With Rogue One: A Star Wars Story set to open in just a few short weeks, the first box office tracking reports for Disney and Lucasfilm’s hotly-anticipated Anthology movie are now in, with predictions for its domestic opening weekend ranging between $130 million and $150 million.
While recent box office projections for blockbusters films have proven to be little more than guesswork, what is certain is that Rogue One will enjoy the second-biggest ever December opening on record – a position currently occupied by The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on $84.62 million following the record-breaking $247.97 debut of Star Wars: The Force Awakens last December.
And one other thing that is looking more and more certain is that Rogue One won’t feature the series’ iconic opening crawl, with Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy telling Variety that: “We felt that’s so indicative of what those saga films are. Initially, we probably will begin the film in a way that is traditional, with just the title.”
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The lack of an opening crawl won’t come as much of a surprise to those who have been following the film, with Kennedy first hinting as much back in July.
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 is set for release on December 15th in the UK and December 16th in the States, with 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) and Jonathan Aris (Sherlock).
