In fairness, there's very few films who could reach The Force Awakens' box-office haul.
The film reached ONE BILLION in twelve days at the box-office and was the highest-grossing film released in the US, beating James Cameron's Avatar long-held record. Not only that, you had Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher reuniting on screen for the first time in almost thirty-odd years and a dormant property that was being revitalised by a wunderkind in the form of JJ Abrams.
It was a perfect storm that coalesced into one of the greatest box-office stories in recent history. So will it happen again for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story? "We never felt it would do the level that ‘Force Awakens’ did," explained Disney overlord Bob Iger to an investor's meeting recently.
However, Iger stressed that interest in Rogue One is just as high as The Force Awakens, but doesn't expect it to make the same bank that The Force Awakens did primarily because, well, why should it?
There's already been something of a cloud over the production of Rogue One, what with really dodgy-looking posters, reports that reshoots were ordered at the behest of Disney following a screening and bringing in Tony Gilroy to doctor the script and help with directing said reshoots. Not only that, Rogue One will be the first Star Wars live-action film that doesn't focus on Jedi Knights or the Force and doesn't feature any top-line characters from either the prequel trilogy or the original trilogy either, aside from Darth Vader.
That said, footage we've seen of Rogue One looked incredibly promising and the shift in tone from previous Star Wars films is definitely exciting.
We won't know any more until December 17th when Rogue One is officially released.
Via Variety