Rogue One - shoots to $71M Friday

“Rogue One” is the name of the weekend, as the Disney and Lucasfilm property bagged $71.1 million at 4,157 locations after tallying Friday grosses. The film earned the biggest Thursday preview number of the year with $29 million, and is heading for an opening weekend in the $145 to $150 million range.

Most competitors have backed away from opening a film against “Rogue One” with the exception of Warner Bros. and New Line's “Collateral Beauty”. The film, starring Will Smith is off to slow start with only $2.4 million on Friday. 

“Rogue One” is the eighth movie in the Star Wars franchise, but the first to be billed as a standalone film. The story, though, is set within the timeline of the first seven — shortly before the events of 1977's original “Star Wars” and key characters including Darth Vader and settings like the Death Star are included in the film. Still, it revolves around a fresh set of characters led by Felicity Jones' Jyn Erso who leads a group of rebel spies to steal the schematics for the Death Star. Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Mads Mikkelsen, Donnie Yen, Alan Tudyk and Forest Whitaker also star. The film is directed by Gareth Edwards from a script by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy. 

If “Rogue One” manages to make $150 million this weekend it will rank among the largest opening weekends of all time. That top slot goes to last year's “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” which made a colossal $248 million, but “Rogue One” could end up no. 14 ahead of “Furious 7” ($147 million) and 2007's “Spider-Man 3” ($151 million). 

Awards season contender “La La Land” is expanding from five to 200 theaters this weekend. Friday totals estimate $1.36 million in earnings on its way to a $4 to $5 million weekend. 

Source: Variety