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'Rogue One' Looks to Deliver One of the Top 15 Openings of All-Time
by Brad Brevet
Without delay, the topic on top of everyone's mind this weekend is the latest film in the Star Wars franchise, the standalone feature Rogue One, a prequel to 1977's Star Wars
telling the story of the Rebel Alliance's mission to steal the plans
for the Death Star. As such, this is the first film in the franchise
outside of the narrative flow of the episodic saga, which was restarted
with last year's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which forces us to look at this one a little differently when attempting to forecast just how well it will do this weekend.
For starters, Force Awakens was clearly the biggest cinematic event feature since Avatar. It was the first Star Wars
film in over ten years and it featured the return of Han Solo, Princess
Leia, Chewbacca, R2-D2, C-3PO and even Luke Skywalker. While Rogue One
maintains its attachment to the franchise with the Death Star and an
appearance by Darth Vader, we're talking about a whole new cast of
characters making this something more akin to a standalone Marvel film
introducing a new character to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even that comparison, however, has its drawbacks as Marvel has come to release two films each year while the Star Wars
franchise is now looking at one new film a year, though even that is a
greater saturation of the marketplace compared to previous Star Wars features which were separated by at least three years each.