Rogue One enjoys massive opening weekend; Collateral Beauty flops

As was expected after its excellent opening on Thursday night, Lucasfilm and Disney’s latest installment in the Star Wars franchise, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, stormed to the top of the charts across the world this weekend and ended up grossing just shy of $300million. The film, directed by Gareth Edwards, stars Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Mads Mikkelsen and Ben Mendelsohn.

On its three-day debut in the US, Rogue One grossed around $155million and if estimates stick it would mean the film enjoyed the 12th highest-grossing weekend of all time as well being only the second film to gross over $100million in its opening weekend in December. (The first, if you hadn’t guessed, was Star Wars: The Force Awakens which opened to a record-breaking $247.9million). In addition, it already stands as the 15th highest-grosser of 2016 after just three days.

The film brought in around $135.5million internationally from 54 markets, where the UK was the biggest opening with $21million. Elsewhere, the film brought in $12.5million in Germany, $10.8million from Australia, $10million from France and $7.9million from Russia.

In the next week, Rogue One will have plenty of competition for repeat box office success, as the Jennifer Lawrence-Chris Pratt star vehicle Passengers arrives as well as Assassin’s Creed, starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, and new animated film Sing, which features the voices of Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon and Seth Macfarlane.

Moana dropped to 2nd this weekend with $11.6million to bring its domestic total to $161.8million while festive comedy Office Christmas Party also dropped down one place to 3rd after its gross dropped 50% on its opening last weekend and now stands at $31.5million.

The week’s other big release was Collateral Beauty, the new drama starring Will Smith, Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren et al, but despite its star power the film flopped after some horrendous reviews. Opening in 3,028 theatres, the film could only muster around $7million making it the worst wide opening for a Will Smith film ever and could soon plummet down the chart given the array of releases on its tail this week.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them completed the Top 5 this weekend with around $5million to now stand at $207.6million domestically and almost $720million worldwide.

Further down the chart was some of this season’s big awards contenders: Manchester by Sea, starring Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams, expanded to 1,208 theatres and brought in $4.15million to finish in 6th place while last weekend’s stand-out limited release, La La Land, added 200 theatres to its run and grossed $4million for another impressive average of $20,100 per theatre. It expands wide on Christmas Day.

Denzel Washington-directed Fences also debuted in four theatres this weekend and grossed around $128,000 for a theatre average of $32,000 with this one also expanding nationwide on Christmas Day.