Solo: A Star Wars Story might be the #1 film at the box office right now, but it crashed and burned bringing in only an estimated $29.29 million for Disney and Lucasfilm in its second weekend. That’s a 65% dip from their opening weekend.
The film currently sits at a doomestic gross of over $148 million and a foreign gross of $115.3 million for a total worldwide gross of over $264 million. The estimated production budget for the film was $250 million. Given the production budget and its current gross, it’s safe to say Solo: A Star Wars Story might not be profitable for Disney and Lucasfilm.
[totalpoll id=”42200″]
A number of factors played into Solo: A Star Wars Story’s box office failure. The most obvious were Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2 premiered ahead of it at the box office. However, given the significant decline in the second week, it’s possible those two films didn’t have as big a role as might have previously been suggested.
Dork Side of the Force suggests that the timing between The Last Jedi and Solo: A Star Wars Story played a factor. I think this is absolute hogwash. We had two record-shattering Marvel Studios movies come out just two months apart in Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War. Marvel Studios is expected to follow this up with Ant-Man and The Wasp this July. The idea that the two movies were too close to each other is just grasping at straws.
Forbes contributor Scott Mendelson has an even more outlandish theory as to why Solo flopped. He suggests “from a certain point of view, white male movie stars may indeed be box office poison.” He adds, “there is enough evidence to suggest that it doesn’t hurt to have your movie centered on a racial minority or a woman (of any color).” This is just an absolutely ridiculous theory. Spider-Man: Homecoming features a white male lead and brought in over $880 million last year. Thor: Ragnarok and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 both feature white male leads. Both of those movies gross over $850 million. The R-rated Kingsman: The Golden Circle also featured a white male lead. It raked it in $410 million off a $104 million budget. And just recently, Deadpool 2 also features a white male lead. The film has brought in nearly $600 million already. Mendelson’s theory is just bogus with plenty of evidence to counter it.
What’s more likely a reason for Solo: A Star Wars Story to perform so poorly is the divisive nature of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Audiences might have lost a ton of faith in Disney and Lucasfilm after the piss poor movie Lucasfilm trotted out in The Last Jedi. The film currently has a 46% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 2.9/5 from 195,531 ratings.
Another reason for Solo’s flop could be the iconic nature of Harrison Ford’s Han Solo. Many audience members didn’t want to see anyone else but Ford play the character or were completely uninterested in what Disney and Lucasfilm wanted to create as an origin for their character. They more than likely were quite satisfied with their own imagination on how Han Solo became the wily rogue we met in A New Hope.
Why do you think Solo: A Star Wars Story flopped?