Via Movieweb.com:
Rogue One simply cannot be stopped at the box office, proving to be another massive hit for Disney and Lucasfilm. The standalone Star Wars adventure recently won its 4th weekend in a row at the box office, which has helped push it over a very significant milestone. The movie has now officially surpassed Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, making it the second highest-grossing movie domestically in the history of the franchise.
According to Box Office Mojo, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has made $477 million at the domestic box office, which easily puts it ahead of the $431 million take of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. That is unreasonably impressive, considering that when Episode I came out it was arguably the most anticipated Star Wars movie ever be released up to that point. One could still possibly argue that no Star Wars movie has matched that level of hype before or since, but either way, the fact that Star Wars: Rogue One has already outgrossed the first Star Wars prequel is an impressive feat.
On the worldwide side of things, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story still has some way to go in order to catch Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, which has a total take of $983 million. As of this writing, Rogue One has $914 million, but the movie still has a long way to go and should easily wind up crossing the $1 billion mark, making it only the second Star Wars movie ever to do so. The first being Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which went on to become the third highest-grossing movie ever made and is the single highest-grossing movie domestically, having brought in a staggering $936 million.
Nobody was expecting Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to do what The Force Awakens box office numbers did, since it was the first live-action Star Wars movie to be released in a decade and there was a crazy amount of hype leading up to it. While Rogue One did have the benefit of Darth Vader, it largely featured new characters and was the first ever theatrically released Star Wars movie to take place outside of the main Skywalker saga. When taking that into account, the fact that Star Wars: Rogue One will easily gross $1 billion by the end of its theatrical run should make Disney and Lucasfilm very happy.
The more than $4 billion that Disney paid to acquire Lucasfilm back in 2012 seems to be an investment that is paying off handsomely, and there is plenty more to come. This year, Star Wars: Episode VIII will grace the big screen and should once again rule the month of December. The next standalone Star Wars story will be the upcoming young Han Solo movie, which is currently gearing up for production and is currently slated for a May 2018, release, but it has been highly speculated that Disney will shift it to a December release, given their recent success. In as much as a Star Wars movie can be considered a risk, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was a risk, but one that paid off in a big way.
