Box office tracking services are predicting a huge opening weekend for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story when it opens on December 16th.

The first ever standalone film outside of the Skywalker saga is expected to score a $130m plus domestic opening weekend. Some tracking services are even predicting a debut as high as $150m. 

If the film managed to hit those figures then it would be the second highest ever opening for a December release after last year's record breaking The Force Awakens.

This will be welcome news to Disney executives as pre-Christmas releases generally didn't open huge. Prior to The Force Awakens, no December release had ever topped $85m and that includes Avatar. 

Between re-shoots during the summer, and comments from Walt Disney Co. chairman Bob Iger that he didn't expect Rogue One to do as well as The Force Awakens, there generally seemed to be ridiculous narrative forming that the film was in trouble but considering how positive the majority of the film's marketing material was received combined with this box office prediction, it looks like Rogue One will cap a bumper year for Disney. 

The studio is expected to set a new industry record with more than $7 billion in global ticket sales.