$2.06 billion – that’s the total box office haul brought in by Star Wars: The Force Awakens during its stellar run. Though it failed to top James Cameron’s Avatar to become the highest-grossing picture in cinematic history, it was a barnstorming, record-breaking start for Disney and Lucasfilm’s rejuvenated tentpole.
However that may be, when quizzed about Gareth Edwards’ upcoming Anthology film, Bob Iger – CEO at the House of Mouse – emphasized that in no way does the company expect Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to hit the box office heights of The Force Awakens come December.
Word comes by way of Iger’s interview with Variety, where the Disney chief stressed that Rogue One represents an entirely different beast, one that isn’t necessarily a four-quadrant slam dunk in the vein of J.J. Abrams’ crowd-pleaser – in fact, during a separate interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Iger labelled Edwards’ spinoff as “an experiment, of sorts.”
Even if it is being viewed as an experiment behind the scenes, Disney’s head honcho was quick to point out that excitement for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is still on the level of that garnered by The Force Awakens.
“We never felt it would do the level that ‘Force Awakens’ did,” Iger said on a Goldman Sachs conference call today, while he also notes, “The level of interest [in ‘Rogue One’] is as high as it was for ‘Force Awakens.’”
Iger was then pressed about the future of the Star Wars franchise, to which he confirmed that the House of Mouse has already begun drafting up plans for 2020 and beyond – surprise!
“I had a meeting yesterday with Kathy Kennedy and we mapped out — well, we reviewed — the ‘Star Wars’ plans that we have ’til 2020,” he said. “We have movies in development for ‘Star Wars’ ’til then, and we started talking about what we’re going to do in 2021 and beyond.”
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is poised to take Disney’s galactic tentpole in a whole new direction when Edwards’ militaristic offshoot opens in theaters on December 16.
