The Force continues to be strong for The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) after the first ’Star Wars’ spin-off movie ‘Rogue One’ took a massive $290.5mln (£232.8mln) globally on its opening weekend.
The takings were the second biggest-ever for a December opening weekend in both the US and Canada and the UK.
The record is held by predecessor, ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’, which took $248mln (£198mln) on its December debut in the US and Canada last year.
Rogue One took £16.8mln at the UK box office and $155mln (£124mln) in North America.
The only major Asian market showing ‘Rogue One’ so far is Japan, where the movie grossed $7.9mln. The movie will begin screening in South Korea on December 28 and in China on January 6.
Rogue One takes place between Star Wars Episode III and Episode IV, and is the first of three planned spin-off films based on the epic movies.
On its website, Disney said the film is the first standalone Star Wars story “but by no means the last, with an untitled Han Solo movie set for release in 2018.”
It added that “expanding Star Wars beyond the 'Episode' films was a goal of Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger’s from the moment Disney agreed to acquire Lucasfilm in 2012.”