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Box office hits and misses: ‘Rogue One’ is now the second biggest movie of 2016

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The new year is already looking like a good one for Walt Disney Studios and Lucasfilm, as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story rode a massive four-day holiday weekend to become the second-highest grossing movie of 2016 after just its third weekend in theaters.

The Star Wars stand-alone film raked in an additional $64.3 million over the extended New Year’s holiday weekend to give it just shy of $440 million in U.S. theaters so far. That impressive weekend pushed it past Captain America: Civil War into second place on the 2016 domestic box-office rankings for the year, not too far behind the $486.2 million earned by Finding Dory.

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It’s still relatively early in Rogue One‘s theatrical run, but the movie has already generated more than $789.7 million in ticket sales worldwide despite not opening in China — the second-largest movie market in the world — until January 6. At this point, it’s the seventh highest-grossing film of 2016 worldwide, and will likely move higher up that chart in the weeks to come. The movie is still going strong in the U.S., too, so there’s a good chance it could challenge Finding Dory for the top position.

If Rogue One continues its strong run, it could give Disney and Lucasfilm two straight years of having the top movie both domestically  and worldwide, and two straight years of having a Star Wars movie dominate the global box office.

# Title 4-Day Weekend U.S. Total Worldwide Total
1. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story $64.3M $439.7M $789.7M
2. Sing $56.4M $180M $277.8M
3. Passengers $20.7M $66M $126M
4. Moana $14.3M $213.3M $402.4M
5. Why Him? $13M $37.5M $51.9M
6. Fences $12.7M $32.4M $32.4M
7. La La Land $12.3M $37M $64.8M
8. Assassin’s Creed $10.8M $41.9M $86M
9. Manchester by the Sea $5.4M $29.6M $30.7M
10. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them $5.4M $225.4M $776.8M

As for the rest of the holiday weekend’s top 10 movies, Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment’s animated feature Sing continued its strong run in theaters by adding another $56.4 million in the U.S. and bringing its domestic gross $180 million — which isn’t too shabby for a film that cost $75 million to make. Although the musical feature had the lowest opening of all Illumination’s films so far, positive buzz seems to be helping the film make up some ground and give it some strong weekends behind Rogue One.

The rest of the weekend’s top 10 films were all returning movies, with sci-fi thriller Passengers adding another $20.7 million to its somewhat underwhelming run and Disney’s animated feature Moana experiencing a healthy spike in ticket sales over the holiday weekend to bring its U.S. total to $213.3 million. As is usual around this time of year, a trio of films generating considerable award buzz appeared among the weekend’s top 10 movies, with Manchester by the Sea, Fences, and La La Land each bringing in audiences in the lead-up to the major award shows.

This upcoming weekend is a relatively quiet one for movies, with the supernatural action sequel Underworld: Blood Wars hitting theaters the same week as Hidden Figures, director Theodore Melfi’s drama that follows the three African-American women who played key roles in sending astronaut John Glenn into orbit and around the Earth in 1962.

Rick Marshall
Former Contributing Editor, Entertainment
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
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