Rogue One: A Star Wars Story battled fascism with enough force to become the second biggest domestic movie of 2016. The first standalone Star Wars film earned $49.5 million over the three-day weekend, Entertainment Weeklyreported on Monday. Those holiday numbers were enough to push Gareth Edwards' critically acclaimed war film to a domestic total of $424.9 million.
Globally, Rogue One currently stands as the eighth biggest movie of 2016 at $775 million. That number should rise considerably, however, when Rogue One finally opens in China later this week.
So what the hell was able to stack up more millions than Rogue One? The victor, surprisingly, was the unconscionably awful Max Steel. Just kidding. Finding Dory, the sequel to Pixar's 2003 smash Finding Nemo, took the top spot with an estimated domestic haul of $486.3 million.
Speaking with Complex ahead of Rogue One's release in December, Edwards detailed the inspiration behind his unique take on the Star Wars universe. "One of the first things I do is grab imagery and put together a document, a PDF, that is just full of thousands of images," Edwards told writer Ian Servantes. "For me, the films that I got a lot of images from were Apocalypse Now, Thin Red Line, Alien, Blade Runner, and a film called Baraka."
Next for the expanding Star Wars universe is Rian Johnson's Episode VIII, a predictably secretive follow-up to the franchise-reviving Force Awakens. "We're giving [Rogue One] a little bit of breathing room, and then probably heading into spring, you'll start to see things," Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy said at the Rogue One premiere last month, Movie Pilotreported. Kennedy's promise of a spring glimpse at Episode VIII echoes previous comments from star Daisy Ridley, who speculated toEmpire that the film's first trailer might arrive in April.
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