Advance ticket sellers have already confirmed that sales for "Rogue One" are already coming close to the advance sales for "The Force Awakens". In the past films in the Star Wars franchise have been separated by three years at least but this is the second to be released in a year, with many critics raising questions about oversaturation.
Film will be released 16 December
MovieTickets.com says presales for the Film, which will be released on Dec 16, is the biggest first-day presale of this year. After just one day of sales, the tickets are just a 10% from "The Force Awakens", a feat considering this story shies away from the Skywalker characters.
The website claims that 75% of tickets brought the site were for the Felicity Jones’ led film with IMAX dominating. Fandango are also claiming it their biggest presale day of the year and it’s second highest of all time, behind "The Force Awakens".
The Felicity Jones fronted "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" also stars Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn, Forest Whitaker and Diego Luna. The action will take place 10 minutes before the "A New Hope" starts and is the first in the “Anthology Series” of spin-off films. The next in the series will be the untitled Han Solo sequel, with Alden Ehrenreich playing Harrison Ford’s iconic role, that is due in 2018.
One of the biggest openers of the year
"Rogue One" has a lot to live up to as "The Force Awakens" made $248 million domestically on opening weekend and $2 billion worldwide.
So far Rogue One predictions are in the $130 range despite no dollar figures for presale being released. A big opening weekend could help Disney reach a $7 billion total at the worldwide box office in 2016, after the $135 million opening weekend "Finding Dory" had. It will have to compete with "Captain America: Civil War" ($179 million) and "Batman V.
Superman: Dawn of Justice" ($166 million) to become the biggest opener of 2016.
The eagerly-anticipated spin-off film, which stars Felicity Jones as mercenary Jyn Erso, opens in the UK on December 15. Before hitting US screens a day later on December 16.
