the first of the Star Wars standalone films, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, an all-new epic adventure. In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction. This key event in the Star Wars timeline brings together ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story sees Gareth Edwards (Monsters) directing a cast that includes Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything), Diego Luna (Milk), Ben Mendelsohn (The Dark Knight Rises), Donnie Yen (Ip Man), Jiang Wen (Let the Bullets Fly), Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland), Alan Tudyk (Con Man), Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler), Genevieve O’Reilly (Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith), Jimmy Smits (Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones), James Earl Jones (Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope), Valene Kane (The Fall), Alistair Petrie (The Night Manager), Warwick Davis (Star Wars: Episode IV – Return of the Jedi), Ian McElhinney (Game of Thrones) and Jonathan Aris (Sherlock).
