Weekend Box Office: 'Rogue One' Rules the Galaxy
by EG
As expected, the only story at the weekend box office was the debut of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The latest installment in the franchise turned in the third-best opening weekend of the year and the twelfth-best opening weekend of all time. Meanwhile, the week's other new wide release didn't live up even to its modest expectations for the weekend.
Rogue One's total domestic gross will end up being about $155 million, outpacing even the most optimistic predictions for its first three days of release. In terms of three-day December openings, that's second only to last year's Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Rogue One is already, after just three days, the 15th-highest grossing movie of 2016, and it should easily crack the top 10 before the end of the year.
Second and third places went to Moana and Office Christmas Party, which lagged far behind with $11.7 and $8.5 million, respectively.
The week's only other new wide release, Will Smith's Collateral Beauty, earned only $7 million and fell into fourth place, the worst-ever debut for a film in which Smith plays the lead role.
Turning in a more impressive weekend was La La Land, which managed to earn $4 million and seventh place despite playing in only 200 theaters (as opposed to more than 3,000 theaters for Collateral Beauty).