Star Wars Spin-Off "Rogue One" Is Already the Most Anticipated Movie of 2016

We haven’t seen a single official trailer or teaser, but according to a new poll, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is already the most anticipated movie of 2016. The heist movie from director Gareth Edwards beat out comic-book power players like Captain America: Civil War and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Have the superheroes finally met their kryptonite?

Superhero efforts from Marvel, Warner Bros., and 20th Century Fox have been circling the top three spots at the box office for the last four years running, and, truth be told, the latest superhero mash-ups will probably land right around No. 2 and No. 3 when all is said and done in 2016. But it’s Star Wars, still pretty fresh on the scene (well, after a decade-long break), that has everyone excited.

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that The Force Awakens continues to break box-office records around the world. With its potent combination of nostalgia-heavy characters like Han, Luke, and Leia alongside exciting and fun newcomers like Rey, Finn, and BB-8, Episode VII was destined for box-office glory. But Rogue One, for the first time in Star Wars franchise history, has absolutely zero recognizable beloved characters that we know of. (Unless you count either the Death Star or Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin as beloved characters.) Sure, there are rumors, but we have no detailed synopsis. There probably won’t be any Jedis or lightsabers in this movie. We don’t even have character names. All we have is a cast photo of extremely talented—but not astronomically famous—multi-national actors looking somewhat grim, led by a completely unknown female character, played by Oscar nominee Felicity Jones.

That means this image and the Star Wars brand alone have already sold moviegoers on Rogue One. Job well done, Disney. The other most anticipated films, according to the nationwide Fandango poll, are, unsurprisingly, also sequels, reboots, or remakes.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (December 16)
Finding Dory (June 17)
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (March 25)
Untitled Jason Bourne movie (July 29)
Captain America: Civil War (May 6)
Star Trek Beyond (July 22)
Independence Day: Resurgence (June 24)
X-Men: Apocalypse (May 27)
Zoolander No. 2 (Feb. 12)
The Jungle Book (April 15)

Fandango also polled moviegoers in the final weeks of December to find out their most anticipated performances of 2015. Top of the list? The return of Matt Damon as Jason Bourne and Melissa McCarthy in the Ghostbusters reboot. You can see the full list of hotly anticipated performances here. Meanwhile, it’s 346 days until Jones and her ragtag group of rebel heroes arrive in Rogue One.

Source: Vanity Fair

Highly disagree.. most of those movies listed are more hyped than Rogue One.