Rogue One Earns Second-Highest Domestic Box Office Haul of 2016
By Buckie Wells
Falling just behind Finding Dory, Rogue One made the second-highest amount of money at the domestic box office in 2016, beating out Captain America 3.
It’s no secret that Disney dominated the box office in 2016. All its investments paid off — the acquisition of Marvel and Lucasfilm, along with their investment in live-action films. Basically, more than half of the top-grossing films of the year came out of the same studio.
Before the New Year’s holiday weekend ended, Finding Dory and Captain America: Civil War held the top two spots. But thanks to the extended four-day weekend, Rogue One fought its way past Civil War and was expected to add an additional $65 million to its domestic total. After being the number one movie at the box office three weeks in a row, Rogue One‘s domestic box office is estimated to be around $440 million, which is about $32 million more than Civil War made.
Still, Rogue One falls Finding Dory, which closed with $486.3 million at the box office. Of course, that’s only domestic. Let’s not forget that both Finding Dory and Civil War crossed the billion-dollar threshold. Finding Dory finished its run with $1.02 billion, and Civil War made $1.15 billion. At this time, Rogue One has crossed the $700 million mark, which bodes well for the studio.
Disney is an unstoppable force. And all these numbers indicate that 2017 will be as profitable for the studio. They’ll follow a similar formula for the new year as well. Obviously, there are a slew of Marvel movies coming out this year. New Marvel releases include Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Spider-Man: Homecoming. Meanwhile, their live-action studio will release Beauty and the Beast. And finally, one of its animated releases will be Cars 3.
Now, there are two other tentpole films that will obviously bring in a lot of money. One will be Pirates of the Caribbean. And of course, we wait for this December’s Episode VIII. Rogue One‘s continued earnings at the box office prove that Lucasfilm can duplicate the success of The Force Awakens. Perhaps, not to the same extent. But with proper adjustments, it’s clear that the Lucasfilm can make plans for several more spin-offs.
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Rogue One is now playing in theaters everywhere.