Star Wars Rouge One Another Smash For Disney

(RTTNews) - As expected, "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" topped the weekend box office with $155 million in estimated ticket sales, becoming the third best opening of 2016 and the second-best December opening ever.

The film grossed about $155 million in the U.S. and Canada, beating analyst expectations of $140 million to $150 million. "Rogue One" also collected about $135.5 million internationally.

"Rogue One" is the first spin-off film in the popular space opera franchise "Star Wars." The events in "Rogue One" takes place before the first "Star Wars" film. The movie stars Felicity Jones and Diego Luna as leaders of a rebel team that steals plans for the Death Star.

The new film is an another blockbuster success in Disney's kitty this year, as the studio continues to dominate the box office in 2016. Disney has enjoyed a strong box office success this year, with four of the five highest grossing movies of 2016.

Disney's first release this year "Zootopia" raked in about $1.02 billion globally, while "The Jungle Book" generated about $364 million domestically and another $602 million in international box office for a total of $966.6 million. Meanwhile, "Captain America: Civil War" is the highest grossing movie of the year until now with worldwide box office receipts of about $1.15 billion. "Finding Dory" has also crossed the 1 billion mark worldwide. Meanwhile, "Doctor Strange" has grossed $653.0 million.