Fans cheered wildly Saturday as the star-studded world premiere of the hotly anticipated “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” continued the space saga after the last episode shattered box office records.
The $200 million spin-off is expected to be the hottest ticket of 2016, recording the second-highest first day of domestic pre-sales ever, behind last year’s “The Force Awakens.”
Police cordoned off the area around the Pantages Theater in Hollywood hosting almost 3,000 guests, setting up metal detectors and deploying scores of officers and sniffer dogs.
“I feel honored to be part of this family, and by that I mean the fans, not just the filmmakers,” British actor Riz Ahmed, who stars as pilot Bodhi Rook, told AFP ahead of the screening.
Set just before “A New Hope” — the original 1977 film — Gareth Edwards’s “Rogue One” stars Felicity Jones as rebel Jyn Erso alongside Diego Luna, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Jiang Wen and Forest Whitaker.
Jyn — a delinquent with a string of convictions for forgery, assault and theft — is recruited by the Rebel Alliance for a mission to destroy a planet-sized weapon of mass destruction recently named the Death Star.
Mikkelsen told AFP it felt “surreal” to be part of the iconic saga, having grown up with the original trilogy.
“People will be surprised that we did a grittier film than the former ones, and more character driven,” he said.
Earlier in the week a #DumpStarWars hashtag began trending on Twitter after one user made the claim — strongly denied by Disney — that the movie had been reshot to include an anti-Trump message.
The campaign appeared not to have reached scores of fans who lined up to catch a glimpse of the “Rogue One” cast, several in the outfits of their favorite characters.

Source: Arab News