Disney doesn’t expect its ‘Star Wars’ spinoff to rake in as much money as ‘The Force Awakens’

It seems even the Disney brass have a feeling “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” the first-ever standalone movie in the “Star Wars” saga, will not be the juggernaut that “The Force Awakens” was.

“We never felt it would do the level that ‘Force Awakens’ did,” Disney chief Bob Iger told investors at a Goldman Sachs conference, according to Variety, following a meeting with Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy to talk about the “Star Wars” titles from 2021 and beyond.

Iger said that he has seen a recent rough cut of “Rogue One” (which opens in theaters December 16) and that “we love what we’ve seen.”

But that might not have always been the case. In late May, news broke that Disney executives were not happy with the “Rogue One” footage they saw and demanded reshoots. Since then, the studio has attempted to downplay the reshoot narrative, and even the film’s director Gareth Edwards spoke out that they were always planned.

Though Iger says that “interest in [‘Rogue One’] is as high as it was for ‘Force Awakens,'” his hint that it might not have the four-quadrant box office power that “The Force Awakens” had (it’s the highest-grossing domestic release of all-time and holds a slew of other records) gives you the feeling that “Rogue One” will be a little darker and more dramatic than what we’ve seen from the saga previously.

And I for one am very excited by that possibility.

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