Rogue One sneaks in as 2016's highest-grossing UK movie

Sneaking in on the very last day of the year, ‘Rogue One’ has scored the title of the UK’s highest-grossing movie of 2016.

According to reports from Screen International, it’s made £50.7 million, which would put it ahead of both ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them’ (£45 million), and the Disney reboot of ‘The Jungle Book’ (£46 million).

It’s come to that huge figure after only 17 days on release, which included Christmas Day, when cinemas in the UK are closed.

Disney can stick that figure on the pile, as the movie nears $800 million (£630 million) at the global box office.

That makes the movie the eighth biggest release of 2016, but the figure will climb even higher once it’s released in China next weekend.

But despite the Star Wars spin-off movie’s success, it does still trail its preceding ‘saga’ movie ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ by some margin.

J.J. Abrams’ sequel to ‘Return of the Jedi’ ended up topping $2 billion at the box office.

‘Rogue One’, helmed by Gareth Edwards, picks up the Star Wars story prior to the events of ‘A New Hope’, following the band of rebels who stole the plans to the Death Star.

Starring Felicity Jones, Riz Ahmed, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Mads Mikkelsen and Forest Whitaker, it’s out now.

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