‘Rogue One’ ticket presales had biggest first day of 2016 for Fandango

Walt Disney Co.’s DIS, +0.71%  next big thing, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” hits theaters Dec. 16, and people clamored for advance tickets.

Advance ticket sales began 12:01 a.m. Eastern on Monday, which wound up being the biggest first-day of presales of the year for online movie-ticket retailer Fandango, owed by Comcast Corp.’s CMCSA, +2.68%  NBCUniversal.

While some eager fans hopped online and were in and out in minutes, by 12:26 a.m. Eastern Monday, Fandango was forced to institute a wait room due to the influx of people rushing to score tickets.

“Within minutes of going on sale we sold hundreds of thousands of ticket,” the company said in a statement on Monday. “We were able to continuously serve a record number of customers throughout the night, despite some intermittent slowdowns, and in order to meet the incredible consumer demand, our exhibition partners continue to add new showtimes for opening weekend.”

No hard numbers are in yet on advance ticket sales and how “Rogue One” compares to past films, but online ticket sellers needing to activate queues — typically only necessary when there’s a strong demand — illustrates just how high the anticipation is.

Fans of the “Star Wars” universe took to Twitter Monday morning to show their excitement.

Early tracking suggests “Rogue One” could pull in upward of $130 million in its opening weekend, while last year’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” raked in $248 million in its debut, before going on to gross $2.1 billion world-wide.