The joy of 'Star Wars'
Forty years ago, before anybody was arguing whether Han shot first, Star Wars had few supporters ahead of its debut.
A sci-fi story about a galaxy far far away, a boy from a desert planet, a rebel princess and a rogue smuggler and their fight against the evil galactic empire had many, before the film's release, including Lucas' wife and 20th Century Fox, thinking it would be a flop.
Fast forward to 2016 and the eighth Star Wars film, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, has just premiered in cinemas across the world. Far from being a flop, the Star Wars franchise is now undeniably the strongest force in the movie galaxy. In Australia, it has grown to such an extent that almost 65,000 Australians put Jedi as their official religion on the 2011 census.
And all that interest adds up to a lot of money. According to Screen Australia, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the second highest grossing film of all-time in Australia, a virtual tractor beam for box office takings with $93.8 million spent at Australian cinemas alone.
Hoyts chief executive Damian Keogh doesn't think Rogue One will hit the heights of The Force Awakens but is confident the force will be strong with this one.
"We think Rogue One will go close to or over $50 million in the box office," he told AFR Weekend.
$50 million would put Rogue One in the top 10 highest grossing films in Australian box office history.
"It's a really well crafted movie...Lucasfilm, which Disney now own, is getting it right. There's a lot of value in proven content, but it has to be well executed. I think Disney has done a great job with their franchises," Mr Keogh said.
Hoyts is preparing its cinema staff for what could be the biggest box office weekend of the year.
"On a weekly basis, we forecast where we think box office will be and adjust accordingly. With a release such as Rogue One, we're seeing this as one of the biggest weeks of the year," Mr Keogh said.
Lucasfilm was bought from Lucas by Disney in 2012 for $US4.05 billion.
Last year, Fortune estimated the entire Star Wars Franchise post-The Force Awakens, including box office, home entertainment sales, toys and merchandise, video games and intellectual property to be worth close to $US42 billion.
Fortune estimated box office takings for the seven films so far to be around $US7.3 billion. You don't need to be R2D2 to work out that the value of toys and merchandise then is stratospheric - Fortune puts it at $US17 billion.
Rogue One is the first of three spin off Star Wars stories to be released in years when episodes of the new trilogy, which began with The Force Awakens, are not released.
The Force Awakens was the first Start Wars film in 10 years since the final film of the prequel series, The Revenge of the Sith. Critics have often taken aim at the newer films which began with The Phantom Menace in 1999.
Star Wars has become part of the cultural zeitgeist, branching out from the films into a whole raft of products, including video games, lego, clothes and food.
Chances are if it's a consumer product there's a Star Wars licensed version of it.
