“Rogue One” Obliterates the Competition

Decimating its competition, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story took the top spot at the box office with a commanding lead. Its estimated $155 million opening is of course well below The Force Awakens' record-breaking haul, but never had a hope of matching the hype for the first Star Wars movie in a decade. Still, it's the third-biggest opening of the year (behind Civil War and Batman v Superman) and the 12th biggest opening ever, nestled between the first two Hunger Games movies.

It will be interesting to see how the Star Wars saga performs, considering we'll be getting a new installment every year for the foreseeable future. Will passion burn out quickly, like it did for the Hunger Games movies? Or will it grow every year like the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Time will tell, but it's yet another massive feather in the cap of Disney, which owns seven of the top 15 movies of the year. That will be nice for them, since Moana is now in danger of finishing with less than $200 million, even though it was one of the top two movies for a solid month.

Office Christmas Party fell to No. 3, and will just barely make back its $45 million budget. But that was more than enough to beat Collateral Beauty, which despite its cast of movie stars and Oscar winners, coughed up a mere $7 million, which is Will Smith's worst opening ever. Fantastic Beasts finished its last week in the top 5, with only $5 million.

Outside the top 5:

• This Weekend's Indie Champ: Fences, the acting showcase for Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. This adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play averaged $32,000 on each of its four screens.
• Manchester by the Sea and La La Land both made the most of their expansions, making major leaps. The former expanded to about 1,200 screens and took in $4.1 million. The latter did nearly as well, even though it only showed on 200 screens.
• The biggest competition to those two at the Oscars is still Moonlight, despite that film sputtering in the mid-teens. It's only taken in $11 million in nine weeks. Though expect it to expand once it's nominated for a slew of Academy Awards.

Next week: Christmas finally comes, bringing with it a bevy of new titles, none of which will dethrone Rogue One, which should make another $80 million over the weekend. The closest competition will be from the mega-watt star power of Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, whose space romance Passengers should make about $75 million from Wednesday to Sunday. The animated animals-belting-out-pop-hits curiosity Sing could also make it a tight race, especially with school letting out. It should make about $60 million in that same time frame. That means both Assassin's Creed and Why Him? will take in less than $20 million over the busy weekend.