As we discussed on Memorial Day, Solo: A Star Wars Story did not do well at the box office. To be clear, the whole idea of saying that a film didn’t “do well” when it made about $170 million worldwide is based off of expectations and predictions, not to mention production costs. Disney is pouring money into all of these Star Wars films, throwing more and more money at the troubled productions and promotional campaigns, and they expect each film to break box office records. Disney thought Solo would open with $300 million-plus worldwide, and it did half of that. Solo is flat-out bombing overseas. So what can be done and who is to blame?
Lucasfilm and Disney are facing a moment of reckoning. Over Memorial Day weekend, they were jolted when Solo: A Star Wars Story battled hard to hit $103 million domestically and bombed overseas with $65 million. The film badly trailed the launch of fellow stand-alone pic Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which debuted to $155 million domestically in 2016 on its way to topping $1.056 billion globally. At its current rate, Solo may not gross much more than $400 million in all after costing at least $250 million to produce before marketing.
Solo’s initial performance marks a rare loss for Disney. Moreover, it is forcing the studio to re-examine its strategy for the iconic Star Wars franchise, which Disney took over when it bought Lucasfilm for more than $4 billion in 2012. Most box-office analysts say the main problem is the fact that Solo debuted just five months after Star Wars: The Last Jedi hit the big screen, resulting in a clear-cut case of audience fatigue with the Star Wars extended universe.
While the studio isn’t abandoning its plan to release one Star Wars feature per year, insiders concede Disney and Lucasfilm aren’t likely to release two Star Wars movies so close together again, regardless of whether they are anthology films, like Solo, or part of the official episodes, like Star Wars: The Force Awakens and its follow-up, The Last Jedi. On top of that, Disney would surely prefer a year-end launching pad going forward, rather than a summer bow. Force Awakens, Rogue One and Last Jedi all opened in mid-December and had no direct competition. Each did blockbuster business and were the biggest films of their respective years (2015, 2016 and 2017).
There’s more in that THR piece about how Disney screwed themselves over by trying to tap into the lucrative “summer blockbuster” timing, when they should have just stuck to their Christmas-release model. I think that’s a fair piece of criticism: it felt like Disney didn’t really know how to promote a film in May, because they were so used to promoting Star Wars movies in winter. That being said, it’s not that different, really, it’s just that the larger conversations were about Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool. Summers are for comic-book movies, Christmas is for Star Wars!
As for the rest of it… I mean, it would be great if Disney did some deep analysis on the blockbuster-bubble of this current Hollywood era, but whatever. It sounds like they’re just shrugging and saying “let’s just do Star Wars movies once a year in December EVERY YEAR FROM HERE TO ETERNITY.”
Photos courtesy of Disney/LucasFilm.
I saw it, and, much to my surprise, loved it. LOVED IT! I apologize for nothing.
I did, too!!! What is wrong with people? Maybe because i had low expectations, but I found it totally enjoyable.
I wouldn’t mind seeing it, the problem is that it’s super expensive where I live to go to the movies. So I pick and choose. I saw Infinity War and Black Panther, and next one will be Ocean’s 8. When you have a budget, a movie about Han Solo’s backstory (as much as I love Star Wars) just didn’t make the cut.
I plan to see it too, but the weather was great this weekend and I was hanging out with family. I’d rather go see a movie in the winter.
Agreed! I really enjoyed it. I thought there was good world building/fleshing out and solid character development. I LOVED L3/Lando.
I loved it too. I walked out of the theater and was genuinely delighted. It’s definitely a throw-back movie — meaning the special effects were not over the top and the humor was playful. It felt like the Star Wars of my youth. I could see how that may not appeal to the younger overseas crowd. I can also see how the Star Wars movies are over-saturing, but I liked this way more than Rogue One.
I agree i saw it last night and im still thinking about it. Alden is a handsome dude, and i dont even think glover took away his spotlight wven tho he was wonderful in it too. I thought the directing was weak at times and some scene cuts were janky but it makes sense woth the director drama. Overall i thought the story was great for Han, and although i dont think Alden nailed the Harrison Ford impression i enjoyed it very much.
I liked all of the actors in the film, but it was too long and needed more Lando, Han and Chewbacca time together. Also, it didn’t help that the theater we saw it in showed it badly: the whole film was dark and it affected our enjoyment of it.
The interactions between Han and Lando were the best parts of the movie. I didn’t like it otherwise. It felt all over the place and seemed both corny and dark at the same time. Mostly corny. And the lead actress, who has been fine in other stuff, was terrible imo. Woddy Harrelson was wasted in a weird role.
December has a Spider-Man film, an Aquaman film and a Transformers spin-off, plus Mary Poppins (which Disney thinks will be huge) and a bunch of other very viable family movies. Solo might have done a bit better without Infinity War still looming over it, but the fact that there was little interest still would have been a problem at Christmas.
The main issue with Star Wars is that it’s not like Marvel or even the DCEU. People love it, but they’re not necessarily clamouring for annual releases. Most people would be just fine with them making an ‘event’ movie every 2-3 years. That doesn’t mean it has to be that way, but if they want to get people excited about more releases then they have to be amazing, not just ok.
Yeah, but Disney stakes out those Star Wars release dates a year in advance – chances are, half of those movies wouldn’t have those release dates if SW was on the calendar.
They released a Star Wars in May, but not on May 4th. I don’t understand that.
It was very close to or on A New Hope’s release date; maybe that was it. I don’t know why they didn’t do May 4.
Because whoever makes that decision/the whole movie is not a Star Wars Fan. Thats the problem in general with that Solo movie.
That would have put it the week after Infinity War, which staked out its date a long long time ago. That would have been a disaster, and Disney wants both properties to be successful.
It was a fun movie. There’s nothing terrible about it but besides this guy later being the Harrison Ford Han Solo, why were we supposed to care about him or care about the story? It should work as a stand alone movie as well and I don’t think it does.
And Han looked way too healthy and well fed for someone who grew up in Correllia (sp?).
They need to scale back the greed. There are a million different ways to cash in on the franchise and they don’t cost anywhere near as much as making a very expensive movie that no one was asking for.
They got very lucky with Rogue One – an excellent addition to the canon. They should have stopped there, or at the very least, started with a Leia origin story. They should probably be rethinking the Boba Fett movie right now.
If they couldn’t figure out how to decently cast a young Han Solo, no way would they get Leia right.
I think Alden Ehrenreich did a great job as young Han.
I know opinion is mixed on this, but I did not like Alden E at all. I found him mumbly and low energy and with none of Harrison Ford’s charm. Just no verve imo. It didn’t help that he and Emilia Clarke had zero chemistry.
Mille Bobby Brown for young Leia! Once you see it, you’ll never not see it 🙂
Elaine, oooh. Okay, that could actually work!
Oh no, that would be TERRIBLE. No young Leia please.
For some reason i can’t reply to your later comment about their chemistry, but THIS I agree on. I did not buy the love for the ages between them at all.
Haven’t seen it yet but I will when my son comes to visit. So I don’t have an opinion on the movie but that I could see this young man as a young Jack Nicholson more than Harrison Ford.
I think an obvious choice for Young Leia would be her daughter Billie Lourd. She looks like young Carrie and she is an actress.
I really liked it. All of the actors were great, and Donald was amazing. I hope word of mouth saves it, because it was MUCH better than it looked like it was going to be.
The only thing they should change in my opinion is maybe not oversaturate us with so many Star Wars movies so quickly. Take time and spread it out. Concentrate on quality rather than quantity.
“I hope word of mouth saves it,”
I’m not sure people are understanding how much trouble this movie is in. It’s overseas grosses are a disaster for something of its cost. The box office would have been too low even without reshoot costs. At this point the best word of mouth can do is move the box office needle from “embarrassing” up to “bad”. Plus, there’s no time: Jurassic World opens internationally NEXT WEEK! Oof. To lose money on a live action Star Wars movie is unheard of, but here we are.
One thing I can tell you is that any future character prequels will have half the budget of this at best…who knows, maybe that will work out!
Maybe the real problem is Disney is cramming Star Wars-adjacent films into theatres with the subtly of a French butcher making foie gras. The Golden Goose is being stuffed to bursting.
Disney ruined it for me when they unceremoniously dumped the entire Star Wars universe to adopt their own new, poorly written, canon story lines.
Yep!
That’s what people I know have said. Which is one of the reasons I think this did so poorly, and also why word of mouth has been so good.
I disagree – I’ve seen all the canon arguments, and it still amounts to “I don’t like what they did”.
When there are hundreds of books that all follow the history together (so a character doesn’t die/come back to life out of order, or the number of children a character has remains constant, powers evolve in correlating patterns etc.), for Disney to disregard this and just make things up to suit their wallets is disgusting. It is a slap in the face of original Star Wars fans, and those of us who love the universe of books. Just my thoughts though 🙂
The books have never been canon though. The books have always been an independent entity.
The book and comics that were published from the late 70s to when Lucasfilm sold the Star Wars IP to Disney are a really mixed bag quality wise. The more successful ones were the Tim Zahn Thrawn trilogy, Shadows of the Empire, and the X-Wing novels and comics. It got too complicated and the direction that some of the later books chronologically took makes you wonder who at Lucasfilm was overseeing the general direction. Dark Horse had the comic license for nearly 20 years and were publishing Star Wars stories until Marvel took over the license in 2015.
Some aspects of the EU have been integrated into the current Disney canon, especially the Clone Wars and Rebels storylines.
What i find interesting is the idea that all of this is canon. Look at Marvel – different comic book storylines with totally different worlds and characters, and yet there’s no necessity to adhere to a rigid worldview. I think a huge part of the success of the Marvel movies is the ability to pick and choose storylines and versions of characters. And yet Star Wars has such a narrowly defined backstory, defined by those that chose to write the books and such, NOT the creators of the movies themselves.
It’s hard to get excited about a movie that tells a story no one was really dying for, starring not-Harrison-Ford. They’re going to have the same problem with an Obi Wan Kenobi movie too. It’s content for the sake of putting something out there.
I agree – I’m all for the continuing stories (episodes 7 and 8 were really good) but these characters are so ingrained in the audience, trying to force a backstory with different actors is just not going to be what people want.
Rogue One worked brilliantly because it told an earlier story from a different angle, didn’t recast anyone, and dovetailed nicely into a well established part of the story.
But there are people asking for a Obi Wan Kenobi movie & even Mcgregor has said he would be game to do it. The one I still don’t get is the Boba Fett movie. Why is that character a big deal? HE DOESN’T TALK & YOU ONLY SEE HIM IN WHAT? TWO FILMS?
I was personally never interested in Han outside of the original trilogy.
There’s always going to be someone asking for something – they don’t have to make every idea. At some point someone needs to step out of the echo chamber and say “this is not going to work”.
I think Disney needs to decide how it wants to brand the franchise going forward. Do they want to continue revisiting the past with movies like Solo and Boba Fett, or do they want to move forward with fresh, new material. Personally, I really want to see the latter. While I though Solo was fine, I wasn’t invested in the story line at all because 1. it wasn’t Harrison Ford and 2. I know how it ends.
Hey, we have the same name 🙂 should I change to OG Jenns or should you (not sure how long you’ve been commenting) 🙂
I saw it this past weekend. To be clear, I did not want to see it. I didn’t think it would be good from the trailers I saw and I wasn’t buying this version of Han either. But the husband really wanted to see it, so we caught an early showing. To my complete and utter surprise, I loved it. It was a fun movie. It took me away from reality for a couple hours, and it caught me off guard too. The trailers did nothing for me, but the movie itself is so good. I think word of mouth may help it from seeing a larger drop in the second weekend. At least, I hope so. And Donald Glover was so awesome as Lando. He really captured the swagger of Billy Dee Williams. I hope they do move ahead with a stand alone Lando movie because I’d be there for it.
I wasn’t expecting it to be as good as the original Star Wars; these movies are being pumped out for entertainment. But I loved it. (Spoilers ahead). No one has even mentioned how it also tells the story of the original rebellion. I loved the woman who headed up the rebel forces — she was so beautiful. I thought it was touching that Han helped them in the very beginning. I also loved the Lando story: it was worth it just for that. The twist at the end wasn’t bad, either. Overall, it was a great summer movie to escape the heat.
Me and mines were so burnt out from Black Panther and Infinity Wars…that we decided that we would just wait and buy the DVD of “Solo”…we want to see it…but they’re not elemental viewing for us…and I think a LOT of folks are probably taking that stance regarding the movie…
One stream of thought is that given the high cost of movies, most people have to pick and choose which movies to see. Not everyone can afford to see multiple movies each month. So if folks saw Infinity War, maybe they’ll sit out Solo and wait to see the Incredibles and Jurassic World next month.
yes, I wrote that above! I just can’t afford to go all the time!
It’s actually worse for Solo than that article let’s on: $103 million is the four day number and $155 million is the THREE day number for Rogue One. In four days Rogue One had $174 million…on a non-holiday! Ouch!
I would say one movie a year max, and they need to focus on stories not character origins. Overseas they won’t give a damn about Fett: A Star Wars Story. But make it into some kind of Terminator like chase movie? Have him chasing down some new heroes (or if you want some connection use some Rogue One characters or side characters…Solo characters will probably not be a good association for awhile). Tons of action? Could work.
Yep. Everyone going ‘but holiday legs!’ for Rogue One, is forgetting that their 3-day number was huge to begin with (since December wasn’t conventionally a high-opening time), overshot Disney’s own projections by a good chunk, AND came after nearly a year of bad press over reshoots.
And summer is supposed to be the time when movies open huge, so if this movie can’t do even that…. I just hope the takeaway for Disney is ‘ffs can we stop fiddling with known character backstories already’, not ‘next up: young Leia movie, Boba Fett movie, and Obi-wan movie’.
I really liked it. Han was great – solid casting all around! As someone told my BF, it feels like one of the original Star Wars films. Funny, action-y, campy, drama. I liked it much more than the new trilogy. I think the low box office has to due with people not wanting to spend more money at the movies after seeing Infinity Wars and Deadpool (multiple times) coming off of Black Panther (multiple times), and not being blown away by the last Star Wars film release (The Last Jedi). It could still be an ok money maker from word of mouth to drag out it’s theater run. I hope Disney changes things up by making more of their movies like this one, and not the new trilogy. And gets it together production wise, because that had to hurt them, too.
The second half of the movie was great.
Hated that the movie just got good and it ended.
Honestly, solo bombed because the guy playing solo is not appealing. He looks like a frat boy douche, and we don’t want to see movies staring someone like that anymore.
Han Solo WAS a kind of a frat boy douche, at least in his attitude, remember? He had the smirky smile and mannerisms down pat. I thought he did a great job.
He may have, if the market does want that type of movie anymore, why focus on Solo. Do a different angle on SW…
I thought Alden was one of the best parts in Hail, Caesar. Havent seen Solo yet.
I enjoyed it. It’s not the best Star Wars movie, by a long shot, but I was expecting way worse.
From my end, I thought they didn’t do enough marketing. Usually, when a big movie is coming out, I see things pop up on my news feed all the time from different sources. Interviews, etc. Yet, with Solo, nothing. I haven’t seen one interview with the lead, etc. There just seemed to be nothing there bar the odd banner.
Solo isn’t a bad movie, it’s just kind of fun and forgettable. Like the movie equivalent of empty calories.
As for this rethinking of strategy that Disney wants to do, they could maybe start with NOT making yet more [young version of OT character] movies about people who have already had a considerable amount of screen time in the OT, and are already dead/will need new actors. No one is THAT interested in the backstory of a character whose ultimate fate they already know. Take a damn clue from the Vader prequels ffs!
Also just kill those Boba Fett and Obi-wan movies dead in the water and make films about new characters already. They did it in Rebels, they did it on the big screen for Rogue One, but now it’s all ‘Boba Fett’, f-CK off with that.
Star Wars tries to walk a balance that I don’t think they’ll ever be able to get right: a really demanding fan base that is unhappy with content that panders to them too much (a la George Lucas) but gets angry when it goes in a fresh direction but deviates too far from where they wanted the story to go (The Last Jedi). That’s why I agree that they need to get fresh content in there – especially since a Boba Fett movie would be such blatant fan servicing (an Obi Wan movie sounds boring, since the 2 parts left his story are either his exile looking after Luke, or when he was a kid. No thanks)
I thought it was boring. It started out boring and never got better. It was also much too long. None of the main characters could act and there was very little chemistry. Donald Glover was the only bright spot, but honestly it wasn’t the star performance that so many had alluded to.
One of my kids fell asleep and I was jealous of her.
About half way through the movie I started reimagining the scenes with present day Harrison Ford playing Han and everyone just going along with pretending he’s 20 something. That made the movie better, not good enough for me to recommend it to anyone.
FYI, I really enjoyed Rogue One and The Last Jedi.
I agree with all of this.
My issue was the ending. Where does this movie fit? I thought *the cameo character* at the end was dead? So why is Emilia Clarke’s character going to him? Also, was her character even needed?
If you watch The Clone Wars TV series it explains a lot that I would have missed had I not watched it–including the timeline. Still, wasn’t enthused with the cameo.
Is the Clone Wars series considered canon? Little tracking watched all of it, and seems to have a much better grasp on characters and timelines as a result.
I really think the main problem of this movie is that not many people wanted to see a story about Han Solo without Harrison Ford. There shouldn’t be much more to be look at there. Disney should stick to making spinoffs that don’t touch the established characters directly, like Rogue One, and they should be fine (that means the shouldn’t do the Obi Wan movie either, although that might be more accepted if they get McGregor’s terrible acting back in it).
Well, I am from Mexico and I saw it twice last weekend. The first screening was somewhat empty. During the second time I saw it people fell asleep and a guy even snored so loudly that has to be waken up cause he was disturbing the other people.
All in all, not good signs of a good movie.
Ok I REALLY liked it. Saw it last weekend with my Star Wars fanatic husband and he liked it, too.
The actor playing Solo really did get the smirky smile, sarcasm, etc, down pat. And if you watch the movie, you’ll see where he got his later attitude (don’t want to spoil things).
It was a FUN movie, and I LOVED seeing the origin of Chewbacca! And Glover as Lando was FANTASTIC.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills reading hatred for it on other sites. No, I didn’t ask for this film, but who cares? I liked it.
I saw it this weekend and it was decent, but nothing great. My biggest problem with it, was what was the point of it? It’s not like Han was going to have a real character arc. He had that in the original trilogy when he went from cocky smuggler who only cared about himself to a hero of the rebellion. But this young Han still has to wind up being the Han we meet later on and how much character development could there be? I really did enjoy Donald Glover’s Lando, and I think a movie about him would have been a lot more interesting.
We dont need to have an anthology film about every character/thing in the universe for starters. Also this is the first Star wars film (out of the new ones) to not have a December/Christmas release. Which is when most people have time off and can go with family. Plus, Solo was being released around the same time as other blockbusters and that could have been eating into some of their profits. Now, lets not get too ahead of ourselves. It still isnt a “bomb”. Its just not making their projections.
I saw it in 4D yesterday and my husband and I enjoyed the movie immensely.