New Movies December 16: It's All About 'Rogue One'

This weekend is going to be an explosive one at the box office, but all the explosions are going to be generated by one new movie. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story debuts on Friday, and it's going to dominate theaters for the rest of the year. There will be one other new movie in theaters this week, but it's not going to compete with the happenings in a galaxy far, far away.

The biggest question about Rogue One is just how big it's going to be. Predictions for its opening weekend have it earning between $130 and $150 million. That would be a stellar opening for just about any movie, but even a figure at the upper end of that range wouldn't be enough to beat the opening weekends of Captain America: Civil War or Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In fact, Rogue One will have to exceed the low end of the range to even make it into the top five openings of the year.

The week's other new wide release is Collateral Beauty, a drama starring Will Smith and Kate Winslet. This one hopes to draw older audiences who aren't in the mood for Star Warsian fantasy, but it's getting terrible reviews. If it's lucky, it will earn somewhere around $12 million and take second place for the weekend. If it's not lucky, it will be entirely lost in the shuffle.

Rogue One will have a lot more competition over the next two weeks, but this weekend, the Death Star is going to rule theaters.