Rogue One Box Office

[Atreyu]

Looks like it made around $71 million on it's opening day (Friday) - predicted to make as much as $160 million for the weekend:

Report at Box Office Mojo

'Rogue One' Looks to Deliver One of the Top 15 Openings of All-Time
by Brad Brevet

December 15, 2016

SATURDAY AM UPDATE: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story delivered an estimated $71 million on Friday, including $29 million from Thursday night previews. The question now is to wonder whether this one is going to play along the lines of a Twilight movie and settle in a little over $140 million for the weekend or a little like The Dark Knight Rises which also saw Thursday previews account for 40% of its Friday gross and ended up finishing the weekend at $160.8 million. At this point an opening just shy of $160 million seems a good bet.

Opening day audiences across the board gave Rogue One an "A" CinemaScore as it played to crowds that were 66% male versus 34% female of which 39% were under the age of 25.

New Line's Collateral Beauty opted not to hold Thursday night previews and delivered an estimated $2.4 million on Friday and is targeting a very weak $6.5 million three-day opening. Opening day audiences gave the film an "A-" CinemaScore as it played to crowds that were 41% male versus 59% female, of which 74% were over the age of 25.

The battle between the expanding La La Land and Manchester by the Sea is playing out as expected with La La currently holding the age despite playing in only 200 theaters compared to Manchester's 1,208. On Friday La La Land grossed an estimated $1.36 million and is looking at a three-day around $4.4 million.

By comparison, Manchester by the Sea brought in roughly $1.28 million, heading toward a weekend around $4 million.

You can check out all of the Friday estimates right here and we'll be back on Sunday morning with a complete wrap-up.

FRIDAY AM UPDATE: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story delivered the largest Thursday preview of 2016 last night, taking in $29 million as it heads into 4,157 theaters this weekend. This tops the $27.7 million brought in by Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and $25 million from Captain America: Civil War from earlier this year and serves as the seventh largest preview gross of all-time.

Additionally, the film has brought in an estimated $33 million internationally after its first two days of release in 47 territories including the UK ($5.0M), Australia ($3.6M), Germany and France ($3.1M).

We'll have a look at Friday estimates tomorrow morning, but for now you can check out our weekend preview below.

WEEKEND PREVIEW: There may only be 16 days left in 2016, but one of the most anticipated movies of the year is only just hitting theaters this weekend. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will begin holding preview screenings tonight before setting its sights on what could end up the largest opening weekend of the year. Also hitting theaters this weekend is Will Smith's sentimental, holiday weeper Collateral Beauty to go along with the expansion of La La Land, which had the largest opening weekend per theater average of the year last weekend, and the nationwide expansion of Manchester by the Sea into over 1,200 theaters.

Without delay, the topic on top of everyone's mind this weekend is the latest film in the Star Wars franchise, the standalone feature Rogue One, a prequel to 1977's Star Wars telling the story of the Rebel Alliance's mission to steal the plans for the Death Star. As such, this is the first film in the franchise outside of the narrative flow of the episodic saga, which was restarted with last year's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which forces us to look at this one a little differently when attempting to forecast just how well it will do this weekend.

For starters, Force Awakens was clearly the biggest cinematic event feature since Avatar. It was the first Star Wars film in over ten years and it featured the return of Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, R2-D2, C-3PO and even Luke Skywalker. While Rogue One maintains its attachment to the franchise with the Death Star and an appearance by Darth Vader, we're talking about a whole new cast of characters making this something more akin to a standalone Marvel film introducing a new character to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even that comparison, however, has its drawbacks as Marvel has come to release two films each year while the Star Wars franchise is now looking at one new film a year, though even that is a greater saturation of the marketplace compared to previous Star Wars features which were separated by at least three years each.

That said, the Marvel comparison does offer one of the best comparisons given this most recent era in theatrical releases with studios focusing so heavily on franchises and connected cinematic universes. In an attempt to forecast Rogue One's opening weekend we've come to look at Force Awakens on relatively equal footing with an Avengers film and Rogue One as a release similar to 2013's Iron Man 3 following the release of The Avengers, which opened with $207.4 million in 2012.

Following what was then a record-breaking opening for The Avengers, Iron Man 3 debuted with $174.1 million, a 16% drop by comparison. Should Rogue One follow suit we'd be looking at an opening around $208.1 million when compared to Force Awakens' $247.9 million opening, but that's only if we ignore the $57 million Force Awakens brought in from Thursday night previews.

For starters, preview grosses for Force Awakens were dramatically inflated by two factors: 1.) Pent up audience demand and 2.) the fact that $57 million included grosses from Star Wars marathon ticket sales in which theaters showed all six previous Star Wars films back-to-back-to-back leading up to Force Awakens at ticket prices that were upwards of $59.99 a piece.

As a result, as great as it is to point out the $57 million is a record number for Thursday night grosses, it's not a number directly comparable to the rest. Speaking of, while Force Awakens is one of only five films to bring in over $30 million in preview grosses three of the other five were midnight only screenings and even The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 waited until 10PM to begin preview screenings, while the Star Wars marathon screenings began ~17 hours early to ensure fans could be among the first to see Force Awakens on Thursday evening. How to account for this inflated result isn't easy, but to consider the $27.7 million Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice took in earlier this year and the $27.6 million for Avengers: Age of Ultron are the largest preview grosses outside of Force Awakens over the past couple years it offers some perspective as to what to expect.

Make no mistake, Rogue One is still an event feature and if we were to adjust the $208.1 million estimate we calculated above previously based on the drop from Avengers to Iron Man 3 and estimate preview grosses for Rogue One will come in around $25-30 million we're looking at a possible opening around $177-182 million, which would appear to be a relatively safe high-end bet. As for the low end, the studio has that covered, remaining conservative with an anticipated opening anywhere from $120-150 million. We can't go that low.

Rogue One is debuting in 4,175 theaters, of which over 3,500 will show the film in 3-D, ~400 are IMAX screens, nearly 200 D-Box locations and 500+ PLF locations. The 4,175 theaters is the widest release for a December release ever, it is playing in ~200 more 3-D locations than Force Awakens, 54 more D-Box locations and the 500+ PLF theaters is a record for a Disney release. Additionally, the film ranks as the #1 advance ticket-seller of 2016 for online ticket retailer Fandango.com and the second largest pre-selling title of all-time for the retailer behind only Force Awakens.

To look at IMDb page view data, Rogue One, to no surprise, is well behind where Force Awakens at the same point in the release cycle and playing behind the likes of Age of Ultron as well, which opened with $191.2 million. It is, however, neck-and-neck with where Iron Man 3 was leading up to its release and while these are comparisons to summer releases, that's more-or-less what Rogue One should be compared to and after crunching the numbers we're anticipating an opening around $165-175 million, which would make it one of the top ten opening weekends of all-time.

For some yearly context, here's a list of the top five opening weekends of 2016 (get the full list here):

Captain America: Civil War (BV) - $179,139,142 Opening / $408,084,349 Total Gross
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (WB) - $166,007,347 Opening / $330,360,194 Total Gross
Finding Dory (BV) - $135,060,273 Opening / $486,295,561 Total Gross
Suicide Squad (WB) - $133,682,248 Opening / $325,100,054 Total Gross
Deadpool (Fox) - $132,434,639 Opening / $363,070,709 Total Gross

Internationally, Rogue One opens day-and-date in all major international territories with the exception of South Korea (Dec. 28) and China (Jan. 6). To project just how well it will do internationally is virtually impossible, though anything around $130-150 million internationally would be reasonable to expect. For comparison, Force Awakens debuted to $281 million internationally and Avatar opened with $164.5 million. For a full list of international opening weekend record holders click here.

Moving to the rest of the week's titles, depending on how things shake out, it could be a tight race for second place as Disney's Moana should drop around 33% or so for a fourth weekend around $12.4 million, the question is whether or not Will Smith's Collateral Beauty can top it as reviews at RottenTomatoes give the film a miserable 17% rating while MetaCritic has it at just a 25. These aren't good figures for a film targeting an older audience as a bit of counter-programming opposite Rogue One.

Industry estimates peg Collateral Beauty's opening around $12.5 million as it debuts in 3,028 theaters. News from Fandango.com reports the film is outperforming Smith's Concussion, which opened with $10.5 million from 2,841 theaters last year and IMDb page views leading up to release were showing a similar trend until just recently, leading us to wonder if Rogue One is sucking a lot of the air out of the room or if the early swath of negative reviews caused interest to decline and failed to energize anyone the may have been on the fence. As a result, our forecast is just a bit below industry expectations at $11 million.

Looking at a fourth place finish is last weekend's ensemble comedy opener Office Christmas Party, which should hold on relatively well given its holiday theme and after receiving a "B" CinemaScore. Expect a drop around 46% or so for a second weekend around $9 million. And rounding out the top five is Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which crossed the $200 million mark domestically this week and should add another $6 million or thereabouts this weekend.

Next we come to the recent Critics Choice winner for Best Film, Director, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Editing, Song and Score. The film is, of course, Lionsgate and Summit's La La Land, which delivered one of the largest per theater openings of all-time last weekend from just five theaters and this weekend it expands into 200. In 2014 The Grand Budapest Hotel expanded into 304 theaters in its third weekend after debuting in four theaters. In its expansion Budapest brought in $6.78 million from those 304 theaters for an average of $22,329 per theater. A similar performance for La La Land would mean a $4.5 million second weekend and don't be surprised if it gets there with all the love it continues to receive from critics and audiences alike.

The question is whether that will be enough to top the nationwide expansion of Amazon and Roadside's Manchester by the Sea. Last weekend the film brought in $3.1 million from 366 theaters and it has continued to do well on the awards circuit, recently nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards and three wins at the Critics Choice Awards. This weekend the film goes nationwide into 1,208 theaters and could very well deliver a $5+ million weekend making the box office performance of these two films something to watch.

In limited release Paramount will debut Denzel Washington's Fences in four theaters before it expands nationwide on Christmas Day. Additionally, The Orchard will release Pablo Larraín's Neruda to a limited number of theaters. The film was selected as Chile's official entry in the race for Best Foreign Language film at this year's Oscars.

Also keep an eye on Jackie, which is expanding into 86 theaters (+60) this weekend and should bring in $1+ million for the three-day.

Overall, this weekend will obviously be down from the same weekend last year which saw Force Awakens shatter opening weekend records and deliver the largest weekend for the combined top twelve ever. That said, should Mojo's forecast come to fruition the top twelve could be looking at a combined ~$225 million, which would make it one of the top 20 combined opening weekends ever.

[Atreyu]

Weekend estimates are in, Rogue One is estimated to have made ~$155M.

From BoxOfficeGuru:

THIS WEEKEND Legions of Star Wars fans flooded the multiplexes and powered the new franchise film Rogue One to number one with a colossal $155M opening in North America and $290.5M worldwide, according to estimates. The Disney release attacked 4,157 domestic theaters and averaged a stellar $37,287 per site.

The debut was down 38% from the record-breaking $248M launch for Star Wars: The Force Awakens from this same weekend a year ago. As the first spin-off film in the series, Rogue One was always expected to be smaller as TFA had more anticipation built up around it. For 2016, the new Death Star flick scored the third best opening weekend of the year behind Captain America: Civil War ($179.1M) and Batman v Superman ($166M). Overall, Rogue One's opening weekend ranks number 12 on the all-time list and second best ever for December after TFA.

The frame began with an opening day Friday of $71.1M which included $29M from Thursday night pre-shows starting at 7pm. Saturday dropped by 35% to $46.4M. That was a smaller dip than TFA's 43% from last year. Then Sunday is estimated to decline by 19% to $37.6M. TFA dipped 11% on its Sunday, however there were more schools closed on Monday at that time which helped Sunday traffic. Deadly winter snowstorms hit some regions of the country this weekend and some of the lost business is expected to be picked up in the coming days.

Critics and audiences alike have been very happy with Rogue One. Reviews were mostly positive and ticket buyers polled by CinemaScore gave an A grade, same as Force Awakens. 59% of the audience was male, almost identical to TFA's 58%. The share of the gross from 3D screens went down, however, to 38% from TFA's 47%.

With very few characters from past Star Wars movies, Rogue One entered the marketplace a little more like an original sci-fi film. That means upfront demand may not have been as strong as it was for TFA which returned beloved characters like Han Solo back into the fold for the first time in over three decades. If more of the Rogue One audience is fine with seeing the film later it could end up with better legs than TFA which went on to finish its domestic run with 3.8 times its opening weekend gross at $936.7M. A similar path forward would lead to a final domestic gross of around $580M since the holidays will be lucrative. Last year, TFA amassed nearly $300M from just the eight-day period of Christmas to New Years.

Marketing on Rogue One was strong. After seven episodes from the main Star Wars storyline, this was the first attempt at an offshoot with a story that took place around the same time period as the first film from nearly 40 years ago. Being darker and more serious, it has less kid appeal and also the mainstream appeal from general audiences is seen as less too. But the Jyn Erso film does hope to win over more moviegoers by having a good product and generating hot buzz.

Rogue One took off in all international markets except China and Korea this weekend and generated $135.5M led the $21M from the U.K. Last year, TFA saw a 55/45 split between international and domestic as the brand does play extra well in America. Action tentpoles often do 60-70% of their global business from foreign markets.

With the holidays ahead, Rogue One looks on track to become the highest-grossing film of 2016 both domestically and globally. Current records are held by Finding Dory with $486.3M domestic and Captain America: Civil War with $1.15B worldwide. In North America, the top three hits of the year should end up being Lucasfilm's Rogue One, Pixar's Dory, and Marvel's Civil War. All are owned by Disney which is capping off another spectacular year at the box office and once again has set up a promising slate for 2017.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

That's a very good opening!

[Atreyu]

It is. Now we'll see how it's legs hold up in the coming weeks.

[Injah Bas]

And although it's under some projection, its seems to justify expansion via spin-offs like Rogue One for the Star Wars Universe to Disney. It is outdoing other Disney productions this year. Disney had a record setting year, and it looks like Star Wars is taking the company to greater heights than Marvel has. This will be interesting. Even as a fan, I'm wary but excited at the potential.

[Syravari Elik]

That's great to hear. Though Star Wars is going to make money regardless, I think. There's such a strong fan base that it's hard not to make money just having that tag on the title. I also believe that Kathleen Kennedy is smart at picking the right writers and directors for all these movies so far. Definitely eager to see where this galaxy goes from here.

[Atreyu]

Weekend estimates are in - Rogue One estimated to have earnt $96.1M over the Fri-Mon (4 days), a pretty good result considering Xmas was in the middle of it (which always gives a hit to the boxoffice with everyone at home celebrating). Still early days but it's certainly got potential to crack $500M by the end of it's run.

From BoxOfficeGuru:

The Christmas holiday session saw a wide variety of films take a slice of the expanded box office pie with the latest Star Wars story holding onto number one during a time when Christmas Eve gave all films a hit on Saturday followed by the yuletide rush on Sunday and the observed holiday on Monday leading to four-day estimates covering Friday to Monday. Studios spaced out their product with new movies opening on Wednesday or Friday plus key awards contenders expanding nationwide on Sunday.

Rogue One dominated the box office with an estimated $96.1M haul over four days boosting Disney's epic total to a hefty $318.1M after just 11 full days of play. With everyday between Christmas and New Year's playing like a Saturday, the new sci-fi spinoff saga will earn plenty more by the time it rings in 2017 and should crack the $400M mark next weekend. A year ago at this same point, The Force Awakens only reached 61% of its domestic final so Rogue One may also surpass the $500M mark too.

International markets added $47.1M this weekend for a global frame of $111.5M and a new worldwide gross of $523.8M with the holidays still to come. Korea opens later this week and China follows as the final territory on January 6.

[Atreyu]

Latest estimates are in - Rogue One looks to have made $64.3M over the 4-day weekend representing a drop of 33% from the previous weekend. It currently stands at $439.7M total domestic gross and looks headed to end up with around $550M.

From BoxOfficeGuru:

For the second straight time, the new year was kicked off with a Star Wars movie holding onto the number one spot in its third round of play. This time it was Rogue One which ruled the New Year's holiday frame by grossing an estimated $64.3M over the four-day Friday-to-Monday span. The Disney smash hit dropped 33% from its four-day Christmas weekend gross and suffered the worst decline of any movie in the top ten this weekend.

After 18 full days of release, Rogue One has amassed a stellar $439.7M making it the second largest domestic blockbuster from 2016 trailing only Disney stablemate Finding Dory which did $486.3M. The Death Star adventure was never expected to come close to the numbers posted by Star Wars: The Force Awakens from a year ago, but it did see more of a slowdown during the holiday season after the initial rush from opening weekend. Rogue One's first frame was 38% lower than TFA's but after 18 days of holiday play, the cume is now down 41% from the $750.2M that last year's pic banked at the same point following the Christmas and New Year's periods.

With people heading back to work and school this week, grosses for all films will fall back to normal levels although many college students will still be off. The road ahead should see Rogue One get to around $480M after the coming weekend allowing it to surpass the $474.5M lifetime tally of 1999's Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace which includes re-releases. It would then pass Dory to become the biggest North American movie from 2016 and end its run in the neighborhood of $550M which would be number six on the list of all-time domestic blockbusters. A fantastic result for a spinoff film with mostly new characters.

Overseas this weekend, Rogue One collected an estimated $45.8M through Sunday boosting the international total to $350M and the worldwide gross to $789.7M to date. Korea opened this weekend to $5.6M over five days which was a far cry from the $14.2M five-day launch in November for Fantastic Beasts. Rogue One's final market is China which opens this Friday. Force Awakens similarly opened there over the same January weekend a year ago on its way to a $124.2M take from that lucrative market. The final worldwide gross for Rogue looks to be on track for about $1.1 billion, or maybe a little more.